Monthly Archives: September 2020

Garage Honey Extraction

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I extracted some honey in my garage over the past couple of days. I’d like to say there’s a precise method to my extraction process, but like everything in beekeeping, there isn’t — and don’t let nobody tell ya no different (just like Sling Blade would say). Now let’s take a gander at how it all went down:

00:00 — Intro to the extractor. Everything is sanitized, from the extractor to the stainless steel honey filter to the honey bucket. The garage might look rough, but it’s well ventilated and there are no chemicals or gasoline or any toxic fumes floating around.

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When Honey Bees Go Bonkers

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The Wailing Wailers recorded a cover version of “I Made a Mistake,” by The Impressions, sometime in the ’60s, and if it wasn’t for copyright laws, it would be the soundtrack to the following video:

Something I’ve learned from beekeeping over the years is that’s okay to make mistakes, even big ones. It might be better than living in a fantasy world. If we’re not open to making mistakes, we never really learn or get good at anything.

Adding Escape Boards

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According to my previous post, When is It Time to Harvest Honey?, it’s about time to harvest some honey now. Which means it’s about time to add some escape boards so my bees can “escape” from their honey boxes, which then makes it easier for me to steal their honey. You know, I think I might have a video of me from earlier today that shows how this works:

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Pill Bottle Queen Cage

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I had to install a mated queen into one of my hives and I couldn’t find a proper queen cage, so I drilled some 1/8-inch (~3mm) holes in a pill bottle and put the queen in that instead. Here’s what happened:

IMPORTANT NOTE: I would normally not release a queen into a new colony after only two days of sitting in the cage. But this queen originated from this hive and the bees were already familiar with her scent. It normally takes 5-7 days for a colony to feel completely at ease with a new caged queen. A queen released after only two days could easily be superceded by the colony.

My First Time Using a Pollen Trap

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I’ve had a plastic pollen trap banging around for a couple years but I always forget about it. I think it’s the kind of pollen trap that can found on Amazon, probably a knock-off of a more expensive one, which is often the case for most beekeeping gear sold on Amazon. Here’s a record of my first attempt at using it:

I know pollen is considered a “super food.” I could probably charge a fortune for it if I called it something like Newfoundland Organic Artisan Pollen. That kind of thing seems to be a valid marketing strategy these days.

A Newspaper Combine

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Here’s a short video that demonstrates a newspaper combine:

A newspaper combine is when two honey bee colonies, one of them usually without a queen, are combined into a single hive as one big colony by using a piece of newspaper to keep them separated for a few days as they get used to the smell of each other. Those are the headlines. Now the details:
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