A little buzz on Honey Extraction for National Pollinator Week!

Honey Extraction! Happy National Pollinator Week! Here is a little buzz on honey extraction. 1) Make sure honey is capped. This means bees know it's at proper moisture content to extract and will not ferment. Should be roughly 17-18% moisture. 2) take your frames and decide if you will extract wax and honey, just honey or complete pieces of comb . 3) if extracting just honey, shave off the cappings of both sides, put in your extractor and let the extractor do the work using centrifugal force to drain the honey from the comb. You can also use methods without an extractor to drain the honey slowly. 4) if cutting out whole comb, make sure to extract a frame without wire or foundation to cut your comb carefully. 5) you can also extract both wax and honey by cutting out entire comb, putting in a bowl or bucket and straining through cheese cloth or strainer to separate wax and honey. Then you can use wax rendering methods to render the beeswax separate.