Homestead Handbook Beginning with Honeybees

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In a rural area, choose a site that has some ventilation (no muggy frost pockets, but no windy hilltops, either). Ideally, it should be exposed to the sun in the morning (to get the bees going) but shaded in the afternoon (so they can spend less energy cooling). Also, put your first hives where you can observe them often and easily — you'll learn and enjoy a lot more that way.

How much time does beekeeping take?
Once you know what you're doing, you can maintain a few healthy, established hives in just a few hours a year. (Or you can be smitten with a severe case of bee fever and spend every spare minute in your beeyard!) The busiest times are spring, when you try to make sure your hive is strong but not about to swarm, and harvest, which takes place at the end of your area's main honeyflows. Other than those, an occasional inspection or trip to add more supers should be just about all that's needed.

How do you harvest honey?
To get it away from the bees, you can just brush them off each frame you're after. (Try it — it works!) A soft, no-animal-hair brush — like an artist's drafting brush — is best.

At the hobby level, the best way to go is to set a bee escape (a dandy one-way exit that you can put in the oval hole of the inner cover) under the supers you want to harvest, go away for a day or two, and then come back to an almost completely bee-free harvest. (Two cautions: Tape any cracks above the escape, or other bees may well harvest the honey before you do. And bee escapes don't work well in real hot weather.)

Commercial beekeepers use blower guns or chemical repellants to evict bees from supers. Don't bother.

But how do you get the honey out of the frames?
Oh, that's what you were asking! There are two ways to do that: Either cut the honey out in comb chunks with a pocketknife or cut just the caps off all the sealed cells and spin the liquid honey out in a special centrifuge called a honey extractor. Extractors do increase yields because they leave the honey cells intact. But they also cost $170 and up: more than the rest of your start-up expenses put together! So don't start out with one. (MOTHER ran plans for an inexpensive homemade model in issue 68, page 170. I'll vouch that it works great, because I "retest" it every summer!)

Instead, just cut comb sections out with a sharp knife, and carve off thin slivers of those to spread on toast, biscuits, and pancakes. This is the most delicious way to enjoy honey. If you want some liquid-with-no-beeswax honey too, cut the comb out; "pop" all the cells with a kraut chopper, hand-held egg beater, or something similar; and set the squashings up in a sieve to drain out your harvest. Heat and cool the remaining glob in a double boiler, and it will separate into solid wax (which you can use or sell) and some additional honey.

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