Fall honey harvest

My single hive this year was very productive. The colony has expanded greatly and I know I will have to split it next Spring.  I inspected the hive and determined that I could safely remove 4 full bars of comb.

Comb in hive

I removed the oldest combs ( the ones that were the darkest).  Each time a bee larva forms a pupa within the cell, it leaves behind a very thin cocoon shell in the cell.  The worker bees clean out the cell for the next larva but don’t remove the cocoon.  After a while, the combs get darker and darker as the shells build up and it’s good practice to remove them as not only do they make the cell smaller, they can contain small amounts of toxins and harmful organisms that the bees have brought into the hive and can create problems.

Comb and sieve

I then cut the comb off the bar and crushed the comb into a sieve. Leaving the comb overnight allowed the honey to drip through, leaving the wax and debris behind.  The next day I poured the honey into the jars.  I then melted the wax in a separate pot and poured it through a fine sieve lined with cheesecloth. The result was a clean block of wax.

Crushing the comb

From all of this I collected over 9 pounds of honey and ¾ pound of wax.  Success!  Thanks to the hard working honeybees I have a nice supply of honey to eat and share with friends and family and the bees have plenty of honey to last them through the winter.

Honey jars & wax