First Honey Harvest This Year

My youngest son, Gerrit, and I went to Sugarland (part of greater Houston, Texas) on Saturday and did a bee removal from the wall of a garage. It was quite extensive. We cut out brood comb and honey and pollen and mounted them in empty frames with rubber bands. We used a bee vacuum to capture the bees and put them in buckets with screened lids.

According to the owners, the hive had been there since 2008, so it was very large. We got close to 4 gallons of honey from the wall. After returning home, we used my homemade honey extractor to press the

honey from the comb through a screen into a clean food grade plastic bucket. The honey is very high quality and tastes great. The honey press is made with a car jack. A mesh bag is hung between two plates which are pressed together using the jack, and a large glass casserole dish is placed underneath to catch the honey as it drips down. It is then poured through the screen to filter out wax and extraneous material. The screen has graduated mesh and the honey drips through.

I installed a honey gate at the bottom of the bucket so as the honey sits and clarifies it can be bottled from the bottom using the honey gate to dispense it into bottles. If needed, later the honey can be fed back to the bees to help them.