Day: September 8, 2022

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Bees and honey: no waste Wednesday

I was originally going to write this as two posts: slinging honey and how we don’t waste anything from that day. But I haven’t time to write the first post and there are many ways we don’t waste with our bees.
Monday was Labor Day and that was the day that was set aside to sling honey with our dear friend, Mr. Hagan. He and my brother-in-law have been instrumental in the success of our bees this time around. We are so thankful for the countless hours Mr. Hagan has educated us and invited us to his property to learn. Back to Monday. Around 9:30 in the morning, Mr. Hagan came over to help us transport the frames to his house. This was our first experience slinging honey so we had no idea what to expect. We all loaded in the vehicle and headed to his house, 1.9 miles from our house. I’m going to let the pictures do most of the explaining.

He taught us how to use the knife to scrape the wax
It’s very sharp!
This is another tool
Adam is a lefty so it took a little figuring out at first
So beautiful!
We will render the wax and turn it into candles and chapstick
4 frames fit in the slinger
As it spins, the centrifugal force “slings” the honey against the side and the honey pours out through the spout
Have you seen anything more beautiful?
He has turned in to such a hard worker!!
When we got home around lunch, Kathryn and I prepped the jars and lids
There can be no moisture in the jars
This was Kathryn’s favorite part. She said it was very satisfying
We ended up with 39 quart jars plus we filled 2 honey bears for the kitchen
The chickens got all of the dead bees and debris from the wax
This was our method for rendering wax: we hung the cheesecloth over a bucket overnight. We then transferred the stick to over the pot and the heat melted the wax into the pot of water
We had 3 jars of beeswax with honey
The color is so beautiful
We will clean the wax again as we use it but for now, it will get sealed in a bag until we set aside a day for chapstick and candles
The leftover honey water. This gets fed to the goats and chickens. They love it! And it smells delightful

Kathryn and I finished jarring and cleaning the kitchen about 5pm Monday evening. Tuesday morning we rendered wax (we had to wait until the honey drained which took all night) and the animals are still getting honey water every day. Here is a recap of how every part of this process gets used for good without waste:
1. The wax is rendered for things like candles and chapstick
2. The chickens eat the dead bees and debris that is left from the wax
3. The chickens and goats drink the honey water that is left from rendering wax. It is a nutritious treat for them!
4. We used a spatula in every bucket to scrape every bit of honey and we rinsed each bucket and saved that water for the animals.
5. The boxes we removed from the hives (4 boxes total) were set on pasture for the bees to “clean up” for a few days.

It was such a wonderful family experience and we are all excited to split the hives in Spring and we look forward to slinging honey twice next year!