Good morning, gardeners, and welcome to the Saturday Morning Garden Blog!
If you're a regular reader of the Saturday Morning Garden Blog, a few things are known to you: Kishik never takes a bad picture; Missy's Brother can make a rusty watering can look like fine art; and Jayden is (among other things) a dog's best friend (Hi, Jaxon!). You may also know that my husband and i are enthusiastic backyard beekeepers. I've written quite a bit about our honeybees in past diaries. While the overall health of our apiary has been our primary concern, in this, our fourth year of beekeeping, we decided it was high time to harvest some honey as well. What on earth were we waiting for? Would you like to see how it's done?
In years past, we were never quite sure how much honey our bees would need in order to successfully make it through the winter. Not wanting them to starve, everything they made, we left in the hives for them. But as we've gotten more experienced, it's become easier to identify "surplus" honeycombs - combs that can be harvested without any risk to the bees …
Although we could have taken more (possibly much more), we set aside five combs for our first "official" harvest …
Aren't they gorgeous? If you've ever seen honeybees in your garden, combs like this aren't far away …
Special extracting equipment isn't really necessary for a harvest of this size. We used a simple "crush and strain" approach, which involves cutting the combs out of the frames …
... crushing them to a pulp with a wooden spatula (some people use their bare hands, but we're apparently "finesse" crushers) …
... and dumping the crushed comb into a pot with a strainer in it …
Rinse, lather, repeat until all the frames are clean …
And then it's all up to gravity …
After several days, the strained honey is ready to be bottled …
Don't they look wonderful all stored away? Now we just have to convince ourselves to open and enjoy them! At the moment, they feel more precious than gold …
As for the clump of leftover wax, we melted it down in an old crockpot, using a torn up stocking as a strainer (good to know stockings are still useful for something!) …
When all was said and done, we ended up with two "rings" of beautifully rendered wax …
Which we then turned into candles …
How nice to be able to smell the aroma of beeswax, even during the winter months …
Needless to say, it's been an extremely satisfying year in the bee yard. Knock wood, our hives will over-winter successfully, and next year, we'll be able to share our surplus honey with the world. Right now, like the daffiest of ducks, we're happy little honey misers …
So what's going on in your gardens?
PS: Here's the upcoming Saturday Morning Garden Blog hosting schedule. As always, if anyone would like to take a weekend, drop a note in the comment section (or send one of us a private message). We need more regular writers if we want to keep this series going, and new contributors are always welcome.
October 14th (Vol. 13.41) — robctwo
October 21st (Vol. 13.42) — robctwo
October 28th (Vol. 13.43) —
November 4th (Vol. 13.44) —
November 11th (Vol. 13.45) —
November 18th (Vol. 13.46) —
November 25th (Vol. 13.47) —
Good News! There are two Saturday Morning Garden Blogs for you to enjoy today, dear readers — please also read Robctwo’s wonderful travel diary with the knowledge that there’s more to come in the next two weeks … Cheers!