Harvesting 72 Pounds of Pure Honey

well guys here we go today is one of the days  of the year that I get most excited about it's time for the very first  honey Harvest of the year if you recall in the last video we came out here  just to check to see how honey production was   coming along and I was very surprised and pleased  to find out that it was really coming along well so of course this top box right here is  obviously nowhere near ready to extract but   if you can see down in those cells just a little  bit you'll see all the shiny cells that's nectar   so they're bringing back nectar they're working  on drying it down and hopefully within the next   month maybe even sooner who knows this Frame  will be capped off and ready to go let's check   the next box and this is not the best day to  be doing this by the way because we've got some   storms rolling in later on it's sunny right  now but storms are rolling in later and bees   get really really finicky when the weather  changes especially when it's going to rain   I just remembered I forgot my little blower  I got to go back to the house now it's still   pretty early in the season they've only been  bringing back nectar now for maybe a month or   so so I don't expect to be able to extract a ton  of honey but what I would like to do is get some   out so they won't get overcrowded and so they'll  have places to put more nectar as it comes on in   Plus on top of that we're out of hunting so this  is one of the frames that we actually pulled in   the last video do you see that upside down rainbow  pattern they've got going on right there this is   not an extractable frame there's way too many  cells of open nectar right here that means the   humidity level in those those cells is just way  too high to be honey and it will probably spoil   you have to wait until I think it's 80 percent  capped or something like that I like to do more   personally but maybe 90 I can't remember what  the number is but that frame in this box is not   ready to go this is the next frame down and I  would feel okay about extracting this one this   is foundationless that's why you see all the big  holes in here I'd feel okay about extracting this   but I'm just going to leave this whole thing for  the bees to um dry on down a little bit more we'll   check the next box down as well but my guess  is we're going to run into a good bit of brood oh yeah so we're getting that into The Brood  chamber at this point lots and lots of brood there   um actually I'll try to get a close-up and show  y'all what's really going on in this Frame so   here's what's going on in this Frame over there  to the left of the screen you've got capped honey   then you've got nectar you can see Shiny down  in those cells and then we get into The Brood   right here and you can especially see it right  here we go right in that cell right there you   can see there's a little bit of shiny stuff  down in there and that's nectar so what the   bees are doing as soon as a bee hatches out  the bees are back filling The Brood nest with   nectar and it's okay that they're doing that  because they've got four boxes up under that   box that they can still raise brood in and if  they fill these top three boxes up with honey   I'm fine with that but right now this  Hive is nowhere near ready to extract this one might be this is a very tall hive same deal in here good bit of nectar  but nowhere near ready to extract I don't have to take this one off I can  see that it's the same story in this one not quite but that's a lot of honey so this box kind of the same story  on every frame there on the verge of   capping off all of these cells right here  but it would not work to extract it now now I think we're going to strike gold in this box close but not quite bingo not quite in this box let's move to the next hive we'll get some out of this box too these bees are a little bit irritable and  they've they've really kind of always been   that way and I'm not sure why  it's just the genetics I think it's a small spot on this Frame that is not  capped but I'm okay with extracting this one this is a good box we'll take it I think this next box is going to be a winner too oh maybe not huh I wouldn't have thought  they need some time this next one is good I'll just take the whole box and pick through it this is the last Hive so  we're almost to the fun part oh yeah so this is the next box down and you can see  here well I was gonna say we're getting into   the brood but we're getting into a place that  used to have brood the bees are doing the same   thing here if you can see the shiny stuff  down in the bottoms of those those cells   that are not capped that's honey or nectar  that will be honey and they're just capping   off where they're putting nectar in the cells  as soon as they hatch out which is fine now   that's something that can become a problem if  they have absolutely no more space anywhere   whatsoever to do anything but right now it's  not a problem we're about to go extract some   honey and give them some more space to put more  honey and they'll be fine in The Brood chamber [Music] um now I want to start off with this  particular box here if this is   um this is some of the honey that came off  of the I think it was the second Hive that   we checked maybe the third probably the  third half that we checked and I can say   with a lot of confidence that this is this  Springs honey a lot of the honey that's in   these hives is still left over from last year  be much darker and A Little Bit Stronger but   this right here is my favorite honey it's very  light let's just cut it open and look at it actually that's pretty dark  that probably is last year's what I'm going to do is kind of pick out the  ones that have the most recent honey in them   and separate those out into a different bucket  because I usually don't separate my honey but   I just love this light early spring honey