We pulled a few more frames of honey out of the hives today. There weren’t any frames that were capped on both sides, so we took 5 frames (3 Western and 2 Deep) that were fully capped on one side and partly capped on the other, and only harvested the fully capped stuff. All told, it ended up being about the same amount as we harvested last time; a little more than 2-1/2 Western frames-worth of honey.
We considered harvesting more honey, but Kristi worried about taking too much from the bees. I don’t know where the break-even point is between leaving the bees a lot of honey and how much to feed them all winter, but the time to agree about that is not when there is an open hive and a cloud of excited bees flying around.
I set up a double filter, with the top part being the wire mesh strainer and the bottom part being a double layer of nylon stocking. The wire strainer’s volume ended up determining my working speed; I had to stop often and press-and-stir to keep things moving through the strainer (or else the holes got clogged with wax). Processing went pretty slowly, as I was working alone; it took about 2 hours to make it through all 5 frames.
I left the honey to drain overnight, and it was still slowly draining this morning when I checked it. I think that this “gravity fed” system really only works to a certain point, and applying a little pressure to the system would push out honey a bit faster.
Much like last time, it looks like we harvested about half a gallon of honey, bringing this year’s harvest total to a full gallon. I’d say 90% of this was blackberry honey, only a little bit was knotweed-colored.
The honey needs a few more days to drain and settle, then we can start bottling!