1st harvest of the year!

In honor of my good friend Sara, I harvested some honey on the day of her wedding. This way she could always have the taste of the day that she said "I do" to the fabulous Pat.

The harvest was small, but mighty. About 4 bars of comb were ready to be harvested. That means that at least 90% of the honeycomb were capped. If I harvest the honey before most of it is capped, then the honey can ferment.

When bees make honey, the forager bees collect nectar from flowers and store it in their honey stomach. At the hive, they give it to the house bees who "chew" it for about half an hour and add enzymes to break the nectar into simple sugars. The house bees then pack the nectar into honeycomb and then fan the nectar to evaporate out most of the water. When the honey has about 18% water, then the bees plug the comb with a cap of wax.

In top bar hives, you cut the entire comb off of the top bar.

 Then you smoosh it.

And Crush it, and tear it above a colander.

Then you lick of the top bar with a toddler.

Then you precariously stack everything on top of a bowl.

Then it oozes.

 And goozes.

 YUM