We play the ‘would you rather eat this or that game’ quite a bit. Eli hates tomatoes so tomatoes are frequently used in this game. Tonight Eli didn’t want to eat dinner. So, the ‘would you’ game started.
He said he would rather eat a tomato instead of dinner….
Ha! I love this boy!
This months Monday Luncheon is taking place at IMC hospital.
We are so thankful dad is doing better. He was in good spirits even though he just got the news of having to wait about a week until he can have back surgery. Until then, he is just laying here 🙂
We went downstairs to the cafeteria for lunch. Halibut with cheese. Eli got the grilled cheese. Dessert of silk pie. Unfortunately we have been to this cafeteria many times and fortunately they have good food.
Aaron said next we are going to the University hospital to try out their cafeteria, ha!
I have been waiting for this day! Last year we didn’t get any honey from our hives because Paul wanted to leave all the honey we could for the bees to last the winter. I’m the selfish one. I want my honey! 🙂 With being such a harsh winter, it was a good call to leave them lots of food.
Paul purchased a new tool to try out. It’s like a knife that is serrated on both sides. Why serrated on both sides? I don’t know, maybe to cater to a lefty? Ha!
Working out of the back of the truck 🙂 we scraped off the wax caps from one side of the frame. If we scraped both sides, the honey would seep out before we could finish and get the frame in the extractor.
We normally borrow our neighbor’s honey extractor, but he moved 🙁 so Paul had to purchase one for us. He purchased one with a motor! NO hand cranking with this batch!
This side of the frame is still capped.
Look at that golden honey! The side we scrapped off is placed next to the side of the barrel. We waited for today to do honey because we needed a hot day to help the honey spin off the frames. The temperature was only 85′, but beating down in the garage it was extremely hot. The heat was doing it’s job! You can see the honey dripping off the bottom of the frame.
The extractor can hold four frames at a time.
As the extractor spins, the honey flies off the frames and onto the sides of the barrel, then slowly slides down to the bottom of the barrel.
This is the spun side. All the honey has been removed.
After all the honey has been extracted, time to pour it out and into a double mesh strainer. This mesh strainer is placed on top of a clean bucket.
You can see bits of wax in the top strainer and nice dark honey in the bucket. It’s working well!
All the boys tasting the honey 🙂
After the honey drains through the strainer, the fresh honey falls to the bottom of the honey bucket and the wax remains in the strainer.
Inside we drain the honey from the bucket into jars.
We are very pleased with the amount of honey we harvested from this hive.
Lots of wax to melt into candles. Candle making will be a project for this winter. I tried/made a few wax candles a few years ago and I need some practice. We had a little sparkler show with my candles!