The following is part two of a three part series I wrote for The Mother Hive last summer (2016), with a few updates and links. I hope you enjoy this behind the scenes look into beekeeping. If you are looking for honey or garden products feel free to check out my page at Good Karma Honey & Apothecary.
So it's time to harvest but do not have the funds for an extractor? Does the idea of hauling your supers somewhere to extract them sound like insanity? Well, it did for me. So I decided to use crush and strain. Crush and strain is a bit more labor but I really do not think it is THAT much more.
First I want to say, there are many different ways you can do this. I am going to share with you what I did and you can decide how you want to adjust it to fit your needs.
Location: I would recommend you choose a place that is REALLY warm.
I decided to do all my crush and strain in my greenhouse type garden shed. It gets very hot in there and is closed off from the bees so I will not be bothered. I know many who do it in their garage or even in their kitchen. It is messy work so be prepared for a mess. I thoroughly cleaned the area and put down clean cardboard on all surfaces for easy clean up afterwards. This setup worked wonders for me. The biggest factor was temperature. If it was below 90 degrees the honey did not strain. It worked best for me to harvest ten frames early in the day and let it strain as it heated up. As long as it was above 90 degrees the honey flowed very quickly and easily.
Tools: I used a 5 gallon bucket with a honey gate, a bucket strainer, scraper and a jig I made to hold the frames.
To scrape I found it worked best to use a square spatula. I tried with a round wooden ones but it could not get the comb from the corners. I found a square wooden one I really liked at Target for cheap.
I made a little wooden jig to hold my frames over my bucket while I scraped the comb. It is a simple piece of wood where I cut grooves so it would fit on the top of my buckets without sliding. I put a screw in it pointing upwards to hold the frame while I scraped.
I used a 5 gallon bucket with a honey gate to strain the honey into and to also dispense my honey into jars once I was done. I placed the bucket strainer on the top, then my wooden jig. I would stand a frame on end and scrape it into the strainer. Flip it around the scrape the other side. I could fit about 5 frames of honey in each strainer. I used two buckets and would do ten frames a day. Then I would bring the frames back to the bees to have them clean them and take ten more. It took me about two weeks to get it all done this way. There were a few days where the weather was not warm enough which slowed things down. It may be wise to have more buckets so I can take advantage of the warmer weather when it is here.
Some additional things I learned from doing this...
1. It is best to wait to bottle your honey until you are done. If you have some frames that are not completely capped they can mix with the capped honey to still ensure your moisture content is within limits. I had a refractometer to check the moisture content.
2. To get the maximum honey out of your combs you should squeeze it out when you think it is done straining. There is still a lot of honey in there. I know I missed a lot of honey in the first 30 or so frames because I did not try squeezing until my last harvest and was surprised at what came out!
3. Because I had multiple buckets of honey I was able to really see the difference in honey that the bees collected over the season. The supers from the end of the summer were darker.
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