top of page

Honey

One of the great things about keeping bees is harvesting honey! Although honey production is not our priority, we do harvest our own honey when the bees have enough to share. 

 

How do we extract honey?

The first step is to take the frames of honey filled comb from the hives. The number of frames that we harvest depends on many factors including the strength of the colony, the weather, and the amount of nectar available to the bees.

 

Honeybees preserve the honey by capping it in wax cells. To extract the honey, the caps of the cells, need to be removed. Most frames have honey on both sides, so each side needs to be uncapped. 

 

Four uncapped frames are placed into an extractor and are held in a metal mesh basket. The lid is closed while we crank the extractor handle for a minute or more. The honey is forced out of the comb and drips down the inside of the extractor. Once the spinning stops, the frames are taken out and flipped so that honey is removed from the other side of the frame. 

 

When honey starts filling up the bottom of the extractor, we open the valve and let honey flow!

 

More uncapping, more spinning, more tasting. Then the honey is filtered and put into jars.

 

Our honey is available for purchase intermittently at the University of Toronto's Saint George campus around the month of November. Please check our events page to see if a honey sale is coming up!

 

 

bottom of page