• Tag Archives honey extractor

  • Bee Diary: Honey Extraction

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    06-27-10_package-colonyLughnasa                                   Waning Artemis Moon

    The honey extraction has begun.  Kate and I assembled the extractor this morning.  I am not at my best during the accomplishing of mechanical tasks and got a bit testy.  Kate gave me some space; reengaged.  Then I considered aligning myself with the flow of our day–instead of bucking it because I felt incompetent, got my head and heart back in connection and we solved a problem together.  The directions for attaching the power unit were, to be kind, vague.  Bordered on the non-existent, really.  Together, however, we figured out to raise the drive shaft far enough to makes its union with the industrial strength Baldor motor work tight.  It’s a work-around for now, but I’ll connect with the folks at Dadant and we’ll get it done right after we’re finished with the honey harvest tomorrow.

    I removed four frames from the package colony, a gift really, since its primary job this year was to grow into a parent colony that I can divide next spring.  The bees do not like it when you take their honey.  I have one sting to show for that.

    There were several lessons from the honey super removal.  First, I put the empty super that held the frames after I removed them from the hive in the wagon attached to the lawn tractor.  Worked well logistically for me, but I ended up with an inch deep and foot square pile of mad bees on the bed of the wagon.  I had to use the bee-brush to brush them all onto the ground.  That made them even less happy.  I realized that doing several colonies and working each colony in turn would result in one bee yard full of mad bees.

    So, tomorrow I will put the empty honey super on my standby, the wheel barrow with a wire dog crate door on it.  Don’t laugh.  It works.  That way the left over bees will be either in the wheel-barrow or on the ground, not in the wagon bed.

    Second, the package colonies frames were not 80% capped, so I had to heat the honey to 145 to kill yeast and avoid fermentation.  Heating the honey turned tricky when it climbed above 145 to 160. I’m sure the yeast are dead now, but I don’t know yet what we’ve done to the taste of the honey.

    Our extractor holds six honey super frames and we only put in four so that made balance a little tricky at first.  The extractor is very much like a washing machine, though the extracting baskets rotate rather than agitate.  It acted like a washing machine with a load of rugs, really gyrating at much above 60% speed.  So, we ran it at about 58%.  Took about 20-30 minutes.

    We got a lot of honey.  From four frames.  I’m thinking we may have more than I imagined. We’ll see tomorrow.


    📂This entry was posted in Bees 📎and tagged

  • That Mosque

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Lughnasa                                          Full Artemis Moon

    Today the orchard, tomorrow…the vegetable patch and the orchard.  Kate and I will take up the carpet laid down for paths in the orchard (it keeps weeds down and mulch gets distributed over it), clean out the weeds that have infiltrated, lay the carpet back down and add any to spots that need it, preparing the whole for the wood chips delivered yesterday morning.  Tomorrow Kate will guide Ray, our lawn mowing Andover junior, while he covers the paths with wood chips.  Meanwhile I’ll mulch the areas in the vegetable garden that Kate and I cleared out over the last week.

    Over the weekend we’ll put the honey extractor together  and try it out in advance of our first full day of honey extraction on Monday.  This should be entertaining.  Mark has shrunk our Artemis label by a third and modified the glasses based on his realization last Monday that the specs he’d designed didn’t quite match mine.  I already have the PDF from him with the new design and smaller labels.  He’s a pro.

    OK.  I understand that some people on the right believe the mosque near the old World Trade Center is offensive.  They feel it pokes a finger in the eye of the whole country and especially those who lost relatives on 9/11.  Their line is, “Just because you have the right, doesn’t make it right.”  True enough.  Doesn’t make it wrong, either.  So the question comes to down message.  What message will a mosque near the ground zero send?

    Will it communicate rank insensitivity and disregard for injured feelings?  Will it intentionally stir the pot of an already angry public?  Or.  Will it communicate, as I said before, that we know the difference between terrorists who use Islam as an ideological justification and those for whom Islam is a religion of moderation and peace?  Will it show that our First Amendment freedoms, those that developed in light of religious persecution in Europe, persecutions that, ironically, sent the first settlers to Massachusetts, apply today as they have for over 200 years?  I know which message I want to send.

