Extracting in the comfort of the Dower House...

One of the problems of a cold house is that honey doesn’t flow once summer is over. As extraction time is generally in the autumn it means I either have to be quick or leave the supers on the hive until spring. This year I was late taking the supers off and ended up with them in the house. A problem with my manual extractor meant it was taking half an hour to extract four frames and even then a fair bit of honey was still in the cells. It seems the basket needs to be lifted slightly so the cogs connect but until I can get it taken apart and checked, I have had to stop extracting.

Record breaking cold weather in December didn’t help either, so the honey has sat in the front room since it came off the hive. Thankfully, as a member of Manchester & District Beekeepers Association I have access to a pretty good set of equipment in a good-sized, purpose-built room in Heaton Park. They have everything there: a warming room, uncapping tank, electric extractor, various filters, and big sinks. So last week we popped down and left our four remaining supers in the warming room so when we went back this week they’d be easier to extract.

Two hours sounds like plenty of time but when you have to cut the cappings off each frame, a total of twenty, then load the extractor, spin for ten minutes, empty and repeat, then time disappears. Cleaning everything afterwards took over an hour so we were over time by the time we’d finished. But it was worth the sweating to get it all done. Due to a memory lapse, where I didn’t record how much was extracted from the first super of the year, the official amount of honey we recorded from last year is probably a few pounds lower than the actual amount, but at 170lbs (that’s 78kgs in new money) I think that’s not a bad season’s harvest for only two hives.

I am glad now I bought a gross and a half of jars, so at least we have somewhere to put it. All I have to do now is jar it up before it sets, otherwise we’ll be eating it out of a bucket.