Have I Mentioned How Much I Love Beekeeping?

Camp Kreitzer gold! It really is worth its weight in golden goodness.

I really do! And Larry and I love sharing our enthusiasm with others. A few days ago we hosted a bee demo and bonfire cookout with several families from our chapel. While I was gathering things for the demo, I found an unharvested honey frame in our pool house fridge. Surprise! Somehow we missed it when we took our honey to the annual bee club honey harvest where we collected about 50 pounds of Camp Kreitzer gold. 

But missing that frame turned out to be providential. We were able to show it to the children (and their parents) and explain how the bees cap it for storage. Then I cut some comb out and let everyone try tasting honey "in the comb." The wax is like chewing gum only healthier. 

A particularly interesting fact was that the honey from the harvest which combined all thirteen frames collected by the bees looked completely different from the single frame I harvested by itself. In the photo above the honey on the left is from the single frame. Each full honey frame gives about three pounds of goodness. The frame on the right is from all the other frames which were combined. 

It makes sense that they are different. During the season the bees are collecting nectar from whatever happens to be blooming. As flowers have their season, so does the bees' collection. The honey made from Spring nectar will be different from the honey made from the late summer flowers. But when you combine it all at the harvest...well, you miss the change. 

Now wouldn't it be interesting to harvest each frame individually and compare all thirteen. What a symphony of color from light amber to coppery burnt orange we would likely get. I may do that next year because we could harvest each frame as we needed it. 

It was pretty simple. I simply used a thin metal spatula to scrape the honey from each side without damaging the underlying foundation. Then I put the honey in a sieve and let it drain out on our warm sunny porch. It was actually easier than the honey harvest where we use a hot knife to uncap and then put the honey in a unit with a crank and spin it out. It's a hot, sticky, messy procedure. This was actually a lot easier.

Another interesting tidbit. After I scraped all the honey out of the frame from each side, I took it out to the bee yard and laid it in the grass on a sheet of tinfoil so the bees could glean what was left of the honey. They immediately covered it, as well as the pans I was using for collecting the strained honey. That way we don't wasted a single drop of our precious honey and it goes back to nourish our bees. Not to mention it makes clean up a lot easier and less sticky. When the bees are finished, the utensils will be bone dry with just the papery byproducts left.

If you ever want to learn about bees, come visit us at Camp Kreitzer. We'll give you a bee lesson and then have a tea party with bread and jam honey and ice cream covered with wet nuts soaked in honey and maple syrup.