The Golden Harvest

 Yes. That first flow of the golden harvest never ceases to thrill me.

This is the first super from my "New Red Hive" and produced 20lbs honey after spinning the uncapped combs in the (manual) extractor. there's lots more to come.

This batch is already bottled and labelled and sold!  The money goes into my honeypot to be spent on my bees. Well OK. They sometimes insist on buying me a gift as a reward for my caring for them.

The honey is pouring from the extractor through  3 sieves into the honey bucket which has a tap.  It stays there for a few days to settle, and let any air bubbles rise to the surface before bottling.  I put the cappings to drip through a separate sieve - then wash and dry them to melt down into wax for candles.

The whole process is a complete joy - nothing wasted - but plenty of honey left in the bees' winter stores.  QBZzzzzzzzzzzz

 PS  Tomorrow is the varroa count, with decisions to be made, depending on the results!! Watch this space.