Harvesting Gold

The girls provided for us this year.

Of course when I say ‘girls’ I mean the honey bees I have the pleasure of exisiting alongside as a beekeeper. If you don’ follow along on social media then perhaps you are a bit confused. I’ll fill you in quickly. June of 2024 I decided to become a beekeeper, zero experience, very little how-to knowledge with a level one beekeeping course under my belt (taken only 10 years pervious…) but a huge love of pollinators of all kinds. Queue the scramble to set up a hive. Year 1: they did not thrive, we had some issues and we had to re-queen. We wintered them the best we could and crossed our fingers, toes, eyes they’d survive despite a smaller number than was optimal…

And then, SPRING! There they were, on a warm March day buzzing about outside. The elation! They did it! The little hive that could.

Fast forward through spring and a very nice (but rainy July) to August and all of a sudden a 2 box hive is 6 and 3 of those are FULL of honey.

Now I get to figure out how to harvest. I won’t bore you with all the minutiae of the process (unless you want to know, email and tell me and I’ll happily add an addendum).

After uncapping 30 frames of honey filled comb, in a very hot and sweaty garage we had ~8 gallons of raw honey. Like…WHAT!!??

I am in awe of these mighty little beings everyday. I give thanks to them, for now I get to gift my family and my friends with something beautiful and wonderful created by nature.

Am I romanticizing life a bit? Sure, but why not when it’s so magical.

Look for the glimmers my friends. I bet you’ll find some.

Xo

Renée and ‘Florence & the Machine’ (the hive)

Note. 6

Note. 5