The year got off to a great start for us. Right in the first days of January we finally dared to open the first bee box. We got support again from our friend Rodney, who has a lot of fun passing on his bee knowledge to us.
This beehive is home to quite a large, active colony, so we were pretty sure we would find honey inside.
Only it wasn't really clear how aggressively the bees would react to us. In Tanzania, we only work with wild bees, which are generally not as calm as the German honey bees. But we were lucky, this colony was very friendly towards us. As long as we work quietly and calmly, the bees also behave relatively relaxed. But maybe it was also due to the dried African basil, which we used for smoking.
We began to remove the individual combs in the rear area of the box. And that was really fantastic to see how the ripe honey was already dripping out of the combs.
In the front area of the box, the combs had only partial honey, since the nursery was located there, as well as an area for pollen. We left these combs untouched.
Then we removed some older combs where wax moths had settled. We placed these combs near the bee box so that the bees could remove the honey and pollen remains from them in the next few days.
Since we do not have an extractor for honey extraction, we decided to use the so-called crush and strain method. And who would have thought it; after 2 days we had 8.5 kg of the best honey in the bucket.
(image: p1110446.jpgThe next honey harvest will be in June. Then we will probably open several beehives.
The first harvest of honey
