Honey season in full swing.

Yes, its that time of year again. Time for honey harvesting! Sounds like great fun but after the 10th kilo of honey it becomes a bit sickening. It started last week with an easy harvest of about 40kg from the hives on the farm. No stings and a beautiful golden red tinged honey, a mixture of fynbos and eucalyptus we think. It had the MOST fruity taste, completely different from any other honey we've extracted from the farm bees so far.

Then earlier this week a lady asked us if we could help her move a couple of her hives as she doesn't have a bee keeping suit any more. Of course she was willing to pay us in honey! So off we went at dusk to plug up the entrances of the hives, load them into our bakkie, and hopefully move them to our farm for a couple weeks until they forget the old spot then move them back to the new designated area. The first 2 went well, quick and easy. The 3rd hive was a different matter. The hive was so full of bees that they couldn't all fit inside, clustering in a huge ball outside the entrance. We smoked them in the hope that they would go inside, and after a while decided we'd just have to forfeit the bees that remained outside. Within seconds the bees found a hold in my suit that i didn't know existed and i felt the unmistakable panicky searing pain that comes with a sting on the inside of my wrist, followed by another 2 stings on my forearm, and 3 or 4 on my knee! It being after dark, it was impossible to see where the bees got in and all i could do was smoke the stings to disguise the sting pheromones and run away. Alex didn't get away unscathed either, a few stings on each ankle resulting in some sexy "cankles" the next morning.

Eventually we worked up the courage to go back and remove the honey first, then move the hive at a later stage which was much more pleasant and manageable. About another 40Kg of honey from the 3 hives we moved. We kept our share of about 10Kg. Enough to keep us going for a few weeks!

Now to clean up, i don't think there is one utensil or one inch of kitchen floor that hasn't been in contact with honey in the last few days. Even the dogs are a bit sticky.