Uncapping Fork or Roller for a Few Frames
If you are extracting a handful of frames rather than a truckload, a heated knife is often more machine than …
Harvest & Extraction
Extractors, uncapping gear, strainers and refractometers, plus when the frames are actually ready to pull.
Two Frame Extractor: Enough for Two or Three Hives?
The two frame extractor is the cheapest way into spinning your own honey, and it is the machine most backyard …
Maxant Honey Extractor Against the Budget Drums
Ask in any beekeeping group which extractor lasts and someone will name Maxant within three replies. Maxant Industries builds honey …
Uncapping Honey Frames Without Wrecking the Comb
Uncapping is the step where a first harvest usually goes wrong. The frames come off the hive looking perfect, the …
How Much Honey a Hive Produces in a Year
It is the first question almost everyone asks before they order bees, and it is the question with the least …
Straining and Bottling Honey Without the Foam
The extractor gets all the attention, and then the honey comes out of the gate full of wax flakes, the …
Honey Refractometer: Checking Moisture Before Bottling
Honey that ferments in the jar is one of the more demoralizing things that can happen to a backyard harvest. …
Honey Jars and Labels: Sizes, Lids and What the Law Wants
The jars are the part of beekeeping that people picture long before they own a hive: rows of them on …
Harvesting Honey Without an Extractor: Crush and Strain
An extractor is the single most expensive thing in a backyard harvest, and in the first year it often sits …
Does Harvesting Honey Hurt the Bees?
It is a fair question, and it gets asked in two very different tones. Sometimes it comes from someone considering …
Bee Escape Board or Fume Board: Clearing the Super
Pulling a honey super sounds simple until you lift it and realize it is full of bees who live there …
When to Harvest Honey: Reading Capped Frames
Harvesting too early is the mistake nobody warns first year beekeepers about, because everything about a heavy super says the …