In the midst of attending to many tasks around Artgirlz Nation, we harvested of our honey. Midge and Al did a masterful job last spring getting our very first honey. Sue and I were on an emergency vacation in St. Augustine when we received a phone call from the girlz saying that they were up to their eyeballs in honey...in the kitchen. Using foil tents over the stove, they managed to harvest a nice crop.

This time we had a lot of honey and borrowed a honey extractor from the Rhode Island Bee Keepers and spun out over 100 pounds of honey. Our little bees have been very very busy!!! We gathered glass jars, cleaned them up and got them ready for the goods.

Al, Sue and Midge brought the frames from the hives to the porch. After lifting a frame out of the hive, they used a soft brush to remove the bees. The walk from the hives to the porch put a bit more space between the bees and their goods. I then stacked them in plastic bins.


I think that Midge was the only one that avoided getting a sting or two.


We had two plastic containers filled with frames for our first round of spinning.
After combing over the tops of the frames with a fork to break up the wax, the frames were put into the extractor, two at a time.

Spinning the frames forces the honey to the sides of the container and down through the spout,

into the first strainer and into the bucket!


The very first drops!

After a second straining the honey through a finer sieve, we bottled it up.


We learned this weekend that we probably should have waited a couple of days to jar it up. The time allows the little air bubbles to rise to the top. For the most part we are all very pleased with our project. We have learned many tricks and have so much more to learn.
We are grateful to all of the local bee people that have guided us along!

and all of the while a whole gang of babies was gathering by the pond and were drying off after a rain storm!