Food – Jenny Duba

First bottle of gold

I initially wondered if and when we would have honey. Over the past several months as I slowly heard more and listened to others I came to the conclusion we would not have any honey this year. New hives spend time and energy building their comb so their production of honey is less. Living in the cold climes of upstate New York I worried from the beginning if our bees could and would survive our winter. They will need all of their honey and perhaps more just to survive. As I split my hive in mid summer and it was slow to get going I concluded that if the first hive had any extra honey it would go to the second hive to give them what was needed . Not wanting to be greedy my line was Bees first… but oh I would like a little teaspoon to taste and enjoy….. Martin said maybe we’ll see in a few weeks so when I got a text saying “do you have extractor ” I flustered ummm I did not plan for this and the big beautiful extractor I have been eying seemed extravagant and premature as I probably would not have honey but now HONEY?! Umm I could see if I could borrow Gwen’s? I will be there at 4 tomorrow to get you started…… A flurry of texts what do I need… a honey rake is all I have from my beginner kit . OK- a large flat pan, a strainer and a bucket. Martin came the next day. He checked the hives, estimating what the bees would need for the winter about 60 lbs each and proceeded to remove the additional frames of honey to my little red wagon. Martin brought his extractor – he called an “antique” – a large stainless steal container with a basket to place two frames and a crank to turn and spin……And so the process of harvesting the honey began. Martin did the first frame to show us. I did the next and we loaded them into the extractor and turned the crank so slowly at first as to not disrupt the comb then fast to extract as much as possible of the sweet reward. Centrifugal force is a mighty power! A small little golden stream began to flow out of the honey gate that my brother Jimmy so exactingly installed for me . We used mesh fabric bag borrowed from our wine making supplies and it was the just right filter for our honey and into a large white food grade ale bucket the honey was collected. WOWOWOWOWOWOw. Our sweet bees gave up 48 lbs of honey for us! That is a very full big white bucket. Pure organic untreated,unheated golden honey from our first bees . I am going to need a lot of bottles … more than I have for sure … and another trip to the local bee store for honey bottles . We are gratefully overwhelmed.