From the Hive

“We ate our honey! We ate a lot! Now we have no honey in our honey pot!” from ‘The Big Honey Hunt’ – Berenstain Bears children’s book

 Yesterday marked the day of the honey bee at the weed patch with six family members in attendance involved in either extracting, bottling or taste-testing the 17 kg honey crop that we pulled off the hives. Three young helpers were buzzing with glucose as their heads hit the pillows at bedtime. It is the one event of the year that allows us unlimited indulgence in what the kids referred to as ‘the flower garden in liquid form’.

The greatest part about a messy, sticky job like manual small scale honey extraction, is hauling all the equipment outside the next day for the clean up crew. The bees do a fantastic job licking clean every spoon, sieve, de-capping fork, bowl and all the cappings. To the honey bees, I am so grateful for this years’ bounty.