Our barn shop processing area so I’m very pumped about that and this year with the amount of colonies that we have in our apiary I wanted to ramp up on our honey extracting equipment we have used an old spinner for many years now that thing is still kicking and it’s doing
Great but it was time it was time to make an investment so my husband and I are building the honey extractor now and he is currently cutting up and he’s currently cutting up some wood for us to be able to put a base to make a base for the honey extractor we could
Bolt that honey extractor down into the concrete however I’m not ready to kind of do that quite yet because as you see this space is still getting finished so I’m not ready to put anything stationary right away but in the next year or so we will definitely consider that
This is gonna be a good year I can already tell Mr Honey’s Dead um no I love my husband Good All right now okay how you want it orientated yeah we’re going to turn it oh there you go um well I gotta figure out a bucket honestly yeah Thank you oh yeah it’s one there I know you can’t hit it You know there’s something about starting your day outside first thing in the morning just kind of sitting taking it all in if you don’t do that that often I highly recommend that you give it a try it is one of my favorite ways to start my morning
Whether I’m got my coffee with me and I’m going for a walk or I just come sit up here in the garden and watch everything kind of come alive the bees start to fly all the birds start to sing I had to share that with you guys this
Is pretty much the Calm before the storm yesterday getting everything set up and ready to go it was good but today is the day where it’s really going to be a lot of work and I’ll be honest as a beekeeper honey Harvest is not my favorite day um it’s not but
It’s part of it and these girls have made some stunning honey for us to be able to to use to help support herself because honey has a lot of medicinal properties as well laughs and I know how valuable there they are as a resource for for my health and not
Just my health but my community so it always does hurt a little bit though taking taking the goodness that they made but just because we’re harvesting honey does not mean that we’re going to take it off they are going to have the majority of it we are only going to
Harvest what we what is in excess and um that’s just kind of the way we do things so Hmm this is the Calm before the work really gets going but I just had to take a couple of minutes and just sit here and watch the bees start to fly and yeah
Start my day with gratitude today I am thankful that these girls have made enough honey that we get to help ourselves and uh we’re going to talk more about medicinal properties of honey very soon because it’s pretty amazing if you ask me Thank you look at that gorgeous that’s perfect so we’re using a hive Butler I absolutely love these containers these are good friends of mine they have developed this company us-based I love it but they are perfect totes that hold frames in it perfectly so our honey Harvest
Will stay nice and beautiful now there are some peas that are accidentally flying around we’re going to do our best to try to get these guys out I do have a towel that I’ll probably put put on here which I found has kind of been helpful but that is what we will do
To keep keep the honey from getting robbed once we pull it because that tends to happen that’s pretty so this though because it’s open we’re gonna end up leaving the nectar let them finish doing it the reason why is because you don’t want to add too much moisture in with
Your honey so because if you do then it can turn your honey but we’ll check the moisture content but the trick is just go for the fully capped that makes it easier now every once in a while we get a little lucky when it comes to our honey
Supers and we get a complete full honey super that is capped and ready to go like the one that I’m working right now now the lid is a little different that I’m using it’s actually not a lid it’s called a fuming board where we drizzled just a little bit of a substance called
Honey Bandit which is non-toxic all-natural and basically what it does is it the bees don’t exactly like the smell but it doesn’t aggravate them or harm them they just move away from that honey super which makes it so much easier to just grab the box and go it
Kind of smells like almonds and it’s a lot easier than having to brush off each individual frame and aggravate the heck out of these girls which is the last thing that we want to do knowing that we have so many colonies that we have to we have to harvest from Okay [Applause] so Mom was just telling Alyssa this is Alyssa she’s my daughter’s best friend and she she’s we’re teaching her Ella my daughter is around here somewhere you’ll probably catch her here in a couple minutes she’s helping out with the animals but we we were just talking about our last honey
