Hey all....

I busted out and did a trial harvest of one super on one hive last night to dry-run the effort I hope to share more broadly for our group.

We got about 30lbs of beautiful honey, all from a super that was entirely free-form comb. We're pressing it out using a potato ricer, which is sort of slow but seems to work OK.

The bees were super mellow. We harvested about an hour before dark using a wire to garrote away propolis between boxes, a long knife to trim/cut comb, and a couple of cookie sheets. We used a little smoke, but not much. The super was packed full.

I also peeked into the other hive and it's even more full that the one we harvested. I'm guessing we'll get about 70lbs total this year, leaving three supers on each hive for winter. I may look farther down to see if we can take more, but I'd rather be conservative so long as it doesn't mean leaving the bees too much space to heat.

Hope to catch up with you soon.

Best,

David