Do you know how bees make honey?
It is a fascinating process. Here's how it works from field, to hive to jar....
The bees spend the summer eating nectar from flowers and collecting pollen. They carry the pollen back to the hive by sacs on their legs. The pollen nourishes the bees and is an important part of their diet throughout the year. The nectar carried in the bees’ abdomen is mixed with enzymes and is regurgitated into combs. The combs (holes) are drawn (built) by the bees with wax on the frames inside of the hive.
The bees fill each of these drawn combs with honey. When the bees determine the honey is cured, they cap it with wax. Once the frames are full of capped honey, it’s time to harvest!
The first step in the honey harvest is to separate the bees from the honey. This is accomplished by a bee escape which is a maze-like tool put between the brood box and honey supers. The bee escape allows the bees to easily leave the honey supers but it takes them a few days to figure out how to get back up into the honey box.
The honey super is the different coloured box. Once the bee escapes have been on for a day or two, the honey supers are removed from the hives.
The next step is to get the honey out of the frames. Each frame is loosened and lifted out of the honey super. A heated knife called a de-capping tool is used to remove the wax caps which exposes the honey.
Once the frame has been de-capped, it's placed into the extractor. The extractor is a high powered spinner that removes the honey from the combs.
The honey is then strained and bottled. Our honey is sold as raw, unfiltered honey.
This means we do not heat our honey so it is unaltered in its form and still contains tiny particles of wax, pollen and propolis.
