Homesteading Update

I know I mentioned in earlier posts how busy I have been. What have I been busy doing? Harvesting....Harvesting.....and more Harvesting! I have honestly enjoyed putting up all of goods from our garden (although I'm not sure my poor sore body enjoyed it as much). It's now the last week in September and guess what, I'm still harvesting and canning like a CRAZY homestead Mama! Throw in school is now in session, a couple DIY makeovers, a little family get away, a women's conference, and there you have it that explains my absence on my blog! My heart has wanted to be blogging about all our adventures, but my physical exhaustion, and my family's daily needs have taken over priority. So I'm hoping this week to update many things this week!

Amongst all the yummy garden harvesting, we also harvested our honey on Labor Day! Since this was our first year as beekeepers we had no idea if we would even get any honey this year.

 Can you see a group of my girls hanging out on the honey box.

 After we collected all the honey frames, we brought them in and used a hot knife to uncap the sealed honey. The honeybees will cap the honey when it reaches 18% moisture. Amazing, huh?

 After uncapping, we spin out the honey with this lovely extractor we borrowed.

 This is the bottom of the extractor after the honey is spun out.

 When you open the bottom spout of the extractor the honey in then ran through a filter, which then goes into a five gallon bucket with a spout. The filtered honey in then put into jars. This is our first jar we filled! It weighed 15 lbs after we filled it with honey. As you can see, a slow trickle of honey out the spout. We plan to change out the spout before harvesting next year.

 We harvest 120 lbs of honey from our TWO HIVES!! We are beyond thrilled by such a blessed first year! I was able to sell/share our harvest with many families this year. We sold 56 jars and kept the rest of our harvest to enjoy and use throughout the next year. A big THANK YOU to all those who enthusiastically supported us at harvest time by overwhelming me with so many orders that I sold out!