Beeswax- From cappings to candles

-Posted by Isaac

It's been done again and again. Some bright person finally sees the light and turns the direction of the entire business. They follow the money. 

Not the case with us. We're still stubbornly keeping bees. But it's not like we're turning a blind eye to the possibilities...

How do you make real money in beekeeping?

Just looking around, paying attention to other business trajectories, it's easy to see the path. Very easy. I think I can sum it up in two steps:

1. Quit beekeeping.

2. Make candles.

(Or soaps, salves, lip balms, lotions, etc...)    Have you ever heard of Burt's Bees? Root Candles?

Some bright person finally saw the light. 

Years ago, Jayne requested that we devote at least a small corner of the bottling room to beeswax. That corner continues to grow:

And if we were smart, we'd turn the whole building into candle production. Too bad the Honeyrun beekeeper is still in love with bees.

For this post, I thought I'd show a little of the wax processing. This is the journey the wax travels from cappings to candles. If you'll remember from the last couple weeks during the honey processing, the first step is to remove the wax capping that the bees put on the comb. Once the honey frames go through the uncapper, a slurry of honey and wax builds up in a big hopper underneath.

About once an hour, that slurry is augured up into a wax spinner. The spinner has a big screen that catches the wax and lets the honey flow back down into the sump.

It also drys the wax. Basically it spins all day. At the end of each day, the tacky-dry cappings wax is scraped off the screen and collected in a barrel. 

We start rendering the cappings when the barrel gets too full. Usually this is within a week.

Warning to beekeepers: if you wait a month or more, you'll have beetle larva in your cappings.

As the cappings melt, it separates. The pure golden wax is ladled off the top.

And poured through a bucket filter. This one is 200 micron. 

The molds are then put in a freezer for a day. Or in this case, with the freezers full, the cooler room works.

It's a lot easier to pop those molds out when the wax is cold.

At this point, you've got a solid clean block of beeswax. To turn that wax into candles, it needs remelted. For years we used two small double boilers. Finally last year, some bright person (Jayne) saw the light and we bought a real wax tank.

Jayne caught me dunking.

So we now have a continual supply of liquid wax. When the candle molds are wicked and ready, the wax is simply ladled off the top and poured.

The beeswax side of the business is amazing. And continues to amaze me with each passing year.

Maybe someday this dumb beekeeper will see the light.

Tell me more, Tell me more

-Posted by Isaac

Was it love at first sight?

Last week we talked about summer honey.

It's been a good year. I've been pulling honey for two weeks, going yard to yard, and it will continue for at least one more. While I get all the fun in the sun, Lafe works diligently on the extracting side of things.

And that's what we'll cover in this post- how we get that sweet summer honey out of the comb. In the photo above, you can see our extracting set up. This is a Cowen 60 frame in-line system. A few years ago I went out to South Dakota and bought it used.

We start at the far end. This machine is called the "uncapper," and it does exactly as the name implies- it uncaps. The honeycomb frames are run through heated and vibrating knives which take the wax capping right off.

This slurry of wax and honey then falls into a big hopper. We'll get into that next week when we talk about the wax processing.

For now let's look at all those freshly uncapped and dripping frames of honey. The reason the wax capping has to come off is because they'll soon be spinning at high speed inside the extractor. Lafe will uncap 60 frames and they'll slowly move along a conveyor toward the extractor. This takes ten to fifteen minutes, during which time the extractor is still spinning the previous load.

Once the big trough is full (holds about 70 frames total), it's out with the old and in with the new.

The hinged door of the extractor comes down and the spinning begins. (Shown in a video on last week's post.) It's centripetal force that causes the honey to fly out of the honeycomb cells.

The spun frames from the previous load go back into the supers and either make it back on a hive or go on the trailer.

About twice a week our home bees get a nice snack. 

All the honey that came out of those spinning frames now flows to the bottom of the extractor, then on out into a forty gallon sump. Gravity does the job, as the sump is the lowest point in the extraction process. From there we need a honey pump. As the sump fills, a float kicks a switch, and the honey is pumped from the lowest point up to the highest.

This is our big bulk tank in the far back corner of the room. It holds 500 gallons. On a good day (When Lafe decides to work eight hours.) we'll fill that tank to about three quarters.

An overfill of the bulk tank is a really bad thing. This means that almost daily we're filling buckets or barrels. 

As always, moisture is a concern.

As long as it's dry enough, the great thing about honey is that once it's produced and stored, it's good forever. We could bottle it tomorrow, or we could wait a thousand years. Makes no difference. I think about this especially now, during produce season when my poor sister has to move about 20,000 tomatoes within just a couple weeks. Poor Becky. Should've taken up beekeeping when she had the chance.

Next week we'll look at the wax processing side of things.

Summer Honey 2018

-Posted by Isaac

Well, we couldn't play around forever. There's work to do. Although I'm reminded of Montana continually. Yesterday I was in a bee yard and came across this:

Four years ago we paid a visit to this honey company in the far north. It was about the most beautiful setting you've ever seen. Beehives on the vast prairie, a blanket of flowers, yellow and purple, the rising wall of the Rocky Mountains just to the west... I love to reminisce.

So the honey season is in full swing back here in Ohio. Just a minute ago Jayne was leaving for market, saw what I was doing and asked if this was a "happy" blog.

Of course it's a happy blog! We're in the honey!

Here's a little video she put on Instagram yesterday-

Lafe spends his August days in the extractor room, I spend mine in the bees.

Because the summer honey pulling / extracting process takes about three weeks, I think I'll deliver the good news in three segments. Starting with the outside work.

Out in the yards, most of the hives have one to three supers caked full of honey. Forty pounders! These have to come off and be loaded on the truck.

