A waaaaaaays back, J winterized the bees (i.e. pulled the honeyboxes + queen excluders, added smaller doors to keep pests out, wrapped them up in jackets, and tied the top on snug). Which means there was honey to extract!
About 4 pints' worth to consume and give as gifts. Plus, J got some custom stickers printed for the lids. And now we have a use for used mason jar lids. Normally we just toss them since they can't be reused for hot water bath preserving, but they can be reused for things like the storage of raw honey.
We also got a bit of beeswax from the effort. J did this all with minimal equipment, melting the wax with a heat gun through some cheesecloth to remove impurities, and then heating up a bit with a crockpot to pore into a silicone mold. We've got a hexagon mold for next year's wax. Pretty fancy. We're also getting a manual honey extractor, so maybe there'll be a little less waste with the proper tools.
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