More honey

Although all the honey has been jarred and auctioned off, I had two sacks full of wax cappings mixed with honey from my honey extraction. It is possible to extract this honey, though it is generally said not to be of the same quality as the 'normal' honey directly from the frames. I guess this is because it might have more wax particles in it. However, that honey, I thought, should be ideal to make some other honey products.

I had been saving this honey to extract at some point when all the fuss has died down when I would also have some time to devote to making whatever products I fancied.

So, over the winter, I first of all extracted the honey. This basically meant hanging the plastic bags with the cappings and honey into a fine meshed bag, cutting the plastic bag and letting the honey drip through the muslin. This was a slow process, each bag taking a whole day to trickle through, but it did yield a bit of honey that I was able to use for other purposes (of which later). There is still some honey with the wax and the next step is to purify the wax so this can be used to make polish, candles or whatnot.

Even though the bees are resting, I'm not! But I'm not complaining: this is all fun and I'm working nowhere near as hard as the bees did throughout the summer. They deserve their rest.