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Description

One of Beaver leaders has a bee hive, he brought in a couple of frames to our Beaver group to extract honey, we combined the activity with a bee identification and wild flower hunt walk.

The Bee hive owner took responsibility for the equipment with the aim for the session to be an interactive demonstration.

The beavers had the opportunity to work the extractor and taste some fresh honey.

Resources

Before you begin extracting, get all of your materials ready as you will be a bit sticky once you begin! I recommend making the following items readily accessible:

The extractor
Plastic gloves (optional)
A honey bucket
Your heated electric knife and/or capping scratcher
400-600 Micron Filter
Table
Extra tub for wax cappings
Jars washed and ready
Space heater (optional)

Instructions

heated electric knife, closely supervised by Beaver Leader if Beavers wish to try, is the easiest way to remove wax cappings from a frame of honey. Hold the frame over a tub that will collect the wax cappings. To remove the cappings, start at the top of a frame, holding the frame vertically, and slowly and carefully move the knife down the frame removing the wax cappings. Obviously, it is ideal if you only remove the capping and not too much of the honey; plus, you want to give your bees their beautiful built-out frames back!

Place your honey bucket and filter under the spout of the extractor and close the spout. Be sure to place your frames in the proper way. Try to place frames of equal weight opposite one another to balance the extractor. If frames of differing weights are opposite one another, the extractor will violently shake and rattle.

Most extractors will remove honey from only one side of the frame at a time; when one side of the frame is empty, you will need to switch the frame around to remove the honey from the other side of the frame. Begin spinning the frames slowly, then speed up. I recommend spinning the frames for 4 minutes, then switching around the frames. Repeat this until all of the honey is removed from the frame.

How quickly the honey is extracted from the frames depends on the quality of the extractor and the heat of the honey; warmer honey will flow quicker than cooler honey. Once you have honey at the bottom of the extractor, you can open the honey gate/spout and see your honey beginning to flow!

If you don't have an extractor, you can leave your uncapped frames to drip into a bucket overnight. The room should be at least 80 degrees. I don't recommend leaving your frames out in the hot sun because they are at risk of being robbed by other bees, but I have seen this done. If you are a member of your local bee guild, they will probably lend you an extractor. If you are not a member of a local bee group, I highly recommend it!

After you have removed the honey, return the frames to the bees so that they can sufficiently clean out the "empty" wet comb. If your honeyflow has ceased, remove the super of empty, clean comb after a week has passed.

Honey Nutritional Facts

Nutrition Facts
Serving size: 1 Cup
Calories 1031
Calories from Fat 0
% Daily Value *
Fat 0 g
Saturated fat 0 g
Unsaturated fat 0 g
Carbohydrates 279 g 93%
Sugar 278 g
Fiber 1 g 4%
Protein 1 g 2%
Cholesterol 0 mg
Sodium 14 mg 1%
* The Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet, so your values may change depending on your calorie needs. The values here may not be 100% accurate because the recipes have not been professionally evaluated nor have they been evaluated by the U.S. FDA.

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