Henny Penny Farmette

Honey is the liquid gold that we harvest from our backyard honeybee hives. Until recently, I had to take frames out of the hives, open the cap cells, and drain the honey through a strainer into a bucket.

This electric honey extractor holds four frames of the liquid gold

Just before Mother’s Day, my hubby purchased an electric honey extractor. He set it up in the kitchen. This weekend, we plan to open the hives and harvest some frames, giving our new machine a test run.

A hand-cranked or electric honey extractor makes it much easier to get honey out of the wooden frames. After the capped cells are opened with a hot knife, the frame goes into the machine. It spins honey against the cylinder walls and the sweet liquid then drains out the spigot.

A frame of honey from the hive

I use a fabric paint strainer taped over a five-gallon honey bucket (also with a spigot) to filter the honey and fill the jars. The jar of liquid gold is then labeled and ready to distribute to customers and friends.

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If you like reading about keeping bees and chickens, harvesting honey, and creating delicious recipes, check out my novels in the Henny Penny Farmette series.  Besides offering an intriguing cozy mystery, these books are chocked full of farm sayings, tips for gardening, yummy recipes, and much more.

My novels are published by Kensington Publishing and are available through online stores of Barnes & Noble, Amazon.com, Walmart, Kobo and conventional bookstores everywhere.

A BEELINE TO MURDER is the debut novel and THE MURDER OF A QUEEN BEE is the second  book in the Henny Penny Farmette series from Kensington Publishing.

My five-gallon honey bucket with the spigot makes it easy for me to fill up a jar of honey for friends or family. For easy access, I keep it on a round table in the kitchen.

A single frame produces eight 16-ounce jars of honey

Yesterday morning, I went to refill our own empty jar and noticed ants on the exterior of the bucket. It has a lid on it, but not too tight-fitting, so I held my breath and pulled off the lid.

Removing the lid, I found the ants had infiltrated it and hundreds floated in the honey. Imagine my dismay.

I consulted with my beekeeper neighbor about what to do with the now-unusable honey. Much to my surprise, he said save it. He told me to put it in the freezer (the one specifically used to freeze frames and therefore kill any pests we can’t see on the wax before returning those frames to the hives). So the bucket with the ants went into the freezer I keep on the patio.

My neighbor says the ants will die. The bees can then eat that honey when there isn’t enough pollen around, for example, during the winter. It’s a win-win . . . except for the ants.