One Year Blogiversary

Tomorrow marks the one year anniversary of this blog and September marks our first full year as beekeepers.  I'd say both have been successful!  I've (mostly) stuck to my commitment of blogging about once a month and readership is as could be expected with a niche topic.  Here is a global view of where my readers view my blog:

Over 1200 page views to date!

I'd love some feedback regarding the blog if you have any regarding content or otherwise.

Our first year as beekeepers has been a great learning experience.  We've not yet gotten the opportunity to enjoy the fruits of our labor in terms of actual product but we have gotten to enjoy many other aspects discussed as reasons to keep bees in this blog post from last year.  The connection with nature is really my favorite part.  I love listening to the bees buzz and watch them zooming in and out of the hive.  It's amazing to watch them work.  Two of the most inspiring bee activities to me are watching the bees head down working inside of a cell and watching a new bee eat her way out of her cell to life.  It's incredible and no other bees can help her out.  Then she immediately gets to work.  It's very tranquil to just watch them go about their tasks.

Bees head down working inside of cells and one bee emerging to begin her life working for the hive

Also this year we lost two hives and got the opportunity to start two new ones, both of which are thriving today.  We've had hive beetle issues, and learned about wax moths the hard way.  We have gotten stung, dealt with robbing and lit the ground on fire starting the smoker.  Our neighbors have been supportive and even appreciative of the pollination our bees have provided.  Poppop has been a great mentor to me and it's been nice to have the opportunity to learn from his 20+ years of experience.  Also, I've made some friends from the Wake County Beekeeper Association and have enjoyed the various community activities related to bees.

Overall, it's been a great year and I am thankful for the experiences.  Does one year mean I'm no longer a newbie?

Our Extraction Process

We did not have enough honey to extract ourselves this year but we like to help Poppop extract his so we headed down to Hampstead.  This post explains our extraction process.

First we collect all of the frames off of the hive.  We have to minimize the bees left on the frames so that when we move inside we are not working around lots of bees.  This is actually a difficult task.  We use a spray that the bees don't care for to try to move them away and then we brush as many bees off as we can and place them in a wheel barrow with a towel on top.  Then we move those boxes of frames of honey to the room where we extract.  The room is my grandparent's workshop where they work on their various hobbies and it is has a cement floor with a drain.  We cover the floor with newspaper so we can easily clean up from any honey spills.

Boxes of frames ready for extracting!

After we have gathered the frames we will extract from, we go frame by frame to cut off the wax cappings sealing off each honey comb.  We use a hot metal knife and sometimes a metal toothed pick to do this.

A frame of capped honey comb

An electric metal knife and a metal pick help us get to the good stuff

Melting and cutting away the wax capping.  See the cells that are still capped at the top?  That's where the metal pick would be handy.

Then, we place each frame into a centrifuge and spin away!  The honey comes flying out of the comb and onto the walls and bottom of a large plastic barrel.  Then we strain that honey through cheesecloth and two metal strainers.  

An above view of the centrifuge and straining bucket over a floor covered with newspaper for easy cleaning.

The last step is bottling the honey which we normally save for another day as sanitizing the bottles is a bit of a job all in itself.  Poppop likes to add a fancy label to his jars if they're gifts for non-family members or if he intends to sell it.

Last year we gathered over 600 pounds but this year poor Poppop only got about 50.  It's sadly been a tough year for bees.  Hopefully we both have better luck next summer!