Honey Processing!

One of favorite days each year is when we bring back and extract the honey. The process starts in the apiary when we place clearing boards into the hives to encourage the bees down into the brood box and out of the supers (the boxes which hold the honey). Once empty of bees we bring boxes back home.

Each frame is capped by the bees with a layer of white wax. The first job is to remove this layer (this wax is the best for making candles). We then put the frames into our extractor. This is a large bucket with a metal frame inside which spins the frames around quickly and causes the honey inside the cells to fly out and collect in the bottom.

Once the honey has been removed from the frames we then filter it. We pass it through two filters the first removes larger bits of wax and then a fine filter that removes any tiny bits.

The final stage of the process is to leave it in a large tank overnight so that all the bubbles rise the top leaving lovely clear honey.

We test the moisture content then the honey is ready to be jarred.