Finished!

-Posted by Isaac

Well… finished pulling honey… not finished extracting.

October is such a blur. Cool mornings, sunny days and busy, busy. Yard after yard, it’s a rush to finish up with the bees. Why the rush? Because we’ve got to get the girls ready for winter long before winter gets here. The first step is taking off the fall honey.

When I pull into a yard, it looks like this:

Some time later, honey pulled, honey loaded, bees fed, bees treated, brood inspected… it looks like this:

About the only thing that’s really noticeable is that top super is gone. And we hope that super is filled with honey.

This year, most of them were.

The goldenrod was good to us. And not only with the honey. The bees brought in more goldenrod pollen than ever this year. Every other day I’d make the collecting rounds- four pollen yards.

Sometimes I had company.

Eden serves as insightful conversationalist / entertainment / sideshow / taste tester / inspector / quality control. Much like my little girl, goldenrod pollen is just brilliant.

And so too, goldenrod honey. You probably noticed how the bright yellow wax jumps out at you.

Of the three, the fall is my favorite honey pull. What an awesome day job… I get to pop lids all day and see that! It’s still a surprise every time. Put’s me a good mood and keeps me there… which is rare… I can’t help but smile and mumble, “Oh yeah, that’s what I’m talkin’ about…”

We still had a frame of spring honey in a display case. Here you can see the difference— Spring on the left, fall on the right.

And the resulting honey:

In more ways than one, goldenrod colors the season. What a wonderful weed!

Another fall wonder— pumpkins!

Circleville’s big extravaganza comes to us every year in late October. It’s a good calendar marker for being finished with the fall honey. If I can beat the Pumpkin Show, we’re in good shape with the bees. This year, just by coincidence, I pulled the last yard on Friday morning and had a chance to check out the craziness that afternoon.

Could there be a better place to celebrate being finished? Especially if you’re hungry??

I don’t think so.

A quiet celebration— We took our Texas tenderloin and pizza and fries and hot dogs and pulled pork and noodles and stromboli and pumpkin pie and elephant ear to an alley away from the hordes.

Then it was back into the fray.

But don’t worry, we were careful to separate our recyclables and put all that food garbage out of sight where it belongs.