October Honey Harvest

Here's the honey extracting set up in our kitchen.



We held a capped frame steady over the large gray tub. Karl then used a stiff wire comb-like tool to scrape the wax caps off the honeycomb and into the tub. We had a bunch of boys from Karl's Cub Scout Den, as well as a couple neighborhood families over and everyone got a chance to scrape off wax caps.



Once the honeycomb is opened up, we put four frames into the cylindrical extractor. You turn the crank on the side really fast and honey flies off the frame.



The moment of truth: you open the valve at the bottom of the extractor and honey gushes out into a cheesecloth lined bucket. Aksel was pretty excited, exclaiming "waterfall!" An amber waterfall of dark, flowery honey.



The final step is hanging the cheesecloth to filter the honey.




Haven't weighed it, but there's probably a good 18 pounds of the sweet stuff.