Extractor which Mom oh that thing it now in all the fence everything about that thing was fantastic yeah but I think what was it six frames six frames yeah six frames six mediums right or three D yes but I don’t think we ever quite had that thing balanced now mounted properly no
Because every time we would turn it on we’d all have to basically like all hands on deck hold on like a [ __ ] Bronco I have eight seconds so you had to go about eight minutes per side so we were trying to figure out how long could you hold on before you’re thrown off
So this is a little bit of a game changer I’m praying that it is going to be great my husband built a beautiful stand for us to be able to do this but we’re getting ready to turn this thing on well this thing is probably going to just take off I know
All right first off hold on are we all the way on low yeah okay that’s yeah that’s okay so this looks like one this looks wait a minute this looks like on yes and this is like double line double on and triple on and then we can even
Control it this way I’m a little scared so this is fancy all right is this like a Vitamix I’m not gonna break it okay should we close the lid first just in case there’s any mishaps yeah we keep all hands and other objects outside of the extractor
When we’re getting ready to use it stand up all right push the button I’m scared I’m not I’ll do it okay and it’s full so I’m gonna go to that and then oh what’s that mean I guess it’s full I don’t know I’d say one it does no
It didn’t have ingredients it didn’t I think it’s gonna be that one oh God you’re going full blast finish it’s quiet no I’m telling you that other one was a [ __ ] Bronco we should have like named her Bessie or something oh here we go I do want to peek in though and check
And make sure you’re ready that’s a heavy lip I know we can make an improvement we could put a handle it needs handles oh look at that smell that’s a good thing look on the side here let’s see on the side it’s throwing it it’s very quiet and this is that’s high
You know it’s kind of like Jesse a little bit like messy I’m gonna bolt it into the ground when we figure out the right home for it well we need yeah we need to make um we might have to pass stuff what I am gonna do though
I’m also going to go ahead and open this yeah because it’s 18 frames oh here we go please start oh you’re all the way you’re wide open all right well let’s do something real quick I’m gonna slow it down let’s see what the single one I don’t know what that does
It doesn’t make it go the other way does it no it slows it down maybe that’s like way slow oh no left and right what that’s amazing okay well regardless we gotta I gotta finish on that yeah I was I was getting a little nervous there I was like oh
Okay so we just learned that this extractor will go both left and right instead of having to pull each frame out and flipping it that’s genius nice yeah buddy so did you have to like take them out and flip them yeah to take them out
And flip them and then you had to pay attention you’d have to pay attention because if you put it in honey out of that side again this is a game changer and we’ve got a lot more to do so yeah yeah sorry So when this is spinning it’s making the honey it’s liquid it’s throwing the honey out of the cell so you can see it collect and you see it spinning on the wall yeah yeah and then as it spins it’s going to go it goes down and it comes
And it comes out there I figured up this as it was now what’s really cool is this machine so right now it’s spinning this way when it’s done and all the Honey’s out yeah drop it and then you flip the switch and it goes
The other way so we get the honey out of both sides without ever having to touch these together let’s see look yeah sheet a sheet I see on this side over there so it’s gonna look through yeah and then smell it smells good it’s just very good you
Better believe it it’s better than my perfume you think the girls did good yeah they work hard too Foreign Because I don’t have a chair up here but it’s totally fine all right so there were a couple of days that I did not actually get to bring the camera with me to share with you guys the rest of the process basically everything that you saw we just did for
Days and days and there was a point where I was like I should do a captain’s Vlog like every single day and check in like day 240 of Honey Harvest because that’s really kind of started to that’s what it felt like um luckily my mom and dad came in and they jumped
Right in and both of them took took a huge portion of the the honey extraction off of my shoulders I went down for a couple of days and that’s why you guys are just now kind of starting to see this video but neither here nor there everybody’s great I’m fine
Um but now to the big question that a lot of people ask how much honey did we end up harvesting and I’m going to give you an estimate because I don’t exactly know I know we stockpiled our house down there which I think I got like eight quarts of Honey set aside down
There then we have some up in the Apothecary and then all of this all of that is full of honey and then we also set aside a entire 10 frame box of medium frames of capped honey that’s so beautiful we picked like the gorgeous frames of course um for our homesteaders of America
