First honey harvest!

Here we are, early in the morning, removing the inner cover of the yellow hive. Because four supers is too high for the YBKeep these days (that will surely change in time!) Patrick is smoking the bees down, the YBKeep having smoked the front entrance.

Taking a look at the last-given super, which was uncapped in the outer frames.

Smoking the bees down from a finished super.

Now we're in the kitchen, and I'm raking the comb cappings; the YBKeep is poised to crank the extractor.

Draining honey through the extractor's honey gate into the first sieve; this fits into a second, finer sieve, which drains into the honey pail from which the honey is drained into jars by means of its own honey gate.

Product!

From left to right: Senior BKeep, Very Young BKeep, YBKeep, and YBKeep's Cousin.

We took 18 capped frames from the top three supers of the yellow hive today. We rearranged the outer frames of all three supers so their top super contains the emptiest frames at the center. We noted that they haven't raised comb in the outermost frames of the most recently given super. We looked into the red hive's single super above the queen excluder, and they haven't moved beyond the center three frames, so we left them to work along for the next couple of weeks.

We extracted 20 liters of (very delicious!) honey from the 18 capped frames. We gave two liters to our next door neighbours whom we are sure have seen a bee or two more than usual in their clover during the summer, and set aside a pint for the YBKeep to exhibit at the Ancaster Fair coming up, and this is rather intimate since a very good friend judges Canning, however, his name on the label will be covered and therefore secret. We split the rest, 50-50. Of my share, Patrick took 5 liters to Toronto. We will have another honey harvest in a couple of weeks. We must begin to calculate when, in relation to the goldenrod and the asters blooming, we can take the honey supers off and medicate.

The YBKeep and I were very grateful for all the help we had! The YBKeep's Mum, YBKeep's Aunt, YBKeep's Cousin, plus Patrick and the Very Junior BKeep. Our system was pretty good and since we cleaned up any drips right away, the kitchen is surprisingly unsticky! The washer and drier and dishwasher and tons of towels and dishtowels and newspaper all got workouts. And, thank heaven for RubberMaid Roughneck boxes! As I write, the bees are busily cleaning the extracted frames, which are sitting in front of the hives stacked in a pair of those Roughnecks, and when it gets dark, I must go down and cover them, and tomorrow hope to move the cleaned frames into the freezer for the winter.

Here we are--and these wonderful pictures were taken with two cameras neither of which belonged to the photographer--thanks and congratulations to the shutterbug!