My parents scraping excess wax off frames
Here in rural Indiana, we raise chickens for eggs, and we trade our eggs for delicious amber honey from my parents’ bees (we live next door to my parents).
Honey extractor
Technology can be good: my parents recently got a honey extractor that works as a centrifuge on the wax frames. Before, the process of extracting honey involved scraping the honey and wax off the frames (then straining the honey from the wax, which could be used to make candles, etc.), which meant the bees had to spend the rest of the fall rebuilding the combs on their frames for their winter hibernation. Now, we get the honey (even multiple harvests), and the bees’ homes remain intact! Everybody wins. In past harsh winters, we always held our breath to see if the bees made it. Even though Dad usually left them with 50 pounds of their own honey, he used to bring them sugar water in the early spring. Now, without frames to reconstruct, the bees have time to build up more of their own honey reserves for winter hibernation, so they can be nice and fat when it’s cold out.
Frames loaded into extractor. Dad has several hives, so they filled it to the brim.
A bonus in 2019: Mom and Dad put their front acres in a pollinator habitat, which meant the honeybees were feeding off different flora than usual. They didn’t know if there would be an issue with competing pollinators, but it seems okay.
Here’s some video of the thing at work. And in case you’re curious, I interview my parents about how they know what honey comes from what flowers. It all makes sense.