the sweetness

This weekend Art pulled a couple of frames from his hives to extract some honey. Step one is to carefully cut the caps off the cells. These are the wax lids the bees put on to keep the honey in. By doing this the bees will be able to reuse this frame without having to start from scratch. 

Here you can see where he's cut a section from the top.

After he finished that side he left it overnight to drain. This morning I had to decapitate the other side and flip it over. I also squeezed all the honey out of the caps I cut off as well. 

As you might imagine, using gravity to do the work takes FOREVER. So far there's 1.5 cups in the beaker, but there has got to be at least twice that still left in the combs. The impatient part of me wants to just attack it and squeeze it all out. Which is probably why it's a good thing my husband is the beekeeper and not me. 

I have to say, I find it really exciting to be collecting eggs and honey and veggies from my own little homestead. Every time I see an egg in Henrietta's nest it's like a little gift she's left just for me. Every time I eat a sun-warmed tomato from my garden I feel joy bubbling up inside me. Scraping honey out of a honeycomb leaves me with a sense of wonderful rightness.

Even though there are pests and nematodes and chicken poop and stings the fact remains that this is the life I've wanted for ever, and I feel so blessed by God that I am able to live it now. And that's sweeter than 1.5 cups of honey. :)