Crush and Strain

The weather finally decided to cooperate on Saturday which allowed me to head out the bee yard to harvest some of my honey. My parents were in town from Calgary so they joined me. When we got out to the acreage Mario was already suited up doing his own harvesting. Working as quickly as I could I picked out the best looking frames to harvest, and I was only able to harvest 2 frames. When taking frames for harvest you want to look for ones that are at least 80% capped, any less and the percentage of water in your honey will go up. Honey is around 18% water, but if you harvest too much uncapped honey that hasn't been concentrated it will raise the water content which can cause the honey to ferment.


Once home we started the process of getting our honey out. Being that extractors are expensive and I don't know anyone nearby that I could borrow one from, I have to use the crush and strain method. I felt bad doing this because it destroys the drawn comb, next year I will have to find/buy an extractor to avoid this. I started by using a plastic window scraper to get all the comb into the top bucket. This bucket had a bunch of holes drilled into it to allow the liquid honey to flow into the bucket below. Once both frames were scraped I finished crushing the honey with a angle scraper on a pole. I then added a few layers of cheese cloth between the buckets to catch any wax that may slip through the holes. After that it was time to play the waiting game.








Two days later the honey had all drained into the lower bucket. On this bucket I added a PVC spout I made from some stuff I picked up from the Home Depot. Normally you would add a honey gate onto the bucket, but the ones at the local bee store were $25. I built mine for $4.50, however I would soon learn there is a reason why you use a honey gate. Thinking that I would have more honey to harvest I picked up some 500ml canning jars, with only 2 frames worth of honey I would only fill 2-3 jars. All of my friends are quite excited about my honey so I need to go pick up some 250ml jars so I can spread the wealth. I did happen to have 1 jar in the cupboard so I cleaned it out and started to fill it up, which took a reaaaaaally long time. You see the cheaper alternative valve I put on my bucket was only 1/2" wide which didn't allow a large flow, the honey gates you get from the bee stores are 2" wide making them quicker and cleaner. Lesson learned.


My honey looked beautiful. It is very light in colour and has a very mellow taste. I'm not an expert in honey but I imagine it's mostly Alfalfa and clover. Now I just need to get started on making some Baklava.