so  much I just want to have at least some of it   separate so that I can I can really enjoy  the stuff that I like now this Frame right   here it's uh it's really kind of borderline if I  had a whole bunch of frames like this I wouldn't   extract them but this is the light stuff and  I'm probably going to have it separately and   just uh it'll probably get used up pretty quick so  this Frame is probably not the greatest frame to   extract but since it's going to get used up pretty  quick I don't feel too too nervous about doing it I wish y'all could smell it too it's  even got a different smell to it this is most likely some of last year's honey  but check out that pattern in there it's really   really cool seeing those I don't even know  what you would call it it's not it's not like   very defined Circles of Comb on the top side  there it's just like waves I love that pattern cappings that we cut off of the  frames to get the honey out now   there is a lot of honey still left in  these cappings and we got to get it out that things up to some degree and  I'm going to dump them in this bucket and now we're going to strain it  through this queen excluder to   get the big chunks out and I keep  having to move around in the yard   because there's so many bees out here  I didn't expect to have this problem section on one of my honey processing videos  gave me the idea of using a queen excluder to   strain this honey out like this and I thought it  was a really smart idea I don't use these Queen   excluders for their intended purpose anyway so  it just kind of made sense we're going to get   the scale out here in just a minute and see how  much honey that we got after that drains just a   little bit longer but I wanted to show y'all  something that I think is pretty cool earlier   on in the video I mentioned that I was getting a  lot of last year's honey off of these hives and   that may not make a lot of sense because this is  this year how are you getting last year's honey   but the reason that's going on is because I left  a lot of Honey on the hives last year for them to   consume over the winter honey is always a better  food source for the bees than is sugar syrup or   fondant cakes or dry sugar or certainly a whole  lot better than corn syrup and my bees came out   in winter very very strong and of course lots of  Honey combined with low Mite loads and they've   just been going nuts this year so this is last  years honey see how much darker it is they got   this honey probably late spring or into the  summertime off of sources such as sumac and   lots of other things and I'm not sure what they  might be but sumac and stuff like that this right   here and I wish it wasn't so bubbly there's a  lot of bubbles in it that doesn't really give   you a good picture of how clear it really is but  this is crimson clover probably some blackberry   and other types of clover we got tons of crimson  clover around here so this is probably mostly   clover honey and this is my favorite there's a  b trying to get this this is my favorite right   here it's very light tasting it's very very sweet  it actually Burns as it goes down it's so sweet   this has got a much Bolder and richer flavor to it  and much Fuller flavor I guess you could say it's   very good too but that right there is the prize  and that is why I separated it out and managed   to keep a gallon gallon and a half something  like that for our own personal use so there's   the difference right there you can see the color  of Honey varies depending on the food source or   the nectar source that the bees are working on all  right so let's see how much honey we got here this   is what came out of the cappings I've already  strained it out through the queen excluder and   through the fine filter so it's ready to go we've  got a two pound bucket and 12.26 pounds total so there was 10 pounds of honey in those cappings  actually there was more because I didn't get it   all this is the Private Stock I guess you could  say the very light honey that I saved out for us   we've got 19 pounds total and maybe a pound and a half worth of bucket  something like that maybe two pounds so that's   about 27 pounds total so far let's check  on our big bucket now I didn't weigh this   bucket I'm guessing maybe four to five pounds  worth of bucket let's see what the total is that's 50. so we'll just call that one 45  pounds to allow for the weight of the bucket   because those are fairly heavy buckets that's  45 plus 27 I make 60 math on camera never works I think I got done just in time here so well  you all heard that 72 pounds of honey that was   a really good haul I won't be able to get those  boxes back on the hives until tomorrow which is   fine that's not going to affect anything but  yeah I'm really happy with the 72 pound haul   this early in the year I usually a lot of times  I extract in June I usually get a small Harvest   early but usually my main Harvest comes in  like June or something like that and what   I'll do at this point is I'll put these boxes  back on the hives and maybe just check them a   couple of times a month until they're until  they're ready I probably won't do another   another Harvest until they're like totally and  completely ready but now I'm really happy I feel   better because the bees have somewhere to put  honey once the bees run out of places to put   honey you run into trouble because they're going  to swarm because they don't have any they've got   no room left so this is going to give them a  whole lot of extra room to do what they need   to do and hopefully this will mitigate any  overpopulation or overcrowding swarms in the   future of my hives but anyway I hope you all enjoy  this video and I will see y'all on the next one

Channel: Fall Line Ridge

Views: 179,258

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Id: Lx6dhaNz88U

Length: 18min 54sec (1134 seconds)

Published: Thu May 18 2023