Honey Harvest 2024 So Sweet!

October 8, 2024October 16, 2024Leave a comment

Honey Harvest 2024 is here and it’s oh so sweet! Spooky too, boo!

The process started on Saturday with a (hot) afternoon in the bee suit pulling from Gnome Sweet Gnome and Greenie Hives.

Sunday was extraction day…photos show a full frame of capped honey and then upcapped and ready to be placed in the centrifuge. Yes, it’s all manual labor using the uncapping fork shown at the bottom of the photo.

After centrifuging, the honey is sieved to remove any wax parts that were centrifuged with the honey.

My bees and hives are treatment free and never fed sugar water so you are getting the best nature has to offer! They roam the rural, Arkansaw, WI woodlands gathering nectar, pollen and tree sap to maintain their health and keep the hive humming.

Final product is so pretty! And Halloweeny too 😉

Three jar sizes are available…photo props not included 😉 Those are my wool applique spooky night scene for Halloween…

Glass canning jars hold all the goodness for the upcoming winter season and beyond.

A teaspoon a day in hot tea, over ice cream or added to oatmeal adds a little sweetness to your day!

Available in:

10 oz/283 grams is $10 (half pint jar) and perfect to nestle into gift baskets!

22 oz/624 grams is $22 (pint jar) and gets you through to January!

45 oz/1275 grams is $45 (quart jar) and brings you into spring!

Porch pick up from my house in Sun Prairie, WI or delivery in the Durand, WI area during Halloween week. Make a drive to the Arkansaw, WI, countryside where the bees live and pick up at the end of the driveway available too. Please click the Contact button my blog and let me know which city and appointment time works for you. Thank you so much for supporting my bee buzziness!

Buzz Ya Later!

Super Bee Shirley and BBS Bees

P.S. See the bees on my Youtube channel here! This is a link to the honey frame pull from last year as I have been busy getting the honey ready for you the last few days. I’ll be posting 2024 videos in the upcoming months as the gardens shut down and I spend more time indoors. Thanks again!

These Videos are Buzzing!

October 20, 2022October 19, 20222 Comments

The jars of honey I extracted and bottled last week are waiting for potential customers to claim them. I still have some stickiness to clean. The bees will help me with that as they will take all the leftover drops and add them to their winter nest. I made a post about it here: https://superawesomestamper.com/2022/10/14/a-sweet-little-post-its-about-honey/

I also mentioned that videos were in editing so you can see the process. First up are 2 videos showing pulling the honey frames from each colony.

Of course I have a purple colored hive box!

After pulling the frames, all the equipment took a drive down the interstate so I could perform the extraction and bottling.

Next it was bottling day. Yes, this is a process and takes time.

Last, the liquid gold is ready to sweeten teacups and charcuterie boards in a kitchen near you. Makes nice gifts too. Just ask for a jar as sales will help me to cover equipment costs.

Click the contact button if you are in the Madison area and would like to set an appointment time, 8am-6pm, for a porch pick up from my house. Durand area deliveries available starting Friday, October 21st. Delivery area is in Wisconsin.

A half pint glass jar holds 9 ounces and is $9. A pint sized glass jar holds 22 ounces and is $22. A quart sized glass jar holds 44 ounces and is $44. If the quarts are gone, 2 pint jars hold the same volume as the quart jar. Cash only at delivery. Thank you for your support!

Super Bee Shirley and BBS Bees

A Sweet Little Post…It’s About Honey…

October 14, 2022October 19, 20221 Comment

My honey bees are dwindling in numbers as the fall comes to a close and winter starts. They experienced snow overnight, lucky them! Drones are gone for sure now as they don’t get to overwinter, bless their hearts.

This also means I pulled honey frames and extracted the golden goodness. While the extractor has been cleaned and stored, there is still a partial mess to clean up in the kitchen. Lots of hot water to remove the stickiness before utensils are placed back in storage.

This is the reward for the bees buzzing around the countryside in their treatment free digs. Yes, that is a thing as many beekeepers use chemicals in their hives to circumvent nature. Not me as the minute I have to strap on a full face respirator to apply chemicals is the day I won’t beekeep. But I digress.

The work I do during the “green” seasons is inspecting the hives in a full body, hot bee suit to ensure the bees have enough frames to work on or to spot any patterns like if they are thinking about swarming. There is the task of keeping the smoker going during inspections in case the girls get a little testy with my intrusions.

Now to harvest the honey you see below, I suffered three bee stings on my hands. I wear thick gloves which stopped the stinger but I could still feel the zing. This is the photo where the price tags are being matched to the jar size as honey is sold by weight.

