Utah County Beekeepers BBQ

This last weekend was the annual Utah County Beekeepers Association BBQ. At the BBQ they usually have a demo of some sorts, pot luck sides (they provide the main dish) and then an auction to raise money to support new beekeepers.

This year it was held in Payson and they decided to roast a pig. I will tell you that the pig was very good but I almost just liked smelling it better, but it sure did look cool. I had to leave early so I missed the auction, not that I would buy anything anyway, but I like to see what they are selling.

So here is a fellow beekeeper (Kevin Cook) giving all of us a demonstration on how to extract your honey. This was really good because I could ask all the questions I could think of to people who had a lot of experience. On the left is the extractor. Just to the right of Kevin is a shallow honey super that he brought. He really knows what he is doing. On the bottom right is the uncapping tank with the hot knife in it. The tank is really dirty because he said he did not have time to clean it out before the demo.

Here is Kevin slicing the cappings off the frame to expose the honey underneath. I will tell you that he is very good at it, I tried to do one while I was there and it was very tricky.

Here is the frame all ready to go into the extractor. He said that the reason it looks darker in the middle is just because at one time this frame was in the brood chamber. The brood chamber always makes the wax darker. So in this case, the honey does not come out darker.

Here is his extractor. This is a Maxant 2 frame reversible extractor with the hand crank on the side. We will see later what one I get :) The honey that spins out drains to the bottom of the tank. There is a valve that you can turn to let the honey drain out. When you do drain the honey, you need to run it through a filter to remove all the impurities. I don't have a picture of it but he did place a filter on the bucket and the finished product looked very good.

Here is what it looks like inside the extractor while it is spinning.

Honey Checkup

I was so excited to go check my bees this week to see the progress they have made with the honey and I was not disappointed. My bees have been drawing out comb on more of the frames and filling them with honey, I cant wait to extract. I did grab a few frames from the brood box and add them to the honey super and put empty ones in their place. This way I think I will get more honey. So far I think I have about 9 frames of honey between the two hives. I don't know how much that translates into pounds but I hope a lot.

I went to a beekeepers meeting with the Utah County Beekeepers Association today and it sure is nice to have questions answered by people who know what they are talking about. I also picked up some more unassembled honey supers. All I need to do now is just put it all together and paint it and I will have more room for more honey. Oh yeah just a side note on honey, someone at the meeting brought some honey they bought in Yellowstone and it was dark purple in color (that was the natural color). It was huckleberry honey, and it was so so so good. It was like something you would put on your pancakes and lick the plate clean good. I can't wait to taste my own home grown blend. This makes me hungry just thinking about honey :)