![\"06-27-10_package-colony\"](\"http:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/06-27-10_package-colony-225x300.jpg\" "\\"06-27-10_package-colony\\"")
Lughnasa\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waning Artemis Moon<\/p>\nLughnasa\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waning Artemis Moon<\/p>\n
The honey extraction has begun.\u00a0 Kate and I assembled the extractor this morning.\u00a0 I am not at my best during the accomplishing of mechanical tasks and got a bit testy.\u00a0 Kate gave me some space; reengaged.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The directions for attaching the power unit were, to be kind, vague.\u00a0 Bordered on the non-existent, really.\u00a0 Together, however, we figured out to raise the drive shaft far enough to makes its union with the industrial strength Baldor motor work tight.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 The bees do not like it when you take their honey.\u00a0 I have one sting to show for that.<\/p>\n
There were several lessons from the honey super removal.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 I had to use the bee-brush to brush them all onto the ground.\u00a0 That made them even less happy.\u00a0 I realized that doing several colonies and working each colony in turn would result in one bee yard full of mad bees.<\/p>\n
So, tomorrow I will put the empty honey super on my standby, the wheel barrow with a wire dog crate door on it.\u00a0 Don’t laugh.\u00a0 It works.\u00a0 That way the left over bees will be either in the wheel-barrow or on the ground, not in the wagon bed.<\/p>\n
Second, the package colonies frames were not 80% capped, so I had to heat the honey to 145 to kill yeast and avoid fermentation.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
Our extractor holds six honey super frames and we only put in four so that made balance a little tricky at first.\u00a0 The extractor is very much like a washing machine, though the extracting baskets rotate rather than agitate.\u00a0 It acted like a washing machine with a load of rugs, really gyrating at much above 60% speed.\u00a0 So, we ran it at about 58%.\u00a0 Took about 20-30 minutes.<\/p>\n
We got a lot of honey.\u00a0 From four frames.\u00a0 I’m thinking we may have more than I imagined. We’ll see tomorrow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lughnasa\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waning Artemis Moon The honey extraction has begun.\u00a0 Kate and I assembled the extractor this morning.\u00a0 I am not at my best during the accomplishing of mechanical tasks and got a bit testy.\u00a0 Kate gave me some space; reengaged.\u00a0 Then I considered aligning myself with the flow of our day–instead of bucking it because … Continue reading Bee Diary: Honey Extraction<\/span>