It became clear that extracting was not an easy process, was quite labour intensive and required some pretty technical equipment – despite some of the conversation being centred around DIY equipment, much to the hilarity of others with stories about mistakes made using this sort of equipment. I suddenly realised that within eight weeks I could be spinning some frames around in an extractor and looking at my own honey. Andrew, the person responsible for me joining Reigate Beekeepers to begin with, is also the 'equipment guy' and stated the association's extractors had already been reserved for a lot of July and August.
Once I have had a look over the hives this weekend to see if there has been any honey deposited, I must get a reservation in. I hope I am lucky enough to be in a position to be able to do this, as how else could I extract the stuff?
Incidentally, I also found out about ankle biters today. There seem to be some bees that go directly for the ankle and apparently stings there are particularly itchy. Don't I know it! Not sure Jo has forgiven me yet.
JULY 8
After last night's pub discussions, the enormity of the extraction process was preying on my mind. All the equipment needed and the fantastic game of dare you play with the bees when you take their honey super, not to mention the mess I will undoubtedly leave my kitchen. However, a chance meeting with a friend of mine in the coffee shop I go to every lunchtime and the suggestion I should watch how the Nepalese extract their honey has calmed me down considerably. I walked into my beloved coffee shop and there standing by the till was Steve, an old school friend of mine. Despite the fact he had far less hair on his head, which seemed to have fallen southwards to make the most glorious of beards, this couldn't disguise his cheeky grin which was instantly recognisable. We sat down and got talking about the past before catching up on what we are currently doing which inevitably led on to my beekeeping exploits. Having described what I was up to and the hopeful extraction of a jar of honey in the near future he couldn't wait to tell me about a recent TV programme he had watched.
The Nepalese honey hunters, as they are called, scale vertical 600-metre-high cliffs with vine ladders with very little protection. They don't get too close to the huge combs of bees and honey, made by the largest honeybee in existence, which is understandable now having seen them. They use a combination of baskets controlled by others 40-foot higher and a 20 foot-long pole with a knife embedded in the end. With amazing coordination, skill, dexterity, braveness and teamwork they cut away these honeycombs before lowering them into the ether below. This is where the rest of the team wait, whose original job it is to light the bonfires to smoke the bees.
It is truly awe-inspiring to watch (I was able to watch it online, fortunately) and puts my honey extraction of two hives, not even 600 feet from my house, into perspective.
However there is still the small matter of equipment. I think, on the basic research I have now done, that I need the following:
• A honey extractor – though this will depend on how much honey I have to extract. If I don,t get much there would be little point and I could probably manually extract it (note to self; must look at how you manually extract honey).
• A knife to uncap the honey cells – all cells are covered with wax and so this needs to be removed before any honey can be extracted. I have seen some fancy heated knives on the market but I don't think I would need this given my likely crop.
• A container to keep the uncapped cell cappings – it is apparently best to keep them separate as they would clog up the piece of equipment mentioned below.
• A filtering device – you can buy these great sieves to filter the honey but I am thinking muslin would do the trick because I am hardly likely to have too much honey. Something is needed though as apparently honey in the cells can contain remnants of bee wings and legs which I am not sure I want in my one jar of honey!
• A settling bottle/tank – apparently it is best to leave the honey for a while to allow air bubbles to rise to the surface. Otherwise your jar of honey will be full of bubbles. Again, I don't think I will be too fussy here but it might all be worth looking into.
• Lots of jars – if I am lucky.
So my preparation starts here. Let's hope the bees are able to fill a super for me to extract.
Something else I realised last night was that I had made another small mistake: though I had replaced my closed-mesh floor with an open-mesh floor, I hadn't actually opened it! What was I thinking? There is a small floor within the open mesh floor design which is removed to allow air circulation or closed to catch debris – vital to assess any possible disease in your hive, especially varroa mites. For some reason I never removed it, which was a little stupid because in this unbelievably hot weather, it was essentially a closed hive. They must have been cooking!