My homemade honey extractor failed badly. It turns out that my drill, which I used to spin the frames, is one speed – fast. I should have used a variable speed drill and spun the frames at a slow to medium speed. As it turned out the thin metal that I used twisted up into corkscrew when I tried to spin the frames. Back to the drawing board.
The problem then was that I had 15 frames full of honey that I was going to spin. I uncapped several frames and set it to drain, but the honey doesn’t drain, I think by design. The honey stays in the comb and that has to do with the viscosity of the honey and the size of the comb.
I then scraped off the comb and spent a few hours squeezing honey out of the chunks through cheese cloth. I now have 2-1/2 gallons of honey. That’s 12 bears, 20 baby food jars (as samples for friends), and a couple of mostly filled 64 oz containers.
Getting hands on with the honey this way gets it all over you, your clothes, your hair and everything within 10 feet. I spent an hour cleaning up and there is still puddles of honey out on the driveway where I stored the equipment after I had finished. Even after two hot baths I still feel sticky.
I returned some of the demolished frames to Connie, the hive that I robbed. The rest I have in spare supers. I need to pile these on the other hives so the bees can clean them off.
I have ordered a Honey Sign and more bears. I have to get this stuff out of the house. I ingested quite a bit of honey yesterday and I am feeling a bit queezy.
