A couple of weeks ago I was able to make the second harvest of honey this year. This season has been a long one with early starting in the spring. Crocuses, snowbells, forget-me-not's and other early spring bloomers were in bloom and the girls were out and about gathering like mad. This early begin had sort of a negative effect on the bee's behaviour though--their numbers increased an an alarming rate. So many of my fellow beekeepers had swarms in their colonies because of the increased population and the lack of space for them. All of my hives began making queen cells in preparation for swarming, but I was able to keep them from doing that by splitting the hives and/or continually breaking the queen cells during their construction. It was a long, hot and worrisome summer in terms of beekeeping. Well, things have quietened down, the drone removal has begun now and it is time for me to begin the fall treatments. The honey has been slung out of the comb and are in jars. Some will be given away, a few may be sold and the rest we will turn into creamed honey for longer storage. The hives that had the honey rooms on top had their contents removed. Once loaded, I could take them over to my mentor's home and we would work together to sling all of our honey. Together we had so much honey that it took two days to sling it all. This is a honey frame pretty well filled and sealed. This year I made some labels for the honey jars that were more personal than the commercial ones that I bought last year. There are two differently-shaped jars, two different tops and three labels. Hahaha--talk about overkill. The labels of my hives is perhaps my personal fav. I still have two large containers filled with honey that have not yet been tapped into jars. It is so moist here in our area at the moment, that I have decided to wait before bottling any more. I do not know how much exactly I will have gotten, but by the time that it has all been bottled, I will. I still think that MG will have harvested more than me. The bees have large stores of honey down in the brood boxes which I did not touch. In a few weeks, after the treatments, I will determine if they will have to receive extra invert-sugar water amendments. We shall see. Addendum: The jars of honey have different degrees of darkness. To a degree it has to do with the background which makes it all look darker, but there is an intrinsic darkness because they were taken at different times in the season...thus nectar from different blooming plants. there was about a month in-between the harvests.
Congrats on another great harvest. I bet it is soooooo yummmy! I love all of your labels, but my favorite one is the one with the bee's butt in the air.
That was beautiful honey, S. That frame was absolutely perfect, too, by the way. Lovely! Those lids? I love them. We don't have anything like that here that I have seen.
Sjoerd, I showed your post to my bee-keeping husband, and he gthought your harvest may surpass ours! (he was very impressed). That is lovely honey, and like other posters, I love your jars, labels, and lids. Isn't is interesting that the honey color varies by the bees' diet? You must be so very proud !
CHERYL-- Hahaha...Yeah, that was a good one too. Thanks so much. You are right...that honey is indeed quite delicious. Thanks so much CAROLYN--I like the looks of the honey too. I liked how the bees filled all the honey frames totally this year. Very tidy. I like the lids myself. I think that the special lids make the pot of honey look extra attractive, and customers as well as gift recipients have commented favourably on them and have even chosen the jars with the fancy lids over the same pots with plain lids. Strange the preferences that folks have. Hiya MG--Wow, that would be remarkable! Well, I will let you know how many jars (or kilo's) we were able to harvest in the end. Thank you so much for your nice comments. Yes, it is interesting how the honey colour changes with the bee's diet. Understandable though when you stop and think that even the pollen of the various plants vary greatly in colour as well. Meid...I am well chuffed with this harvest, WELL chuffed. You are spot on with that.
Great sweet harvest, we just received our lot of wild honey from our regular supplier. Bee keeping is so interesting and rewarding. Well done Sjoerd.
NETTY-- Thanks for the nice comment. Wouldn't it be something if you got into bees next year. Let me know if it goes that far. Thank you KK--From how far away does your wild honey come? It has indeed been rewarding this year ...in several different ways.
Sorry Sjoerd, I have no idea how far away did the wild honey come from. When ever we need to replenish our stock we just give the honey man a call and he will deliver right to our door step in a couple of days. Honey ( photo / image / picture from KK Ng's Garden ) We get our honey in bottles and we like the dark type, the darker the better. A bottle is about 1 liter and can last us about 10~14 days... yum!!!
Thanks DONNA-- Heck, if you lived here, I'd give you one. KK--Wow, that is some dark honey! Here the only honey that I know of that is THAT dark is heather honey and the honey that germans are so very fond of that has been made from plant sap and aphid droppings. The advantage of living where you do is that honey can be gotten year round. Does it have a strong honey flavour? Is it quite thick? It would be interesting to know from which plants it comes.
Yes we can get honey round and the flavor is very mild and smooth. It is quite thick and sticky too! Yes it would be interesting to know from which plants it comes from. Just found out that there is a bee farm close by and will be paying them a visit soon.
Interesting, KK--If you go visit the bee farm, why not take some pictures to post on here. I would be interested to see. CAYUGA-- Thanks much. I'll bet that you would like the flavour.
