The Girls are at it Again

Just had a chance to check my hives and it looks like the girls are at it again, got a honey flow going on here in eastern Florida. Supered up two hive with shallow supers and checked the other two who are recent splits. All are bring in honey so a early extraction is due soon, maybe next week. Kinda glad cause I am out of last years crop and feel the need to brew a classic "Harvest Mead" from washing the caps and buckets after extracting. Looks like I'll pull two or three shallow supers and maybe a full deep, still have some left on the hives from wintering. Each shallow gives around 1 1/2 gallons and a full deep will give almost 4 gallons of the sweet stuff. I am a 9 frame beekeeper, just don't like rolling and crushing the girls like you can do with 10 frames per super. I'll take some pictures if I don't get toooo sticky.

Took about four hours from pulling the supers to extracting the honey but it was well worth it. Harvested three and 1/2 shallows and a half full deep off the hives which ended up yielding seven gallons of a dark reddish/brown wildflower honey. Been breathing the smell of fresh honey all afternoon as the fragrance rose up out of the extractor. Everybody who brews mead needs to put extracting honey on the "Need To Do" list, I still get a thrill out of it. There is something basic about cutting the caps off a comb and dropping it in the old hand powered extractor. Still need to finish the cleanup and melt the caps for wax but the hard part is done. I'll post the pictures later

Know what you mean. Most times stings only give me a small hot spot that goes away after a day. I once got nailed over my left eye and looked like I went 5 rounds with Mike Tyson. My eye was swollen shut in two hours. Had a tough time lining up the cork screw all night long. ;D Had a bit of a surprise today, while suiting up I found a big hole in my veil and had to use a backup. I've been wondering how the bees have been getting in the veil last few weeks. I just don't like getting stung, beekeeper or not.