Honey!

Bees 'bearding' in early Spring 2013

This past few weeks Dave has been bringing the honey supers into the house to store until he extracted the honey. He worked on making another extractor and I must say this one worked much better than the last one he made. It was faster and held more frames. Good for him!

He managed to extract all the frames over the weekend and spent the last couple of days bottling it up. His bees worked hard this season and for losing 7 out of 10 hives over the winter and having to build back up to 10 good hives, they did well. They managed to give us 20 gallons of honey this year! Not bad for 10 hives, some just starting out.

I am amazed at how much time and effort goes into beekeeping. Dave puts a lot of care into his bees. Over the coming year he hopes to be able to afford some more equipment that will make extracting more efficient time wise. Maybe even start a few more hives.

Speaking of efficiency and good time management (ahem)... I spent the last 3 days trying ever so hard to come up with home made labels for the honey jars. Thank God for Lydia...she has much knowledge on how to use these computer programs. I can do a lot, but she just blips through things, even if she's never used the program before. Ahhh...the young mind!

I was not having much success with the Avery brand labels we purchased to make the labels. I even telephoned them, which did not help at all. *sigh*...  So, I searched on Google and found a tutorial on how to make labels on Microsoft Office Word and lo and behold between Lydia and I, we came up with a label.

Although...I could not import them into the Avery template. Frustration!!! So, I printed out 8 labels on regular paper, cut them out and glued them on the Avery label page with a glue stick. I then put the labels in the printer and copied the page I made onto the other labels. What a fiasco! But it worked!

I think next year we'll have them made at a printer...or I'll just practice all year and be ready next fall! I bet my sister Angie would be good at it!! How 'bout it Angie???

More pictures tomorrow!

Do you know about bees? The most amazing thing of all to me is God's handiwork in the bee. From egg to Queen to workers and drones, the hive and making honey...the whole creation and work of a hive...screams of God's Creation. This was no accident! God alone gets the glory for the bee and her hive! Amazing!

God bless your Home-Sweet with hands and minds that are blessed with the necessary skills needed for the task at hand!

Miss D...if you read this...we miss you and love you and are praying for you. Please call us!