my bees in Winter

 
This was not as good a winter for my bees as last year was, for sure- I have so far lost two of my four large hives. However, I was happy to see these two hives flying the other day during a brief warm spell! If they survive til Spring, I'll be splitting them into 4 hives just as soon as there are drones flying. Hope springs eternal!

Candles from my own beeswax.

After cleaning and filtering the discs of wax from my 'crush and strain'  method honey harvest shown in my last post, I ended up with two and a half pounds of pure clean beeswax from my own bees. As a last filtering, I melted the wax in a double boiler and then poured it through a restaurant style grease filter cone, which I set in an empty pineapple juice can (see photo). 
 I had two flexible silicone candle molds- one to make plain votives with pointed tops, and the other for votive-sized bee skep shaped candles. It was fun to set the wicks, pour the candles with a spouted canning ladle, and then carefully pop them out after cooling for about a half hour. Later, the candle bottoms were pressed onto a hot skillet to get them nice and flat.
Altogether, I was able to make 20 candles from the 2.5 lbs of wax- nine little skeps and 11 tall votives, plus a short 1" votive with the last drips of wax. Next year I will buy another mold or two for added variety.

I got my candles done just in time before Christmas...a nice way to end my beekeeping year and bring a warm glow to the dark days to come this winter. 
(Click on each picture to see it larger and more detailed.)

Honey harvest 2012

I harvested two medium sized boxes of honey from my two most populated hives this year. I did not try to harvest honey from my other three hives, I just let them be.
From the 16 or so medium frames mostly full of honey, I used the low tech 'crush and strain' method again this year and wound up with a harvest of about 4 gallons- 42 pounds of pure honey, and a nice chunk of wax.  Here is the honey harvest all bottled up in various large one and two pound jelly and peanut butter jars I saved up over the past year...I also filled two dozen little half pint jars which will make nice holiday gifts...

I am ordering a couple of candle molds and wicking in order to make a few little votive candles from the chunk of golden beeswax I got as well.  I think I have enough wax to make about a dozen votive candles.  It'll be nice to have the scent of our own beeswax candles in the house during the bleak late winter.