Beekeeping Workshop that we’re having here this October now that workshop I’ll put all of that information down below I think there’s only a few spots available but it’s a single day event you come in you get to learn about bees how to set up your apiary where to get started
The medicinal byproducts then you get to make some salves we get we do a lot of a lot of things here for that single day event and I take people in and get to you know have them experience what it’s like to do a hive inspection and what it
Is like to be among the bees and see if that’s something that is something that you’re interested in and then that day is also a honey Harvest day and that’s where everybody gets to do it so I’ve got 10 frames set aside so that’ll be if
We have 20 people come everybody will be able to at least uncap one side that was kind of our goal this year so we already have that set aside so all in all between everything back here our stockpile that we have done in the house and um in the Apothecary and
And then what will be extracted on in October I think we’re gonna be just shy of a thousand pounds of honey which is the most we’ve ever harvested here on our Homestead and we could have actually harvested a lot more these girls were still working away at many of the frames
Which is totally fine they’re working on capping it over I think I’m just gonna let them have it and just they needed a lot more than we do we are this this is beyond a blessing and I’m just blown away with how gorgeous this year’s honey was now not
Only taste but color stunning absolutely stunning now we’re very lucky here in this area because we actually have two nectar flows we’re kind of getting ready to merge into the second flow which is the Golden Rod all the Astor plants all I mean all the beautiful the very dark dark honey that
Honey as soon as they start pulling that nectar fill in those frames getting all the moisture out and capping it over that is their honey that they’re going to use to to have over winter and we don’t touch it so these girls are good my number one goal with beekeeping
And honey Harvest is I don’t want to have to feed it’s not fun to have to feed so why take everything that they’ve worked so hard for now I’m going to be sharing with you guys very soon when it starts when we start the bottling process I’ve got some
Honey that we’re going to be filling up in jars here for our local people I’m also going to be doing some farmers markets in our area I do want to make sure my local people get taken care of because honestly this is what helps them truly but then I’m also going to be
Advertising it to you guys and as soon as that’s available I will definitely let you guys know the other thing that I’m excited to share with you guys about is this little machine that I ended up purchasing from another beekeeper this is the whiskey Trail bees and they have
Engineered an easy straw machine so I’m very pumped about that because then I can bring samples there’ll be a little straws and what’s nice is it’s it’s real honey you know most of those times when you go and you get those little honey straws that’s not real honey so I’m very pumped
About that we’re going to be sharing this process with you I’m going to show you this machine because it’s pretty cool I met them at Rory feeks the homesteading festival conference that that they had in June and I was super excited when I got to see and talk to them about it and
Basically we fill the honey here the straws go in here and then it spins and then it fills up with honey and then I seal the straws now she did say that there’s a little bit of a learning curve with us so I don’t necessarily plan on I
Mean I might just show you my fails in the beginning because I’m gonna have them we always do but I’m excited to be able to not only support other beekeeper but also expand our our product capability on the things that we can do here because it all goes back
Right back into the bees and right back into the homestead and all the things and you know it feels good it feels good to be able to to use what we’re doing to help support what we’re doing which I’m thinking I’ll be able to put some of the straws online
As well so that if anybody is interested plus it’s just going to be a lot easier and cheaper for shipping and I think they’ll make I think they’re going to make fun little sweet gifts how cool would that be that’s my thought that was my thought this year so this is
Definitely a to be continued no pun intended and I just wanted to fill you guys in because I know I know it’s been a couple of days since I started this process my body just said it was time to stop so now I’m getting back into the groove of
Things and I’m putting the pieces back together and I’m doing the things that I’ve got to continue to do and excited to take you guys along with me of course so as always don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty and learn something old bye guys
