About Me

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Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
I am a beekeeper in Vancouver, British Columbia. The bees forage all the way up Stoney Creek by Burnaby Mountain.I am committed to not exposing my bees to chemicals for pest control or a quick fix to their health. I am committed to keeping them without treatment and I am working very hard to make this a success. I prefer my bees to feel like their sister's in the wild and a little bit more comfortable with the care I provide. Enjoy the pictures and follow my beekeeping endeavours.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Biggest day ever for beekeeping- My 1st Honey Harvest

On Aug 15th , I got my very 1st honey harvest. A honey harvest to me felt like passing my driver's licence test at the 1st attempt. I remembered all that nervousness taking that test, lips all getting dried, shaky hands, a bit wobbly on the feet, knowing that not many pass on their 1st try and when the tester says "You have passed!", all that cooped up feeling of joy just bursting out. When the honey started flowing from the extractor into the bucket for filtering, that was my "You have passed!" feeling. Hard to describe but I think this "You have passed!" feeling is quite close. Ok I gotta do the thank yous now. So I would like to thank the bees from Matilda and Bombay for providing 57lbs=25kg of honey. For the 1st year, this amount is excellent. Let me show you the pictures of the harvesting process.


There are 15 frames to harvest in the 2 supers. The stainless steel drum is a 2-frame extractor. So 2 frames get spinned at a time. The spinning was very time consuming. 

Here I am using an uncapping knife which is like a hot iron to melt the wax that the bees had made to seal the honey on the combs. Now for the build up of the "You've passed!" feeling.


Yes still empty. I am just about to turn on the tap. Hold on.....................


Let me show you a video, still pictures doesn't really cut it for the "You've passed!" feeling. .............


Sorry that you had to tilt your head 90degrees to the left to watch the video. I will improve my video taking next time. That golden flow is just gorgeous! Now this video below, I am pouring my 1st bottle of honey.


Then I start putting my orders together.


As a special touch and only for the 1st year, I placed a honey comb in each bottle. Each bottle of honey here is 1kg. The bottle weighs about 0.339kg so thats why the weighing machine shows 1.4kg.




This completes my 1st Honey Harvest. I am sold out of honey for the year. The white pail that was used to store the honey, is empty. Thanks to all who bought my honey. All that support you've shown allows me to carry on what I do best for the bees. On behalf of the bees, hope you enjoyed the honey if you were lucky enough to have got a bottle.

5 comments:

  1. Hey Mathew, that was such a special day for you! I enjoyed being part of it ... and the honey is sooooooo delicious! Ted

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  2. Thanks Ted =) I don't know what I"ll do without your help.

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  3. Well done Robin. What a slick production!

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  4. Well done Rob, that's great. This year I'm going for comb honey. Increasing interest in it and it saves extracting! Should do first robbing in about 2 weeks - looking for spring honey light aromatic lavendar and citrus.
    Chris.

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  5. Thanks Chris! Light aromatic Lavendar and citrus comb honey sounds great. Comb honey definitely reduces time of extraction but most want honey from me. I've got Iranian friends who buy comb honey in bulk. I'm starting to plan what I should do in the coming spring/summer season.

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