We had an interesting afternoon extracting some fresh and organic honey this afternoon. This was of particular interest to me because bee-keeping will form part of my agricultural project, and I used to work for a bee-keeper in the early 90’s and have been interested in honey production sinc
e then.
Dave had previously introduced the village to the possibility of honey production, but for a variety of reasons this had not really worked out.
Today’s very modest yield of just under 20 jars, was a small victory though, as it was the first successful harvest of honey in the village, and the R400 odd Rand that it earned the bee-keeper, will hopefully spur him and others on.
e then.Dave had previously introduced the village to the possibility of honey production, but for a variety of reasons this had not really worked out.
Today’s very modest yield of just under 20 jars, was a small victory though, as it was the first successful harvest of honey in the village, and the R400 odd Rand that it earned the bee-keeper, will hopefully spur him and others on.
This is a pic of a hive that I had found in September 2008. All the hives I found then were neglected and empty.
I didn’t have my camera with me today, and so unfortunately missed out on some really cool photo’s.
For a small quantity like this Dave and I settled on a primitive, but very high yield system.
We cut the honey-comb directly from the frames, without capping it first, and placed it all in the centre of a clean dish cloth. We then simply twisted up the dish cloth and the tighter we twisted, the more honey we got.
The honey poured freely from the bottom of the dish cloth into a small pot we used to catch it before decanting it into the jars.
The frames weren’t particularly full, but we still managed to get about 4 jars per frame.
The dish cloth was surprisingly effective and I could comfortably press out a frame in three or four minutes if I needed to.
There was also very little wastage, all that remained was a golf ball size piece of wax.
Anyway, it was very rewarding taking the honey from a comb on a frame and ending up with a jar, ready for sale in the lodge.
It was additionally great knowing that the kids were learning from it.
Hopefully this can grow into a little cottage industry when we established how many hives the countryside will sustain.
There are also definitely a lot of wild bees around.
Within about 15 minutes of noticing the first bee, we had hundreds around us while we were working, all from the forest that borders near the lodge.
One of them even decided to commit suicide on my elbow.
I quickly covered the site up with a big smear of honey to stop his mates from doing the same.
For a small quantity like this Dave and I settled on a primitive, but very high yield system.
We cut the honey-comb directly from the frames, without capping it first, and placed it all in the centre of a clean dish cloth. We then simply twisted up the dish cloth and the tighter we twisted, the more honey we got.
The honey poured freely from the bottom of the dish cloth into a small pot we used to catch it before decanting it into the jars.
The frames weren’t particularly full, but we still managed to get about 4 jars per frame.
The dish cloth was surprisingly effective and I could comfortably press out a frame in three or four minutes if I needed to.
There was also very little wastage, all that remained was a golf ball size piece of wax.
Anyway, it was very rewarding taking the honey from a comb on a frame and ending up with a jar, ready for sale in the lodge.
It was additionally great knowing that the kids were learning from it.
Hopefully this can grow into a little cottage industry when we established how many hives the countryside will sustain.
There are also definitely a lot of wild bees around.
Within about 15 minutes of noticing the first bee, we had hundreds around us while we were working, all from the forest that borders near the lodge.
One of them even decided to commit suicide on my elbow.
I quickly covered the site up with a big smear of honey to stop his mates from doing the same.
I suppose you now want us to recyle all bottles and containers for honey re-sale, and send them to you? Only jokes, great for exra income. You do have anti-histimne (spelling?) for any one that might react really badly to bee stings, don't you?
ReplyDeleteDid you save the beeswax to make candles with the kids?
ReplyDelete