How sweet it is.

Well as usual August is like a whirlwind. Here it is the 20th already and I am so far behind I think I am first.
Its been a very unusual year. Started with a long cold winter that seemed like it was never going to end. Spring finally showed up fashionally late but showed up never the less. Then the heat came. Hot and dry and that played havoc on the forest fires which are still going strong. They say we may see the smoke until winter. We had what seemed like a couple weeks of smoke covered mountains. You could smell it. The bees weren't too impressed either. When we stood there watching them during those smokey days, it was like they were moving in slo-mo. It was bazaar.
Because we were so busy with the motel work and then the evacuees, I thought how clever I would bee if I would removed frames of during the summer, instead of all at once. It worked for a while. I took 9 frames and put them aside. They looked nice and even though it had been so hot and smokey, it appeared we may get a little for ourselves.

So a few days ago, we decided there was enough time to extract the honey. We are so not set up for honey production here at the motel but we were going to make it work. Last year we did it in the kitchen and didn't cover the top of the extractor while spinning it off. Jeepers I swear I was cleaning up honey for a month. So this year we made a cover for it (a sheet of plastic). I had also bought a 36.00 free standing laundry sink and made it into a uncapping  tub. It worked really good. Except I needed a piece of screen or perforated metal for the bottom of it to stop the cappings from going into the bucket below.

So what I did was lay an old rack out of a fridge across the top of the sink, then when I cut off the capping's they would fall thru the rack and lie on the bottom of the sink. The honey then drained thru all the mess and fill up the bucket below (which had a sieve on top of it). I also raised the back of the sink so the honey would drain. The total cost of my uncapping tub was 36.00. I got the fridge rack from the local transfer station for nothing.
Below is our very vintage 2 frame extractor. It isn't pretty but she still works fine. I do have plans on buying a new once we sell out and head back home

Also new this year is this bucket which I splurged on. I love it. It came with the gate valve and 3 filters. Once the honey is run through the finest filter it is so clear. Well worth the money. 

Well that's it for now. Chat soon.