Thanks to the efforts of many, SugarCreek has added bee hives at its Cambridge City, Washington Court House, and Kansas locations. Each site has a volunteer beekeeper, along with a small team of helpers who support them on a day to day basis. With a total of 16 hives with approximately 30,000 bees each, SugarCreek's estimated 480,000 bees are working hard to protect local biodiversity, and the project continues to educate its employees and communities about the importance of the protection of the bee population!
The latest and most exciting development of SugarCreek's bee husbandry project is that the pilot hives at the Dayton facility have begun producing honey. The harvesting process is not overly complex, but must be done carefully and with the right equipment. The hives and their frames are carefully inspected to determine readiness, then any frames that are full and ready to be harvested are temporarily extracted from the hives. The frames are then transported away from the hives and placed in a honey extractor, which spins the frames in order to extract the honey. The honey is then strained in order to filter out any debris. After the filtering process is completed, the honey is bottled, sealed, and ready to enjoy! Each worker bee will only produce about 1/12 teaspoon of honey in their life time, so each and every drop counts!
Do you have any honey harvesting tips to share? Submit a comment below!
