Florida Beekeeping | Honey Harvesting 101 with Videos

Set up doesn't have to be fancy, just sanitary and bee-free :) We simply use a screen tent.

Go to your hives and put the frames that you will be harvesting in another box using two top boards without holes as the top and bottom. This step is important, so the bees don't rob the honey you plan to extract while you pull your other frames. Doesn't take them long to do that. Turn your back for 10-30 min and you could be looking at empty supers instead of capped honey.

Only pull frames where the honey is completely capped. Only the bees truly know when the honey is ready and the moisture level is around 17-18%. This is when the bees will cap off the comb to prevent the honey from absorbing any additional moisture. If you pull frames that are not capped, that's only nectar and will ferment rather than not spoil like honey.

Make sure to shake off or brush all the bees off the frames and bring the boxes to be extracted to your "honey house" (ours is pictured above).

Step 1 - Decapping

Decapping is the process of puncturing, scraping or removing with a hot knife the wax cap that the bees put on the honey comb cells once the nectar has been dried to perfection and is stored as honey. This is done over a decapping tank, that allows the honey to be separated from the wax you remove. We made our own decapping tank, by using two containers that nest inside another. Drilling holes in the top one to allow the honey to flow to the bottom and putting a honey gate on the bottom container to pour out the honey when you are done.

The caps must be removed from the honey comb before putting it into the honey extractor , which slings the honey out by centrifugal force. The force is not strong enough to open the wax caps, so it needs to be done before the frames are added the honey extractor

Step 2 - Extracting

After you put the frames into your honey extractor, the extractor spins and whips the honey out of the comb. Check your frames after you are done spinning, uncap any areas you may have missed (typically along the top or bottom bars or very low spots) that you missed the first time and spin again.

Step 3 - Straining

As you are spinning the honey, you will open the honey gate valve at the bottom and allow the honey to flow through a double strainer into a 5-gallon bucket or other food safe container. We use a multi-micron straining process to remove any wax, pollen and propolis that we don't want to bottle with the honey. The strainer screens fit right in the top of the buckets, so it makes the process easy.

Step 4 - bottling

After you have strained your honey, you will want to transfer it to a 5-gallon bucket with a honey gate to make bottling quick and easy. Simply hold your honey bottle under the honey gate valve and open slowly for the most control and least mess with filling your honey bottles. Don't forget your labels.