Harvesting Honey

I find that if I wear a baseball cap backwards - the bill in back - the head gear will stay on better. The bill anchors it in place. It can be really frustrating without something to anchor the head gear because, since it is zipped to the rest of the bee suit, it moves around a lot and blocks your vision, etc. I used the smoker this time around because the bees went crazy last weekend when I pulled out the supers. It was intense! It seemed to help quite a bit. But I was more prepared this time. I brought a wheelbarrow down with me and put four supers in the wheelbarrow rather than opening up the hive each time I retrieved a super. They are really, really heavy.

A super filled with honey and covered with bees wax.

The bees were not completely finished filling this super above. At the very top you can see what a super looks like when it is new. Then just below that you see compartments that the bees are still filling with honey - they have not covered them with wax yet. Below that, the rest of the super has been completely filled with comb. The other side of the super also is filled with honey. They build comb on both sides.
Above I am scraping the bees wax off the super. When the bees are finished filling a compartment with honey they cover it over with wax. If you try and spin the super without scraping off the wax you will not have much luck. It's pretty tough. Plus it makes a big mess inside the extractor. By way of comparison, have you ever tried to clean up candle wax off a table or some other surface? Not easy. So you want to get rid of as much wax as possible.
Two supers have been placed in the extractor.
This is the honey extractor. There are three wire "holders" inside where you place the supers prior to spinning.
This is a picture of a super after all the honey has been spun out of it. All that is left is bees wax. I scraped as much wax off the supers as I could before I put them back in the hive. The wax rolls off pretty easily once the honey is gone.

My pride and joy - six great big jars of honey. I've no idea what I'm going to do with all that honey. Interesting how dark it is. And it is very thick, like molasses. But it tastes just like honey!