Honey Harvest 2023

It been buzzing at my house this week…honey was extracted on Monday with the bottles of honey goodness being picked up from my Halloween house. Honey sale details are at the end of this post.

Jar tags feature dsp that has gold comb and a bumble bee. The background print is from my super fun Halloween pants. I complete the look with an orange polo and candy corn mask.

And guess what, the print is glow in the dark with cobwebs glowing!

Visits to my senior living communities are this week too. So in between a sticky mess, I have been sharing the glow in the dark ghosts and bats on Halloween cards with fun treats shared as well (no tricks here ;). My last community was gracious enough to shift my visit to earlier in the week last month. When I told them why (needed that day to decorate cakes for a wedding reception treat table), they said they would be taste tasters. I baked lemon macarons and carrot mini cupcakes for a festive treat.

The honey harvest takes a full day with a short break for lunch. I still have some clean up to do with lots of hot water that will go in the garden since wax will be melted from equipment. The waste water does not go down the drain. I’ll post videos showing the honey frame pull from the hives and the extraction process to my Youtube channel when they are edited later next week.

If you are interested in my small batch honey, know that my bees are treatment free and never fed sugar water. They roam the countryside in rural Arkansaw, WI where the ecology is varied and vibrant, winds are stiff and the winter is harsh. It all makes for a premium honey to be enjoyed by the spoonful or in tisanes.

The golden goodness is bottled in glass jars accordingly:

quart sized jar is 45 ounces of honey for $45 (stocked for the winter)

pint sized jar is 22 ounces of honey for $22 (enjoy frequently)

half pint sized jars are $10 (perfect for gifting and charcuterie boards)

How fast you enjoy it is up to you. I find that a spoonful a day in my morning tea is plenty to keep my energy up. Click the contact button to request honey pick up from my Halloween house in Sun Prairie, WI or pick up/delivery near Durand, WI. Email works too if you have my email address. The girls and Me thank you so much for your support as the work is hot and sticky!

Last, this is what is NOT suppose to happen inside the bee hive. They were building on the attic when they still had room on the frames. The girls do make hive inspections interesting!

Underneath the wood bars seen in the photo above is where the bees live. At different times throughout the season, comb cells are filled with growing baby bees, nectar which they turn into honey and pollen which they turn into bee bread that is feed to the baby fees. Over the winter, they cluster inside the cells to conserve warmth and slowly enjoy their honey they worked all summer for.

Here is a typical fully filled and wax capped honey frame. The wax cap needs to be scrapped off so the honey can be spun out in the extractor. I’ll share the extraction process in my Youtube video later next week. Until then, Buzz Ya Later!

A Perfect Bee Themed Gift Wrap

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

Where’s Shirley Door Hanger Global SU VLOG Hop

Look at this fun door hanger! It announces where I am in the yard while visiting my parents. The story goes that Mom and I planned the next morning activities, the night before. I would be weeding in the pumpkin patch until Mom came outside. Then we would start the watering chores. Yelp, 4 hours later with my water bottle empty and snacks gone, I went inside the house to see where Mom was. She was just finishing up baking some sweets and was waiting for me to wake up so we could do the watering chores. She thought I had slept through the kitchen noise…zzzzzz

Alas, no. I got a good portion of the weeding done which will help the pumpkins and sunflowers drink all the available water for their own growth. Good thing because rain has been scarce.

This door hanger rests on the bedroom door. So I had the idea to make tags to indicate where I am in the yard so my parents can find me.

Watch my Youtube video going through each tag assembly and what activity the tags indicate. These would also make perfect card candy which is just a focal point on a card front. The video is part of a VLOG Hop featuring home decor items. Make sure to hop to each video by clicking the link in the video description.

Thanks for stamping with me today!

Super Awesome Weed Puller Shirley