What's the most honey you've ever spilled? Dropped buckets, exploded vats? Billions of bees cleaning up?
I'm in my first year, give me time...
5 gallons in my wife's laundry room floor. I am careful not to let that happen again.
When I worked for a commercial beekeeper many years ago all the honey from the extractors ran off into one holding tank and when it was full we would then pump it to the main holding tanks till time to put in barreles for shipping. Well while pumping from the smaller tank into the main tank I decided to uncap some more frames and lost track of time while doing so and about 40-50 gallons ended up on the warehouse floor when the tank I was pumping into over flowed. I thought I was fired for sure but the boss said they had all done it before also but the next time I just might get fired. What a job it was to get that all cleaned up it gives you a lot of incentive not to do it again. Those were hard long days for little pay but they were very happy days. In those days I new very little about beekeeping and every so often the girls remind me I still have much to learn today. Hope I never get so brash as to think other wise. :)
One time I brought a frame into the house and spilled a drop on the carpet...I immediately bent to all fours and sucked it right back up...LOL
Seriously, I was working with a commercial keeper (same as trapper) back in the 70's. We always had a 5 gal bucket just sitting around to prime the pumps with...Got yelled at to pick up the slack, started actually running, kicked over the bucket and and ended up covered in honey and soon covered in bees...Haven't spilled any from that point on.
Scott
I haven't really spilled any honey, but it seems I can not do a crush and strain without getting some on the counters, tables, floor. And as we all know, one little drop seems to split into two and then is all over the kitchen before I know it. I don't think I would want to clean up more than a jar. Would make for some good pictures.
About 55 gallons! I went to work for a commercial beekeeper in high school and they taught me to uncap and run the extractor. 2nd or 3rd night on the job I was happily uncapping and extracting, the foreman had gone off to dinner, and I found I couldn't move my feet. Looked down and was standing in 1-2 inches of orange blossum honey. They never taught me to check the drums we pumped into and operate the distribution valves. I turned off the extractor and pump and went looking for the the receiving drum; not real hard to find! The foreman returned and we spent the next 3-4 hours with dust pans scraping up honey. He and the boss laughed and said it was the "standard initiation" to the honeyhouse. That was in 1958-59 and to this day, when the pump starts, I get nervous as a cat pooping fishhooks.
One of my hives became honey-bound this past summer, so I pulled a couple of frames and replaced with foundation. I don't have any freezer space at home. but there is an almost-empty upright freezer at work so I decided to take them to work to store........
I had them in my back seat (cloth seats) and when I pulled up my boss hit me up with some problem before I even got into the building (he was outside smoking) and I got distracted and forgot about the frames in the back seat of my car.......
I "found" them at 5:30 pm that evening........ sitting in a pool of honey :shock: I mopped up what I could and put the frames into the freezer.
They are still in the freezer at work and my car STILL smells like honey and it has been 4 months and I have shampooed it several times. I don't dare leave my doors open too long or I will have "visitors" LOL.