Close up glamour shot after being tagged…I am using that fabulous patterned paper we had a few years ago. I have been hoarding all the other bee patterns too 🙂

Ready for sale! Makes an excellent addition to your holiday charcuterie board or everyday tea.

Porch picks up from my house are available until sold out. Click the contact button if you are in the Madison area and would like to set an appointment time, 8am-6pm. Durand area deliveries available as well. Delivery area is in Wisconsin.

Cash only accepted and it’s $1 per ounce. A half pint glass jar holds 9 ounces and is $9. A pint sized glass jar holds 22 ounces and is $22. A quart sized glass jar holds 44 ounces and is $44. Thank you for your support as this helps to pay for expenses.

I am working on editing the videos for this honey harvest. Stay tuned! I’ll post links to these videos on my Beelog with Super Bee Shirley and BBS Bees Youtube channel when the videos are ready. Until those videos are ready, here is a link to the September inspection, on the purple hive of course!

Thanks for making a purchase of our honey and sharing this information with your friends that would want to purchase too! Honey also makes a sweet gift!

Super Bee Shirley and BBS Bees

A Perfect Bee Themed Gift Wrap

January 6, 2022January 6, 2022Leave a comment

It was my first year managing my own hives. It’s been a whirl from painting the hive boxes, installing bees into the boxes, monitoring their progress every few weeks and helping where I can. We even populated the woods with 2 swarms that settled way up in the tree tops and did not find the swarm traps on their own.

I did harvest comb honey and through that process strained a few pint jars of honey. These jars were given to the people that helped me this year. Of course they needed to be decorated! As a Stampin’ Up! Demonstrator, we have early access to order spring catalog products and one paper pattern caught my eye from the Heart and Home collection. It has bees and flowers all over it!

Here is what the final jars looked like…

Top view to see the pattern paper a little better…

the jar before they were decorated…

supplies used to create the jar toppers…substitute any appropriate sentiment on the gift tag

Here is the how to create the jar topper video that is posted on my Youtube channel.

The project is also part of my Pretty Paper Projects pdf idea file. It’s a file that is emailed to you when you place a $50 or more order excluding shipping and tax that also uses a current host code in your order. If your order exceeds $150 excluding shipping and tax, don’t use the host code but remain shopping with me so you can redeem all the host rewards yourself. Either case will earn you the Pretty Paper Projects idea file.

If you would like to order supplies to create your own jar toppers…use the links below.

Hive embossing folder

Bumblebee Gingham ribbon

Bumblebee Trinkets

Heart and Home pattern paper pack (please note only 2 sheets of the bumblebee pattern per package with 5 other patterns included). Cut the bumblebee pattern to 6×6 inches and wrap over the lid.

Linen Thread

So Saffron ink pad

Cinnamon Cider cardstock

Basic White cardstock

As far as the honey sales go, I hope to purchase an extractor in 2022 so I can sell honey and not just the cut comb honey. I have cut comb available for porch pick up at the time of writing this post. Send me a message if you are interested in a container and I’ll see if I have any in stock yet. My bees and hives are treatment free so it’s the best of the best honey around!

Follow the bees on my Youtube channel Super Bee Shirley with BBS Bees. I documented as much as I could and will continue to document as my bee keeping journey progresses in the interest of education. There are not as many Layens Horizontal Hive beekeepers and videos out there. There are even less women beekeepers. So Yay for Me!

Thanks for supporting my paper crafting and bee keeping business!

Super Awesome Beekeeper Shirley

#layens #horizontalhives #beekeeping

Monday is the slowest night in the blogosphere…

July 26, 2021Leave a comment

So I thought I would post about my bees. That’s honey bees living in the great up north (semi) wilderness. I visit with them every few weeks and take lots of video footage. Back in my stamp space, I take the evenings to edit footage and post the videos to my BeeLog Youtube channel. (I work the stamp business during the week days and take the weekends off).

This is a sight and smell I’ll always enjoy…fresh comb building and a heavy, sweet scent of a thriving hive. The hive noise is something to enjoy too, a slow and steady hum of activity.

The trip this time was to move this swarm into a hive box.

Of course, I have video of the transfer in my Swarm Trap Youtube playlist.

Also checked up on the frog watering bowl.

The Om Bee One hive had thousands of bees at work during the latest inspection. See frames of capped honey in this video. Before the honey arrives on a dinner table in a mason jar, the frames will need to be removed the hive, cells uncapped and the entire frame then spun in a centrifuge. Lots of work ahead for me and the bees! The bees need to reduce the water content on the uncapped cells before they deem the liquid is honey and cap the cell. I need to rustle up the honey extraction equipment:)