Things are buzzing!

Last week we enjoyed our last week of beautiful sunny and warm days. Fall is upon us, and it was time to harvest our honey. Our good friend, Micah Hammond, helps us with our hives and keeps a great eye on how things are going, and lets us know when it is time to jump in to the hives. It always seems a bit daunting to take the hives apart, and decide which frames stay for the bees to feed on over the winter, and which ones we get to take to sweeten our tea over the winter! We are always so thankful when we are able to fill jars with all of that golden goodness, it represents a whole season of work for our bees. The process for us, starts with pulling out the frames. We transport the frames that are drawn out(filled with honey), to a warm environment. Honey doesn't flow very well when it's cold! We cut off the tops of the cells with a heated knife(photo 4) to release the honey. After the cells are opened, we place the frames in an extractor( photo 5), and spin! The extractor that we used has a place for 2 frames at a time, and then you have a crank at the top that you turn. The centrifugal force spins the honey out of the frames and into the bottom of the extractor. You can see the honey pouring out of the extractor into a bucket(photo 6). We have started using our honey in some of our products, such as our Oatmeal Honey Soap, and look for our new Unscented Oat and Honey Lotion, that should be ready in a few days.