    Now, having said that, is there a way to ameliorate the inflamed feelings of those who have been led to see this as a provocation, an insult?  I don’t know, but I would hope there is.  Next year will see the tenth anniversary of the World Trade Center disaster, so some concern probably focuses on this upcoming date.  I wish there was a way to sit down and discuss this, acknowledging the feelings of betrayal, anger, incredulity, fear, grief, sharing our mutual dismay at the act and the struggle with the terrorists since then, while allowing the Muslims for whom this was an equal disaster and one compounded by rejection and xenophobic reactions to open up their feelings.

    Or, is the gulf between the right and the left so vast that there is no bridge?  Are we so far apart in our partisan camps that dialogue is no longer possible?  If it’s true, and there are times over the last decade when I’ve felt it was, then our country will have succumbed to the terrorists after all because, as Abraham Lincoln said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

    I’m not trying to get to a kum by ya moment here.  I would relish, though, genuine conversation between citizens of differing views.  How can it happen?

    Here’s an excerpt from a CBS report that gets to where I’d like to go:

    Society|Thu, Aug. 26 2010 07:59 AM EDT
    Some 9/11 Families Show Support for Mosque Near Ground Zero
    By Nathan Black|Christian Post Reporter

    A group of religious and civil rights groups and family members of 9/11 victims announced on Wednesday the formation of a new coalition in support of an Islamic community center and mosque near ground zero.

    Calling themselves the New York Neighbors for American Values, the coalition stood near City Hall in lower Manhattan defending religious freedom and diversity.

    “We share the pain … and yes, even the lingering fear caused by the September 11 attacks. But we unequivocally reject the political posturing, the fear mongering and the crude stereotyping that seek to demonize the project whose goal is to build bridges among the faiths,” said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union.

    “We are committed to resisting the efforts to push Park51 out of downtown and we reject the refrain of ‘freedom of religion but not in my backyard,'” she added.

    Talat Hamdani lost a 23-year-old son, a paramedic, in the 2001 terrorist attacks. But she said supporting the Islamic center and mosque “has nothing to do with religion. It has to do with standing up for our human rights, including freedom of religion,” as reported by The Associated Press.


    📂This entry was posted in Bees Garden Humanities Politics US History 📎and tagged

  • Honey Equipment

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Lughnasa                                Full Artemis Moon

    Artemis was goddess of bees, among other duties, so we celebrate her this month on honey extraction.  On that note the extractor stand, the electric motor and an electric uncapping knife came today, so we have the equipment we need.  Now we need to learn how to use it.  First thing is to wash it all, then put the extractor on the stand and motor on the extractor.  After that, start removing supers, brushing off bees and sticking those honey super frames in the extractor.  Hit spin and wait.

    So, we have two new machines here:  the long-arm quilter and the honey extractor.  Both of us will be on learning curves though I think the long-arm will have a steeper one.  It’s complex, the extract not so much.

    Received, in addition  to bee related stuff, 9 cubic yards of wood chips.  They get distributed on Friday.

    Kate made a tart last night out of the raspberries and some bay field blueberries.  Pretty damned good.


    📂This entry was posted in Bees 📎and tagged

  • A Full Artemis Moon

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Lughnasa                                       Full Artemis Moon

    This morning I took a group of 15 Jesuits-to-be through the Matteo Ricci map exhibit.  They were a bright and curious group, joining the same order that deployed Ricci to China 330+ years ago.   The Jesuits were only a generation old at that point.  They were the most attentive group I took through, because, I imagine, they felt some personal stake, no matter how tenuous.  The Chinese Heritage Foundation displayed equal interest, but soon began exploring the map for themselves, reading the calligraphy.  This was an interesting exhibit and improved my knowledge of the Ming dynasty and the Jesuit order.

    When I rolled those plastic trash bins out to the roadside tonight, the full Artemis moon had risen.  Full moons hang over the far eastern end of our street and it was beautiful, golden.  The air was cool, the sky a deep blue and this gold charm floated just above the trees.

