First Time

[BeeHopper]

All of us has been there, and for the first time in my life, I have extracted honey, 12 lbs. of honey that is. It is not much, but it's my 12 lbs. that my little girls collected for me ( actually I stole it from them, don't we all ? ) It came from one hive.  I cannot describe the taste, but close to the clover variety. How was your first time ??  :-D

[yoderski]

New Beek here as well, and when we extracted our honey for the first time in June, it was without a doubt the best honey I had tasted in my life.  I don't know if it was being the first time or not, but I had never had honey in my life like that--maybe because i had never had any fresh extracted honey before....

[Finsky]

How was your first time ??  :-D

It took me over 3 years and I did not get not anything. My first bees were "Native Black Crossbreeded Germany". Just awfull.

[beemaster]

Beehopper:

A truly momentous moment we all remember - congratulations.

I had been 15 and had two hives, one new and one old (a gift from my mentor) and the hive I got from him was all but empty of honey, so anything that came out was from MY VERY OWN BEES :)

I had inspected weekly, saw comb grow out and fill up with brood and food and even saw my first eggs - what a great year for a kid, sort of on his own but a beekeeper - in hindsight, wouldn't an Internet, a really cool Beekeeping Forum and a bunch of friend like we have here been nice back then. (imagine a world without the Internet - just think Teens today know of no world without an Internet)

And finally the day came, I took a spoon to the hive with me, waiting for Fall extracting wasn't gonna to happen, not when a spoon WOULD do - lol. I pulled a frame out and from one corner I scooped up a huge scoop of comb and honey and after delighting it it, went back for seconds.

That years I netted about the same as you, a small amount to take, but a lot to leave for the bees. I started a theory a long time ago that keeping more honey for the bees is better than taking too much. Even today, I fight off the coworkers asking for their pints and quarts, and just grab enough for my wife who uses it to bake all Winter (substituting honey for sugar is great, you only need adjust the water content) and everything else is for the bees who I hope to survive these unpredictable New Jersey Winters.

Hope my little tale (not exactly a Charlie Brown Christmas) was enjoyable :)

[BeeHopper]

Beehopper:

A truly momentous moment we all remember - congratulations.

I had been 15 and had two hives, one new and one old (a gift from my mentor) and the hive I got from him was all but empty of honey, so anything that came out was from MY VERY OWN BEES :)

I had inspected weekly, saw comb grow out and fill up with brood and food and even saw my first eggs - what a great year for a kid, sort of on his own but a beekeeper - in hindsight, wouldn't an Internet, a really cool Beekeeping Forum and a bunch of friend like we have here been nice back then. (imagine a world without the Internet - just think Teens today know of no world without an Internet)

And finally the day came, I took a spoon to the hive with me, waiting for Fall extracting wasn't gonna to happen, not when a spoon WOULD do - lol. I pulled a frame out and from one corner I scooped up a huge scoop of comb and honey and after delighting it it, went back for seconds.

That years I netted about the same as you, a small amount to take, but a lot to leave for the bees. I started a theory a long time ago that keeping more honey for the bees is better than taking too much. Even today, I fight off the coworkers asking for their pints and quarts, and just grab enough for my wife who uses it to bake all Winter (substituting honey for sugar is great, you only need adjust the water content) and everything else is for the bees who I hope to survive these unpredictable New Jersey Winters.

Hope my little tale (not exactly a Charlie Brown Christmas) was enjoyable :)

Good Tale and Thanks  ;)

[Cindi]

Ah, so nice to hear about the honey harvest from us that are just in the beginning of learning how to harvest and keep bees.  I am in my second year and my first year I did get about 2 gallons, now that equates to 11.8 pounds per gallon, correct me if I am wrong, so I think that I got about 23 pounds.  It was the most wonderful thing to have even the smidgeon of honey that we got.  Now this year, I feel that I was very fortunate to get I think about 200 pounds.  I don't know if I am exagerating, but I think that is what we will get. 

