extracting the honey

in each of the boxes (or "supers" as they are known among the apiary crowd) on matt's hive, there are ten frames on which the bees build their comb, fill the cells with honey and then seal each cell with a wax cap. this is a picture of the comb with the majority of the cells sealed.

to get the honey out of the comb, matt used a hot knife to slice off the waxy coating while i photo-documented the process.

using an extractor loaned to him by michele and made functional with dad's help last weekend, matt spun the unsealed frames so that the honey flew off into this souped-up trashcan.

the trash can (technical name = honey extractor) has a little spigot at the base so once we had centrifugally forced all the honey out of the combs, matt drained it through a filter and into jars.

honey flows as slow as molasses.

from one super, matt harvested approximately 25 pounds of honey. the best part about honey extracting is that you can put all the sticky, honey-coated tools and surfaces outside and the bees clean everything up!