dead bees in the trash

Kathyp · March 25, 2008, 06:51:35 PM

so here i am, picking the "dead" bees out of the honey comb from the cut out i did the other day. i'm doing crush and strain and happily working away. every once in a while i dump the bowl of dead bees into the trash behind me. it's cold in here so i have a space heater running to warm up the honey. well guess what? many of those bees were not dead. they were sticky and cold. now i have bees crawling and flying all over the place!!! lesson learned. next time the dead will go outside, not into the trash in the house!!

Jerrymac · March 25, 2008, 07:26:52 PM

This cold bee dead bee thing has been talked about before. Teach you to skip class. :-D

Kathyp · March 25, 2008, 07:31:42 PM

i didn't skip class. i remember that conversation about dead bees in the hive. i thought these were drown in the honey! i didn't want bee guts squished in my honey so i rescued them (by accident) :-)

Kathyp · March 26, 2008, 03:54:54 PM

ok. i watched tillies' crush and strain video. it looked so simple.

i'll be the first to admit that i am a cook in the mode of Julia Child. also, my house rarely gets above 65 degrees in the winter. that said, i don't know how tillie made it look so easy. i have honey everywhere. it's on the door knobs, the floor, the sink, the stove, and very utensil in the kitchen. there are two buckets with crushed gunk in various stages of drip, sitting on a stand in front of my pellet stove. there seems to be more gunk than drip. :-( there are still live bees crawling about even though i have been scooping them up and flushing them as i find them. no point in putting them outside. it's snowing.

oh well, the house smells good and i own a carpet cleaner.......this too shall pass....

Bennettoid · March 31, 2008, 02:08:26 PM

I like bee guts in my honey.

Scadsobees · March 31, 2008, 03:08:57 PM

Yah that goodness for the carpet cleaner, I just had my 3 year old break a qt jar full of heavy syrup with HBH from the observation hive on the thick carpet. GNHGHNGHGN!!

Kathyp · March 31, 2008, 04:23:24 PM

i am almost done. what a project. now i just have the bottom of the huge container to clean out and it should be easy. most of the comb is done and this is just honey. not a moment to soon!! the dead bees that are still in there are getting soft. honey does seem to be an excellent preservative. while the dead are soft, they are not mushing up. just an observation........ :-D

Brian D. Bray · April 01, 2008, 12:02:38 AM

Quote from: kathyp on March 31, 2008, 04:23:24 PM
i am almost done. what a project. now i just have the bottom of the huge container to clean out and it should be easy. most of the comb is done and this is just honey. not a moment to soon!! the dead bees that are still in there are getting soft. honey does seem to be an excellent preservative. while the dead are soft, they are not mushing up. just an observation........ :-D

The original embalming fluid--even before the Egyptians.

tillie · April 01, 2008, 01:38:07 AM

Oh, kathyp, I laughed til I cried.....I'm sorry it was so messy for you.

Actually I'm a pretty messy cook, but everyone had warned me about how messy it would be to harvest in the kitchen and I was determined to prove them wrong - so my efforts actually were simple and weren't messy but it sounds like you had quite the sticky experience!

I'm sure the honey will be quite worth it - the honey done without an extractor - not heated with the uncapping knife and not slung through the air in an extractor - has a richer taste to it, I think (biased as I unabashedly am)

Linda T still laughing in Atlanta

Kathyp · April 01, 2008, 03:14:26 PM

i was happy to provide a laugh :-)

it was worth it. after the comb that i gave to the guy who owned the barn, and the comb that i kept for myself, i ended up with 45 lbs of honey. not bad.