This is a picture of my honey harvest this year.  I still am not aware actually how much all this honey amounted to.  I will probably have a pretty good idea sooner or later.  The honey is not a light honey, the obvious, but not as dark as it appears.  The plastic makes it appear darker than it actually is.  It has a very nice taste and my family loves it.  It was fun doing this honey extraction and all that goes with it.  My containers probably look a little odd, but they all work.  The blue clothespegs are perfect for holding the screening in place to drip the cappings.  When I extracted the honey I used a cheesecloth product that I bought from Canadian Tire.  This product was some sort of cheesecloth, but it was in the form of a long narrow tube.  It was in the hunting section of the store.  It worked great because I just pulled it over the honey gate and allowed the honey to strain through this.  I guess the hunters put their game in these bags (they do stretch quite large if required).  I hung the cheesecloth straining  bag on the side of the tall pail after the honey was strained, using these blue clothespegs to hold it in place and let it drip, it almost dripped dry and I had very clean honey.  Simple methods, probably will find many better and certainly more efficient methods the more experience I gain with my hobby.  Now I am doing more research on easy ways with how to get the wax separated from the cappings and debris, but I am well on the way, went to a good site which I got off the forum called "beekeepers voice".  good stuff in there, thanks Brian, nice writing and some great reading stuff.  Great day.  Cindi

[jdesq]

Cindi,  You are a daring soul to have all that honey on your carpeting!

[kensfarm]

Nice picture Cindy.. this is my first year too.  Though I've been eating honey off the frame almost every day..  I haven't done the crush and strain yet.  I still have 1 full Med. Super & one 5 frame nuc all filled w/ honey frames.. thought I'd save them until I knew the bee's would have enough stores.  I've put all the frames through the freezer because it doesn't take long for those wax moths to start.  

I have several different honey colors.. some are crystal clear.. some amber.. some really dark.. and the last set from the golden rod flow.  I've enjoyed how many different flavors of honey the bee's make.. from blueberry to carmel flavours.  I have a frame sitting in a biscuit pan.. w/ a spoon ready to go..  I just scoop from the frame.. wax, pollen, & all.  

[Cindi]

Oh man, I love to take a spoon of honey with all the wax included.  It is almost like chewing on gum.  I am so grateful that I have chosen to get into beekeeping, there has been nothing but happiness that comes with these little creatures (except of course when they may get sick or be inflected with a vermin).  I think that any person that keeps bees should never look back and always thank their lucky stars that they have these beauties to accompany them in their life.  great day. Cindi

[leominsterbeeman]

My first time was a disapointment:  I got a late start with a hive and the season was one of the worst ones ever for Massachusetts.  My second time was better than the first.

[Scadsobees]

My first was Goldenrod honey.  Sure, it smelled like dirty socks, but it was the best golden sweet dirty-sock smelling honey I've ever had!!!!

Nothing beats the first spring taste of fresh broken comb in the hive.

[Cindi]

How was your first time ??  :-D

It took me over 3 years and I did not get not anything. My first bees were "Native Black Crossbreeded Germany". Just awfull.

Finsky, I was going to comment yesterday, but got busy.  You have incredible diligence with wanting to keep bees.  Taking three years to obtain any honey is what I would say an enormous amount of patience.  You must enjoy what you do.  Speak about the "Native Black Crossbreeded Germany", tell about those bees, why did you say "just awful", did they have a really highly protective instinct and they were hard to work with.  I love to hear about bees and their different temperaments.

the swarm that I caught the first year of my beekeeping, if I did not have other colonies to compare it with, I may have been turned off beekeeping.  This swarm hive was pretty big I would say, it was very strong and very very angry.  All that summer I was very apprehensive when I went to any work with this colony.  Even the moment that I went near the hive, there was an energy that was frightful.  Bees darting at me, I always wore full protection, even on my hands, which I never do, I was taught to go barehanded and still do to this day.  Anyways, even after smoke, when the inner cover was lifted off this old swarm, the bees were mad, it was so strange to have this kind of protectiveness set on me, the other hives were honestly, so gentle, and never rarely even minded me go into their homes and doing "stuff".  Anyways to make a very long story short, after this swarm swarmed, (I couldn't catch it, up to high in some tree somewhere),I requeened the hive this year and it helped quite a bit, but they still we a little more difficult to handle than the others.  It is dead now.  The varroa mite brought it down.  Oh well, I'll buy a couple more packages next year, they will be Carniolan.  Great day. Cindi