Today I extracted the last of our honey (I did one hive last month but didn't get to the 2nd one until today). We had a beautiful sunshiny day to do it in and I was very thankful! It looks like cooler weather is on it's way so I am glad to have gotten it done today.
This was by far the worst year I have had for honey production. I am not truly sure why though I do know that I had at least one swarm leave the hive (which I tried to get back but couldn't) this summer. I am not sure why they swarmed either as they had plenty of room. Anyway, I am hoping to do some more reading on beekeeping this winter and work at it a little harder next summer.
But we did still get honey and I am very thankful!
Keeping our own bees is a great way to provide zero waste sweetener for our family. We do buy and use some sugar as well but the majority of our sweetener tends to be honey from our homestead. I repurpose jars that we have collected from other things to put all our honey in. They just need to be clean and very dry. I always enjoy bottling up the honey and figuring out how many pounds we got and storing it on our pantry shelves. It can get a little sticky but it is pretty fun! :-)
This is neat! One of Mark's co-workers does bee-keeping as a hobby and we are happy to buy all of our honey from him. We return the jars each time, like you do with your milk man, and we get new ones refilled.
ReplyDeleteThat is cool that you can get honey from somebody you know! Raw, local honey is the best! That is also neat that the jars get used over and over.
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