Buzzed off.

After an absence from posting for a while I read Me and my shadow's husbands post about cold water swimming (rather him than me!!). Missie Lizzie extends an invitation to give free reign to the 'other half' and suggest he guest blogs on his obsession hobby. 

Tonight I have offered the same opportunity to Mr Thrift Bee to which he asked 'Can i write anything i want?' my reply of 'within reason' was met with instant grumblings about freedom of speech, censorship and wishing to be truly free to express himself.  

So,  instead I will take this opportunity to publish a collection of photos that have been a draft post for a couple of months. Taken throughout the summer of  my old mans hobby......Beekeeping.

We have seven hives in our garden. Two of them are on the roof of his shed.

As he is a carpenter by trade, he is able to make all his own hives. Which he does on an ongoing basis.

Which is more shocking the love of my life in a  space suit and marigolds or the large swarm of bees on a branch which he brought to the window to show me???!!!!

There are, of course, wonderful rewards. Little Bee is mighty knowledgeable about the life of a bee colony and how honey is produced. She is holding a frame of capped honeycomb. 

And here, on  my scorched kitchen table is another frame full of honey.

The two active cells have baby bees in them, they are in the process of cutting themselves out.

A fairly crude way of extracting the honey from the frame with a spoon.

(We needed a jar to enter into our local agricultural show and as usual had left it until the last minute)

Strain out the wax and........

Runny honey.(and a pretty sticky kitchen and a six year old rushing on a natural sugar overload)

Heather honey.

The clear honey was produced before the heather flowers in August. After that the honey produced when the bees forage on the heather is much stronger and gloopier (and more difficult to extract)

This was the result from the few frames he scraped.  I have to admit it is one of our most precious home produced harvests. Like a full log pile, a cupboard full of honey is extremely comforting.

I posted about the show he entered our honey in here.

Linking to Me and my Shadow - How the other half live