We've had bees for years. Years. Some of you might recall the story of the grumpy beekeeper who ripped us off, then took our bees whilst we were out one day after I asked him when to expect honey. He had kept them on our property for a few years, after all. Anyway, we got more bees via a colleague at Jamie's work, and he's been helping us manage them.

A year on, we have honey! The boys found the queen and isolated her and moved her, then removed four frames, leaving the other frames for next week.

First of all the job was to scrape them with a hot knife. THis removes all the wax caps so the honey can seep out. Not an easy job, as some of the frames had really wobbly kinda bumps on them. I think we should have collected the honey earlier, but we've been so busy and needed our mate to come help and show us what to do.

Then we put the frames in the honey extractor, two at a time - it's a way of removing the honey via centrifugal force, spinning via the winder for about six minutes on each side.

Even I had a go - I'm looking rather tired as we had just woken up.

The worst part was straining it - I think people have special strainers but we had to make do with a cloth and a small sieve, which we balanced over the jar and had to keep rinsing free of wax so the honey could freely drip into the jar.

Of course, I kept tasting the honey, which eventually made me feel a little ill. I ended up having plain muffins for breakfast as honey muffins seemed a step too far. But how could one resist?

Now the excess frames will go into the garden for the bees to clean up, before being placed back in the hive. Aren't they beautiful, filled with honey? They are just one of the wonders of the world.

I know that some vegans think bee keeping - or bee husbandry - is cruel, like any kind of 'keeping' of animals. But human beings have a relationship with honey that stretches back thousands and thousands of years. It's in our interests to keep bees because by caring for these pollinators, we ensure our food crops are pollinated, and ensure the survival (we hope) of bee populations.

At last we had jars of honey, plus a little more for cooking as I heated the wax in a double boiler and poured the honey out and restrained it. This obviously is no longer raw honey but good enough for cooking.

It's pretty darn exciting, although very labour intensive! Still, I think of our antecedents harvesting honey from trees as it was the only sweet food around, and not minding the labour because they get that sweet, sweet, gorgeous liquid. I bet they thought it was worth it!

With Love,

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