From Hive to Home: Making and Harvesting Honey - Honeybee: Lessons from an Accidental Beekeeper - page 71

bin with an airtight lid that snaps shut, to protect it from mice and ants that love to feast
on fresh honey.
Honeybees can get defensive while you remove the honey shallows, so you may
want to wear your protective beekeeper's veil and gloves. Remember that in the late
summer, when you are most likely removing your honey, there may not be many nectar
and pollen-producing plants for your bees to feed on, so they may defend their honey
morefiercely.Also,bepreparedtodealwithlotsofpropolis,whichcanmakeremoving
hive parts a challenge.
When you have removed the honey-filled shallow, it is time to begin extracting the
honey. Extracting and bottling your first honey harvest is a glorious and sticky event.
Give yourself and any helpers you may be able to enlist plenty of time to do the job.
Confining the job to just one room will help you contain the big, sticky mess that ac-
companies the process. A warm room makes the job easier, because cold honey can be
difficulttoextract.Spreadingaplasticdropclothortarpunderyourworkareawillsave
you time on the cleanup afterward. A large table allows you to spread out your equip-
ment. Cover it with plastic or newspapers to protect it. Keep a bucket of warm water
and a few old rags handy just to wipe off your hands and clean up any drips along the
way. You will be happy you took these few extra steps to prepare your work area.
There are a few pieces of equipment available for extracting your honey. But if you
simply want comb honey, you do not need any fancy equipment. You can slice the hon-
eycomb right out of the frame. A warm knife will work well, or a metal cutter, resem-
bling a cookie cutter and made especially for this purpose, will help you cut a per-
fectsquareofhoneycombfromyourframes.Beekeeping-supplycompaniessellvarious
types of clear boxes made for packaging honeycomb, or you can keep the comb in a
dish in your kitchen, so the honey in it is ready for everyday use.
To extract liquid honey from the comb, you will need a few more pieces of equip-
ment: a heated uncapping knife , a capping scratcher , an uncapping tank , an extractor
(or spinner ), a mesh strainer, and a clean five-gallon bucket with an opening called a
gate.
The heated knife is used to slice off, or uncap, the wax cappings from the honey-
comb, thus exposing the fresh honey inside each cell. You hold the frame in a vertical
position over the uncapping tank, resting it on the horizontal bar across the top of the
tank, and tilt the frame toward your body at a forty-five-degree angle. Starting toward
the bottom of the frame, run the heated knife over the surface of beeswax towards the
top of the frame. Be careful to keep your fingers away from the edge of the knife. The
heat from the knife will melt the beeswax slightly and make the cappings easier to re-
move. The beeswax and any excess honey will fall into the tank. A wire screen, posi-
tioned inside the uncapping tank, will catch most of the wax while allowing the honey