How do you harvest honey when ready? Just cut it out of the frames or do you melt the beeswax and the honey flows?
I’ve always considered learning beekeeping but I guess I’m too afraid to do it. I hate bee stings.
We remove the boxes of honey from the hive and take them to the work shed. There the cappings on the comb are removed with a heated knife, hopefully in one smooth motion, and then any remaining caps would be scraped open. You have to remove the caps so that the honey will flow.
We then place up to 7 frames at a time into racks in a stainless steel drum centrifuge with an electric motor. The motor spins the frames, extracts the honey, and send it to the bottom of the drum where there is a spigot that opens to a bucket.
After extraction, you will have perfect frames of honeycomb that are now dry. Those are stored for later or immediately given back to the bees, depending on the time of year. The bees will fill the cells once again and you have saved them the time of rebuilding all of that wax comb.
"I’ve always considered learning beekeeping but I guess I’m too afraid to do it. I hate bee stings."
I was hesitant too, but honeybees are very gentle for the most part. Most all of my stings have been when we were cutting a hive out of a wall or roof, and the bees tend to get irate when you are destroying their home, their brood, and their honey food source.
A good bee suit will prevent most stings, but a determined bee is going to get you every now and then. Most days I can sit right next to a hive in shorts and a tee and watch them come in loaded down with pollen and nectar.
My absolute, hands down, worst day with my bees got me 27 stings. It was my own fault really ... I had forgotten to bring my smoker device and was too lazy to go back to the house to get it. Going in a big hive without your smoker is asking for trouble and I found it big time!