Summers Sweetest Harvest
honeybee pollinating ecinacea flower
I never imagined myself as a beekeeper. Thanks to a generous and helpful uncle that’s what I’ve become! We often spend thanksgiving with John’s family and over the years his uncle Marc has entertained us with stories about his honeybees. I don’t remember ever asking him directly, but Marc must have noticed the interest in our eyes because a few years ago he offered to help get us started off with our first honeybee hive. We jumped at the chance!
There is just something special about honeybees. Our honeybees have been an exciting and rewarding addition to our garden, so this year we doubled up and now have two backyard hives! I find being in their presence to be very soothing. I can’t resist checking on them daily, and I’m never disappointed. I see them come and go along their regular flight pattern; over the fence and then swooping down to the hives. I watch as they land at the entrance with their leg pouches stuffed full of bright yellow pollen. I watch the guard bees on duty and on hot nights the ladies (almost all of the bees are female) gather on the front porch fanning their wings to cool off the inside of the hive.
As if all this entertainment weren’t enough, bees are beneficial in countless ways. First and foremost they are great pollinators – our fruit yields have noticeably increased since we began keeping bees. Their honey is also thought to boost immunity, promote healing of cuts and burns, provide a remedy for sore throats, and eating local honey can help alleviate pollen allergy symptoms. All season we’ve been reaping the benefits of our bee friends hard at work, harvesting an abundance of fruits, berries, and veggies – and recently the sweetest of all, honey!
Last week we geared up for our big honey harvest of the year. Puget Sound Beekeepers Association, an incredible local resource for backyard beekeepers, rents harvesting equipment to their members for a very small affordable fee. We rented a honey extractor and few other helpful tools and began extracting our honey. The first step was uncapping our honey. We used an electric uncapping plane. You just glide the heated plane over the frame to uncap the honeycomb so the honey can come out.
capped honey
uncapped honey
Next we loaded the frames into the extractor and spun.
All the honey collects at the bottom and is filtered to remove bits of wax as it comes out the spigot.
The result is pure raw honey that is ready for eating! This year we yielded four gallons of honey!
We share our honey with friends and neighbors and often trade it for other backyard bounty. If you’re thinking of keeping bees, I would recommend checking out Puget Sound Beekeepers Association or your local beekeeping club to help you get started.
I think that keeping bees would be such a fun project at some point (probably should win my landlord over regarding chickens before I have bees though hehe.) It is important not to forget our native pollinators though, especially the mason bee! It is so easy to set up a house for them, they are very docile (won’t sting unless you step on them) and are very prolific pollinators.
August 3rd, 2009 at 7:48 amI’m so jealous! Bob and I are still trying to determine if we can make a honey hive fit in our very crowded space. Maybe next year…
August 3rd, 2009 at 8:02 amWow four gallons of honey. I’d be hard pressed to use it all. I’d have fun trying though.
August 3rd, 2009 at 10:57 amI’m curious about beekeeping but we live on a small city lot. Aside from issues getting a permit, do you find that one would need more space than that for beekeeping? Is it advantageous to have them a bit further from your house and backyard living space? It seems very fun….
August 3rd, 2009 at 11:35 amOh, and Daphne, I could use it all up just making bread! I’ve started a homemade bread kick lately and hardly buy any from the store anymore. But my favorite recipes use lots of honey – expensive if you buy local!! I’d love to have my own from the backyard!
August 3rd, 2009 at 11:36 amHi Heather, It really depends on your site and where you live. For example, in Seattle there are some restrictions about how close the hive can be to a property line, and a limit to how many hives you can have. As long as you meet the legal requirements it doesn’t matter if your lot is small as long as there is nectar flow within 2/3 mile radius and you have the time to care for them.
If you’re in Washington, check out the link below to Puget Sound Beekeepers Association, they list beekeeping laws city…
http://www.pugetsoundbees.org/lawscity.htm
Good Luck, your bread sounds delicious!
August 3rd, 2009 at 11:49 amWow…that is so cool! That’s a ton of honey.
August 4th, 2009 at 6:30 amWOW!~THat is fantastic. I am going to have to do this. My 5 foot in diameter lavender plants are covered with honey bees. I keep thinking I should get a part of their action: lavender honey.
So, where do I get a hive or two, and then an extractor?
August 4th, 2009 at 9:46 amI dream of raising bees but have yet to jump in. What are your thoughts on mitecides?
August 4th, 2009 at 8:47 pmAnd do you need an extractor? Or is it more a matter of ease?
August 4th, 2009 at 8:48 pmHi Amanda,
That’s a great question. I always avoid pesticides/fungicides in my garden and would like to avoid them on my bees as well! We do our best to keep our hives healthy without the use of any chemicals and so far we haven’t had to use them. That being said, I’m a new beekeeper and standard beekeeping tends to involve chemicals so most of the information I’ve come across recommends treating bees with various chemicals for different reasons. We’re still learning about this in general, but are definitely interested in taking a more natural approach.
As for the extractor, it depends somewhat on what type of hive you have. It would be difficult to extract honey without one with a standard Langstroth hive (like I have – we reuse the frames), however there may be foundations that simplify this that I’m not familiar with. I do know there are other types of hives that are more suited to harvesting honey without an extractor, like top bar hives. Hope this helps!
August 4th, 2009 at 10:45 pmWow! This year we put in the garden and got chickens so next year my plan is to get bees. I can’t believe how much honey you got! Did you get all that honey from those 4 boxes? Or does having two hives mean you have two of those? And how close can they be to each other?
I have small kids who play in the backyard and a neighbor with an in-ground pool who wasn’t crazy about me mentioning bees but I’m going to make this work somehow…
August 5th, 2009 at 11:24 pmI am a huge fan of organic food. Congratulation on a beautiful and sucessful bee hive. Where I live we have lost the bees. When we first moved here there so many and now we may have a few bumble bees. Bye the way do you ever ship your honey?
August 7th, 2009 at 3:59 am[...] for eating local produce. I was perusing one night since my friend Justine wrote a post on her prolific honey bees which are in next year’s plans for me. I scanned the recipes and the Red Gravy one caught my [...]
August 18th, 2009 at 2:10 pm