Nectar of the Gods... er Russians

Not too long ago we made a plan 'ol trip to the hive to add a queen excluder. Lo and Behold, the Russians had been busy filling foundation-less frames with some CRAZY comb. Normally bees will build comb into frames so that each frame slides out easily but this time around my gals had built comb that took up two or three frames at a time making frames impossible to remove. To make matters a bit more sticky, the comb was full of sweet, oozing uncapped honey. In order to remedy this we had to remove the entire super of golden awesomeness. Dirty Feet, my usual buzzy photographer, had to help me by holding out giant bags to fill with frames and comb and helping sweep the baby girls off their precious nectar. What does a girl do with 40 pounds of uncapped honey and beeswax??? I thought you might ask...

The wax comb is pulled from the frame then crushed so the honey comes out.  You can wait for it to drain but it's a bit more fun to get your hands all gooey and takes a lot less time. You put the smashed wax in a colander to drain the rest of the way. After the wax is drained you can rinse it with warm water and store it to make candles, lip balm, and other products later on.

You're left with oodles of golden goodness that contains flakes of wax. Quite delectable but those chewy chucks can be annoying.

You then filter it, I chose double filtration... I like to leave some nature in my nectar.

Then you pour your filtered Russian awesomess into jars of your choosing for later use.

That's not bee pee folks, that's a great start to the 2012 bee season. Two pints of some very interesting tasting stuff. We had quite a bit more but decided it would be best fed to the gals as a treat. While it's not technically honey yet, it still won't ever spoil and is great for making mead, baking,  or just sticking a spoon in. It's very sweet with a mild plantlike/cloveresque flavor to it. Come by The Hippie House today and get your fingers in our honey pots. Then you can comment and tell everyone how you would describe the taste!

Along the way we had one casualty, I accidentally crushed one of my gals and she exacted her revenge swiftly. RIP worker number 14,261. We'll miss you. 

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