Honey from the honeycomb to the honey jar

We’re still processing our first harvest. After we let the honey drain from the mashed comb into a food grade plastic pail, we let it sit for a few days. Bubbles and foam rise to the top of the honey.

An inch from the bottom of the pail is a hole stoppered with a neat gizmo called a honeygate. It’s decidedly low-tech. You loosen one of the bolts, and and the gate swings up to open the spout; out pours the honey.

Because bubbles and foamy stuff float on the surface, you need the honeygate to let you drain the pail from the bottom, releasing honey that is clear and bubble-free, because who wants bubbles in their honey?

Our jars are so small (three ounces) that you have to be really careful not to over fill them. Honey spilled is honey everywhere—a sticky wicket to be sure—so we covered the floor with old newspapers, and luckily had no large spills.

Here are some of our jars filled with honey and glowing in the afternoon sunlight. The few bubbles you see rose to the top and disappeared by the next day. Three ounces isn’t much. I can eat it up in no time. Nom nom nom.