Take honey from a beehive

“Then I went outside and smoked my beehive entrance. From the upper honey super I chose one medium frame that looked full of capped honey on both sides, and shook off the bees. I gave a couple puffs of smoke and lightly brushed bees off and set that frame in a box with a lid. Moving the box near my house, I opened it and swept off the last few stubborn bees, before bringing the frame into the house and set it in the plastic tub. After carefully cutting the comb out of the frame, I crushed it, or began mashing it. Once it was all mashed together, I poured the mix into cheesecloth that was sitting in a colander on top of the stainless-steel pot. I would press the mash down and add to it, until finally all the crushed comb and honey was in the cheesecloth in the colander. As the dripping honey slowed down, I pulled up the sides of the cheesecloth and squeezed the sticky wax into a ball. In the end, I collected 50 ounces of honey (in two jars). Amazing, right?? This was the most exciting thing I had done in a long time! There was something extremely satisfying about collecting honey similar to the way it had been done for thousands of years.”

“Just wanted to share some photos & videos from this weekends harvest, my first go! All went well & now I have a big bucket 3/4 of delicious raw pure unadulterated honey to share with my friends & family. It was a nice mild day, I started the harvest at 9AM, did 2 frames at a time, let the frames drain for 3 hours before moving onto the next 2. The bees werent very active, I think they were all staying inside where it was warm. A far cry from the day before where it got to 44 degrees C!”

“July 15 was one of the most exciting days I’ve experienced in my short time as co-beekeeper for the USDA People’s Garden. It was hot, humid, and hazy that morning, when I—together with seven partners and volunteers—went up to the roof of the USDA headquarters building, just off the National Mall, to harvest the first batch of honey ever produced by the USDA People’s Garden beehive. Our aim was to get the honey out of the hive as quickly as possible without agitating the bees, while also making sure none of us overheated in our bee suits—it was July in Washington, D.C., after all!”