First Honey Crop

I went to do a hive inspection this morning.  I intended to move some of the bars around to create some room for the bees next to the brood nest.  They have been building comb like crazy this week.  Anyway, as I was moving the bars around, I broke one off.  The bees had attached it to the side of the hive and while I was trying to pry it off, it pulled apart.  Turns out the whole bar was full of honey!  So I pulled it off and ran inside to put it on a plate.  Then cleaned up the hive.  By the way, hot day morning inspections are not as calm as the cool afternoon days.  I was getting buzzed quite a bit today.  Still no stings though!  Here is what the broken comb looked like:

Behind the broken comb is what I'm using to strain the wax out of the comb.  Its just a bowl, a colander and a paint straining cloth I got at Ace Hardware.  Next, I broke the comb off of the bar and crushed it in my hands.  Yes, this is messy!  I had honey all over my hands.  Maybe I'll look for a cleaner way to do it next time, but it was actually kind of fun.  Anyway, you squeeze out the honey and put the clump of wax into the paint strainer "bag".  The honey drips through into the bowl.  Like this:

I let it drain while I ate a brat from the high school fund raiser at Walgreens.  Mmmm.  Then, I took the left over clump of wax and put it in a pan and baked it at 300 degrees until it melted.  This separates the wax from the remaining honey.  Here it is melting:

While the wax was baking, I just poured the honey into 1/2 pint jars.  I suppose later I will use bigger jars, but I figure I should spread my first crop around to more than one person.  So, smaller jars this time!  One bar of honeycomb made about a pint and half of honey.  There are several more bars of honey in the hive and I expect the bees to bring in much more in the next two weeks.  Here is the final product:

Pretty fun!  And pretty messy.  It should be pretty fun to have the girls help next time!

Bee Inspection

I got all beekeepered up this morning and took a look inside the hive.  The bees are still incredibly calm.  They were not really all that interested in me poking around.  They generally stayed crawling around on the comb while I pulled them out and looked around.  A few flew around me, but not bad.  I never really felt nervous or "swarmed"!  Anyway, right now there is not much honey in the hive.  Most of the bars look like they have capped brood (eggs / larvae) or pollen.  Capped honey looks whiter, and more papery.  This picture shows a close up of the comb. 

On the top, you can see a band of capped honey.  Then in the middle, you can see capped cells of brood.  That means the queen is still alive, and laying eggs!  I split the brood up a little bit so the bees think they have more room.  This is to prevent swarms.  I didnt see any queen cells though, so I dont think swarming is a danger soon.  

Here's some more pictures from the inspection!