introducing sötnos honey!

my first honey harvest went great (i think—not really sure what i'm doing).

joan helped, and it was so much easier to handle the boxes/frames together (though i'm sorry to say, some bees still got smooshed). we only collected three and a half frames (yielding 14 small jars of honey), but we'll do another round soon, and that will be it for this first year of beekeeping! the bees will need the rest of the honey in the hive to get them through the winter. i hope the bees make it through. i only have one hive, and a lot of beekeepers lost about half their hives last winter.  

we used the crush and strain method (instead of the centrifugal extractor thing) since we are just doing small batches. (thanks for the tip, jean.) there was very little crushing though. more straining. i'm hoping we didn't add too much uncapped honey. apparently the honey can ferment if one includes too much uncapped honey. (honey is deemed done when it's been capped/sealed by the bees. it has then reached the right water content.)

the honey will be called sötnos honey. sötnos is a Swedish endearment that means sweet nose. label coming soon.