*I originally wrote this for my farm website/blog.

What farm website?

Exactly.

While it has been in the works for awhile it’s not up and running yet, but I thought you all might enjoy pictures of our honey extracting this summer. Someday you’ll be able to see the original at htttp://thefarmbehindthewillows.com , but not today! *

We had our big honey harvest this past weekend and had our best harvest so far! Since we only have a big extracting day once a year it’s a fun event to look forward too even though it’s a very hot and sticky job!

I tried to take a few photos for a step by step extracting process but you’ll have to pardon their fuzziness I couldn’t keep my camera from fogging up in the hot humid room!

The first step is to take the frames of honey and cut or scratch the caps off the cells that hold in the honey. On the left is my Mom (who also keeps bees)  using a hot knife to cut the caps and on the left is Stephanie (my bee keeping partner) scratching off any cappings that my mom missed.The wax that is cut off falls down into the big silver tank where there is a mesh grate so that the honey can drain out of the cappings. Here is a close up of the knife work.

Next the frames get set into the extractors. These have cages inside to hold the frames on end and handles on top that spin the baskets which then spins the honey out. Spin them on one side, flip them over, spin on the other and they are done.

The honey is then drained out of the bottom of the extractors into buckets.

After this the honey is poured through a cloth filter to remove any debris (bits of wax and a few bee pieces) that are still in it. The filter is inside a modified five gallon bucket with a fresh bucket underneath.

Not to worry we didn’t let my cousin Johnny (who came to visit and we put to work) dump it my Mom’s mouth, he hit the filter as planned!

After that all that’s left is to bottle it!The finished product…

…worth a hot day in the honey house!