Jamanda
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My own honey!I cleaned some wild comb off my frames and it was full of honey 
They've started to move upstairs now too.
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sally_in_wales
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how exciting, there is nothing quite like that first taste of honey for the year.  Wish I still had bees 
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ksia
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Wow - great!
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lottie
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Smashing---here's hoping for a good summer and needing lots of supers.
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mousjoos
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Well Head Office told me she'd prefer bees to chickens... so I feel bees coming on. Mind you, wont the eggs be a lot smaller & harder to find?
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Cathryn
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Brilliant! Darn, you are tipping me over into thinking about this seriously. 
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Snowball
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Fantastic.
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jocorless
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Wonderful isn't it - Nothing like your first batch of honey - Are they bringing in OSR?
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Penny
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Oh how wonderful Well done bees
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Rob R
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Mmmm honey oozing out of the comb... suprised noone has asked for photos yet!
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Jamanda
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| jocorless wrote: | | Wonderful isn't it - Nothing like your first batch of honey - Are they bringing in OSR? |
No - they don't grow it much round here - this was all runny and lovely.
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Mrs Baggins
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Fancy some help with that?  ENJOY!
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Tavascarow
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Nothing tastes better.
Aspecially spread on toast in the morning.
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Love2fuss
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Yum! It must be exciting having your own bees and honey.
What's OSR tho?
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Jamanda
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| Love2fuss wrote: | Yum! It must be exciting having your own bees and honey.
What's OSR tho? |
Oil seed rape - the bees love it, presumably because a whole field of it is such easy pickings for them, but it makes rubbish, thick, granular honey that is very difficult to extract (apparently)
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lettucewoman
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not a bee expert but guessing oil seed rape?
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Love2fuss
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Ah. Cheers!
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BethinPA
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This is so cool! Will you make biscuits (American-style, with buttermilk) to go with the honey? I'll send a recipe if I get time.
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Jamanda
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| BethinPA wrote: | | This is so cool! Will you make biscuits (American-style, with buttermilk) to go with the honey? I'll send a recipe if I get time. |
If i get lots I'll be making all sorts! Send the recipe please, but no rush - this was just a little taste what's (hopefully) to come.
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lottie
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| Jamanda wrote: | | Love2fuss wrote: | Yum! It must be exciting having your own bees and honey.
What's OSR tho? |
Oil seed rape - the bees love it, presumably because a whole field of it is such easy pickings for them, but it makes rubbish, thick, granular honey that is very difficult to extract (apparently) |
A bee keeper with taste I'm glad we have no O.S.R. here. 
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Mutton
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Depending on how much oil seed rape is in your area you may need to extract the honey in June, immediately the rape stops flowering, as pure rape honey will set in the comb pretty much there and then and you'd have to melt the comb to extract it. Need to keep an eye on your neighbouring fields and what is growing there.
If there is just a bit of rape, and plenty of other things mixed in - gardens, meadow flowers, tree nectar, then you can get away with waiting to extract until August.
We have some buckets of honey from previous place we lived - area with a bit of oil seed rape and lots of other things - fantastic stuff, was extracted in August. The honey went crystalline and set after the first winter in the bucket, has a strong rich flavour and is very popular as a present amongst our friends and relatives. The honey is about 7 years old now and a good vintage
Can't eat supermarket type commercial honey now - can taste the caramellised sugar from the heat extraction. Also I like my honey firm with crunchy bits, not a syrup or a cream.
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Pel
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Yeah, dad always goes on about when he did his flying flock of 50 hives up to the OSR fields, he had to go everyday and hand extract the honey out of the comb for 3 or so weeks or else it was bloomin difficult to get it out and in some cases had to disgard whole rows of comb if he didnt get up there quick enough. This was just for pure OSR honey (or that was the aim, for the farmers).
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