Justin strains the unheated, raw honey
Pouring the honey into canning jars
Liquid gold! Lovely sight, wouldn't you say?
A few weeks ago the guys went into to the resident honey hive here on the homestead and collected a few frames of honey. After letting the wax filled with golden honey sit in a huge black pot in the sun, it was time to strain and bottle some of nature's nectar. Of course this honey extraction method is as low tech as you can get, you can, however, build a simple solar extractor.
This recent honey harvest weighed in at over 21 lbs!
With 30 years of beekeeping experience, Farmer D says that he'll be "going in" a little later to check on the health of the hive before cooler weather sets in.
No more having to buy gallons of raw honey from the co-op for a long while, we are back in beesiness.
New Projects
Justin's tinkering around with some pedal power apparatus and looking at running one of the diesel car's on water (yeah, water!) I informed him that "don't leave it up to me to write about all that you are doing!" So hopefully he'll actually sit down write about his self reliant projects.
Stay tuned for a post detailing what we ate last week and a list of November community events that PTF will be taking part in. And there's more!
11 Comments: "HOW SWEET IT IS" »
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Oh my! That looks lovely!
I'm so envious! Your honey posts always leave me drooling and swooning. It's on my list as a future project, but first I've got to get some more work done on getting this veggie garden up and running, as I'm completely ignorant on beekeeping. But oh, how appealing it sounds... I think I'd rather have bees than even fowl or dairy animals!
I am wondering how you keep the raw honey from crystalizing? Everytime I buy raw honey, it crystalizes quicker than I can use it.
Beautiful. Just beautiful.
We'll be getting a hive next spring here at Chiot's Run. I'll be spending the cold winter days reading up on beekeeping. Fortuneately my dad has a hive (sans bees) he's going to give me and he's going to help me with the beekeeping chores in exchange for some of the honey. Can't wait to have super local honey!
Your honey looks lovely. I’m looking forward to your weekly meal pictures. I am impressed with all you do and the fact that you even have time to post.
I’ve been reading the “Team Bee”’ postings on Sunset’s one-block diet blog http://oneblockdiet.sunset.com.....eswax.html
and I am amazed at how complex and rewarding keeping bees can be. This link is to their solar process for harvesting the beeswax.
Thank you for keeping us up to date and inspired
What a truly glorious sight. Congratulations to you and to the bees!
That's fascinating.
This is soooo lovely! I'm so envious! I agree with the second comment by Stacey!
Did all of that honey come from your single top-bar hive? Wow...
I wish that we could have bees. We would love the honey, and of course our vegi production would go up I am sure. I want to convince a neighbor to get them though because I think the amount of land with our house is a little smaller than yours and we have four daughters. The youngest is 9 and I worry with having a hive on the property. Should I?