It's a process. Usually takes about an hour per yard. But it's not just about the honey. Half the time is spent lifting brood boxes, treating for mites, feeding protein. Basically taking care of bees. 

It won't be long until the protein isn't necessary. I see the bright ragweed pollen is just starting to come in. Goldenrod is just around the corner!

Speaking of goldenrod, when I leave a yard it looks like the picture below- one (empty) super left on in hopes of collecting that rich fall honey. 

They'll be using those grain bins eventually... honey harvest beats grain harvest by two months.

When the supers get back to the honey house, they're immediately put in the drying room. 

We can fit about 150 supers in this room full of fans and heaters and dehumidifies. 

This isn't something we had to worry about in Montana, but here in Ohio with our humidity, honey moisture is a major concern.

Depending on how fast Lafe is moving with the extraction, they'll usually sit and dry for 12 hours or more. 17% moisture is perfect. The bees know when fermentation is no longer a danger, and they'll cover the cell with a wax capping. Anything that's not capped could potentially draw moisture.

We have scrupulous inspectors every step of the way.

Next week we'll talk about the extracting. Starting with the removal of the wax capping that the bees worked so hard to build.

We found it.

-Posted by Isaac

This past week we found Montana.

The Montana we know- mountains and trails, bees and trees.

We're in love with this state.

We love it, and we miss it, and we get back any time we can.

Big Sky Country!

The mountains, the forests, the rivers, the water, the snow, the air, the people, the wildlife. All magical. All lovely.

And love was certainly in the air on this trip.

So was music.

Jayne was quickly in her element at the Red Ants Pants Festival. This was in White Sulfur Springs, a summer music festival that attracts thousands. One of the headliner bands was her latest favorite- Shovels and Rope.

I kind of think the whole trip was planned around seeing these guys. Jayne has been a Shovels and Rope groupie of late. And I'm happy to tag along. Next stop, West Virginia.

But we'll say we did it for our kids. This trip, I mean. We'll say that we planned it specifically for them to experience the wonderful west. And to get them off those damn devices for a while.

We dumped the youngest two on Grandma and brought the oldest, Mason, 10 and Maizy, 8.

We thought they were old enough to handle some real hiking.

And real camping.

As you can see, they're slackers.

So Mama led the way.

We hiked just about every day, camped just about every night. Each morning, I'd take a run and almost always come across some beehives.

Sometimes it was worth coming back for a photo.

As you may know, beekeeping is an industry out there. And as you may also know, I worked in the industry for about a year. 

In fact, I got so excited seeing a commercial bee truck rumble by, we stalked the guy several miles until he pulled in to the extracting facility.

By this point, Maizy was so mortified that I was planning to jump out and talk bees, we decided that we'd just pass on by and leave them to their work.

But we still kept finding the same company's bee yards scattered throughout that beautiful country. Worth at least another picture.

It was obviously a big operation. Surely multi-thousands of hives.

When I worked in the Bitterroot Valley for Wayne Morris, we had a smallish operation- around 5000 hives. This was in 2005.

While I labored away in the bees, Jayne was getting her masters just north in Missoula. 

We of course had to pay the university a visit and show the kids. We secretly hope we have some future Griz in the litter.

But we didn't linger. The mountains and trails of Glacier Park were calling. I have to say, the kids handled it as well as could be expected. One day was a twelve miler. Not bad for an eight year old.

Mountain hiking wasn't the only thing on the menu. A couple days after that monster hike, we were scrambling up to some hidden hot springs. 

Perched high and dry in the hills, these springs were a favorite of ours in 2005. It was romantic... a bottle of wine and a tent. 

Bringing two kids has a way of dulling the romance, but it also presents an opportunity to discuss Rocky Mountain geology and the bedrock configuration that leads to these geothermal processes. Maizy was spellbound. 

Not to mention the opportunity for a geothermal selfie. (Not bad for a 38 year old.)

Food Deserts

-Posted by Isaac

Well, the rains came back, didn't they?

 Farmers are loving it. And so are the ducks.

But bees and beekeepers, not so much. The nectar flow has basically ended in our little corner of the world.

But that's ok... the three weeks previous have been fantastic. 

Remember the wonderfully uncomfortable first week of July? 95 degrees and bright sun? The bees were packing it in.

Some did better than others.

My favorite quarterly publication came yesterday.

Toward the back, I read an article where the author was calculating the unimaginable number of flowers it takes to produce a honey crop. And he also stated that after June, the Ohio honey flows were virtually over. That bees have nothing but the "food deserts" of corn and soybeans.

Hmmm...

We must have magic bees.

If you had already taken off the spring honey, you easily recognize that all this magic happened within a heat-soaked span of about three weeks- late June to mid July. Our little wizards were busy. 

Really busy.

Where did all this honey come from? Magic? Hmm...

It was a forgivable offense. Most wouldn't know. Not everyone harvests honey three times a year. One of which- the summer harvest- coming from a "food desert." 

If the conditions are right, soybeans can be awesome. And this year they were.

But maybe only for nectar? As far as pollen is concerned, the summer really is a food desert. And pollen is the most important part of the bees' diet. So we combat this problem with a little pollen substitute. I completed round one this week.

It's not an easy job. You have to lift all those supers off, split the brood boxes...

...and give the bees a nice dollop of protein right where they need it. But not too much... if you put much over two pounds, more than the bees can finish in a week or so, you are basically just feeding hive beetles with the remainder.

Then everything gets put back together, and it's on to the next hive. Everybody will get five or six pounds of protein between now and mid September when the goldenrod starts. It's hard work to combat a food desert.

But you pace yourself. I can knock out about five yards over a six hour day. That means every hive gets a shot of protein every two weeks. And not long weeks. Thirty hours of feeding bees leaves plenty of extra time for hiking. Or just sitting and thinking.

Maybe there really is some magic in beekeeping.