In the end, we produced honey, but it was a challenge.
We had previously checked the hives and determined that we would be able to take frames from the Layens hives for honey but not from the Langstroth hive. We tried to get as organized as possible for the big day. We placed a frame-collecting rack in the bed of our pickup truck with our other gear. We set up three stations in the basement for the extraction: a place to put the frames, a place for de-capping, and a place for the honey extractor. And we bought lots of jars, in the hope of getting lots of honey.
The biggest unknown was the extractor. Maggie wanted Layens hives for several reasons, but for me the biggest downside is that the frames are not a size that works with 99% of extracting equipment on the market. I had bought a 4/2 frame extractor on sale, and found that I could remove the baskets that hold Langstroth frames. Using stainless steel threaded rod and aluminum bars, I fashioned hangers that would hold two Layens frames. It seemed like we were all set to produce honey.
The day came, we donned our bee suits, and headed to the hives. The first hive we opened was packed with honey, and we pulled eight full frames, leaving twelve frames of honey and brood. The second hive was lighter on honey than we expected. We pulled four frames, but they were about 75 percent full. The air was thick with bees, but that was to be expected given we were taking the food they had worked all summer to produce. We made sure each hive had honey and empty frames to build on for the winter. We placed each honey frame in the rack, covered it with a tarp, and drove to the house. At the house, we brushed off any remaining bees, and set the frames on cardboard placed to keep the floor clean.
We took two frames, scraped off the caps, and placed the frames into the modified extractor. I started to turn the crank to spin the honey out of the honey comb. All went well for 2 minutes. Unfortunately, the weight of the honey and force of the spinning caused the comb to bow outward and break apart, creating a mess of wax and honey. We tried one more set of frames and had the same result. Being an environmental engineer and not a mechanical engineer, I did not adequately account for the centrifugal force, and should have added more crosspieces to my modified holder to support the comb. We ended up going with Plan B, which is what most Layens hive users do. We removed all of the comb from the frames and placed it into our de-capping tub. The de-capping tub is really two nested tubs; the inner tub has an open bottom with a rack that allows the honey to drain out from the wax. Honey drips into the lower tub and out a 'honey gate'. While it worked, it meant that next year the bees would need to re-build the comb.
We used a potato masher to break up the comb, and over the course of 2 days the honey slowly flowed from the tub, through a two-part mesh filter, and into buckets. Cleanup was easy as we took all the sticky equipment and empty frames back to the hives for the bees to reclaim their honey.
We ended up with about 5 gallons of honey. It is about half of what we had estimated, but mainly because we left more honey for the bees. Five gallons of honey is an awful lot of honey, after all.
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