    Three boxes full of honey extracting equipment came just before I left for the city this morning.  Kate and I plan to open tomorrow morning, see what’s in them.  Two more boxes are on their way from another Dadant plant.  This means we’ll get the equipment set up before our date for extraction–August 30th.  Good thing.  All this equipment and it’s only used once a year for a brief time, but in that brief time it captures the results of a year’s worth of collaborative labor between beekeeper and bees.  Worth it.


    📂This entry was posted in Art and Culture Bees 📎and tagged

  • Domestic, Horticultural and Apicultural Matters

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Lughnasa                                Full Artemis Moon

    Still waiting on the extracting equipment though I imagine it will arrive soon.  Then, setting up the honey house with the extractor and the capping knife and the capping container.  I’ll move some things around, get ready for winter storage of honey supers, put in a solid table for handling supers and frames and foundations.  It’ll be finished when I get the metal sign to hang over the door.

    Today found me at Home Depot early picking up a filter for the humidifier attached to the furnace–didn’t know it had one till gas repairman pointed it out–and a refrigerator coil brush.   Turns out refrigerators work more efficiently if their coils get cleaned.  Who knew?  Up the road on Hghwy 10 I went to Anoka Feed and Seed to order another 8 cubic yards of wood chips.  The sky has that late summer blue.  Autumn does not show through the sky and the winds yet, but it will.  It’s already evident in dying plants and woolly caterpillars.

    Back home I pulled some carrots, beets, chard and Kale.  I also dug for a couple of new potatoes, but I’m not finding as many potatoes as I found last year.  Hope I just haven’t gone deep enough.  That got my hands good and dirty.

    This afternoon I plan to get back to the exercise routine which has seemed too strenuous for the last two weeks while I was sick.  Looking forward to returning to that habit.


    📂This entry was posted in Bees Garden Health 📎and tagged

  • Departures

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Lughnasa                             Waxing Artemis Moon

    Spoke with the folks at Dadant.  They found my order and have begun to ship the honey extractor and other parts of the Ranger extraction kit.  5 boxes from different locations.  Sounds like they’ll arrive before I have to pull the honey.

    A wet, cooler morning with a hot day later and tomorrow to follow.  We continue on our stormy way.  Minnesota, that’s right, our Minnesota, leads the nation in tornadoes this year.  By a lot.  We have had 50 more than either Texas or Oklahoma.  Maybe tornado alley has found me and wants me back.  Paul Douglas says it’s due to a blocking slump in the jet stream that holds weather patterns here that would normally be further south.

    Kate and I watched a Japanese movie the other night, “Departures.”  In it a young cellist gives up the cello after his orchestra dissolves.  He and his wife move back to his home in a small town by the ocean.  There he applies for a job listing seeking a person to help with departures.  A misprint.  It should have read departed.

    I don’t know how common the rite of casketing is in Japan, but it involves, in essence, performance of what we consider an undertakers job (the cosmetic part, not the embalming which seems not to be part of the job) in front of the mourners.  The body is then placed in a coffin, also called encoffining, and transported to the crematorium where the equivalent of a graveside service occurs.  The whole process seems humane, accepting of death and the reality of grief.

    As with most Japanese movies I’ve seen that have funerals, this one has a comedic side, too.

    The movie pulls the heart, not in contrived ways, but in its honest depiction of difficult human moments, sensitively portrayed.  Highly recommended.  Available on Netflix.


    📂This entry was posted in Asia Bees Cinema and Television Weather +Climate 📎and tagged

  • Geeking Around

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Lughnasa                                    Waxing Artemis Moon

    Yet one more day of running in place, a bit unfocused though things are moving.  The thing I got myself into seems about to work itself out.  How about that.  The honey extractor is stuck in bureaucracy land at Dadant.  They have no record of my order. Maybe not but they have our $915.  We’ll get it resolved.

    Since I got my newest computer, I’ve gone through several semi-geek experiences, so far all of them successful.  I don’t consider myself a full geek since I never learned programming, but I do love fooling around with computers.  It’s a similar fixation to working on cars only one I understand.


    📂This entry was posted in GeekWorld 📎and tagged