Honey Is Flowing!! Extracting 2023 Honey Harvest 

I have the same knife mine is Old Hickory but it is longer

"By God's grace and God's favour" Amen, brother!

thanks for your service for our country

Hey Mike, thanks for sharing. Congrats on the harvest.

Love the dripping honey. You make that knife uncapping look way too easy. Hibachi skills! Love your extractor. Nice set up. Blessed days Mike. Take care.

Enjoyed the video Mike!! G'day from down under! Thanks for sharing God's peace

The refractometer give you peace of mind. I definitely use it to spot check all the way through extraction.

Congrats on the honey. You, my dear Sir, are the Master of decapping those frames. I could watch you for hours doing it.

Thanks for your service

Thank you for your video Mike!

That's a great harvest, Mike! Congrats! And AMEN to His provision. See you soon! -Jeff and Diane

Great video!

Great job Mike

The harvest videos are the best videos!

Sir thanks for sharing another great video.

Congrats on your harvest Mike - So Happy for you…. The Lord has blessed us both in so many ways. I ended up with 73.29 gallons of honey 879 pounds if I figured it right for 2023. That is the total for both the Spring and Summer Pull. I did leave some for the Bees too.

Ha Mike I am very happy for u I knew you would get some you did good. I got 20 gal my self Not like last year but I am glad for it. I have sold every bit of it as well. I sale mine for 15 a pint. I like your uncapping knife I use a kitchen knife as well. Your extractor when u loaded it with deeps and med That is what I had as well that is when my walked but its not the extractor I love the thing it is real nice. Glad i got it. I do my extracting in the kitchen of my house I have seen some videos where people did it in a unfinished garage/shed what do u think about that Idea I seen u have a sink in your shed what is on the floor how do you clean up the mess when I do it in the kitchen I put down a taupe it is just so messy. my feet stick to the floor. bees are in the house and I am cleaning up dead bees for days after I am finished. and then I have to clean the walls where they been flying and pooping. it is a real mess. any way the video was great and very glad for u hope you have a blessed week. when are u going to treat and what are u useing. and what do u do to get your bees ready for the winter. all my queens are 23 queens there is a few that just got mated and have started laying. have a great day.

I was also wondering if you were a retired Senior Chief? My husband is a retired EOD Master Chief. We do bees as well. Thank you for your service. Keep up the great work and videos.

Nicely done. Love your videos Mike. You run a clean operation. I could watch you cut caps all day. You can handle that knife. 👊

Great video Mike! I am so happy that you got some honey, that was a good harvest considering the season that you had.

You make it look easy. I’m a sweaty mess and so is my workspace on harvest day.

Honey looks great! Love my 18 also. Our honey is light this year also. Late freeze as well here. Keep up the great videos.

Thanks Mike , We appreciate you !!

Im glad you got something. Maybe a little more then what you where thinking at one time

Thank you for the video 😊

Awesome, GOD is good 👍 made about the same amount here. May have to get me one of Hills extractors

Nice set up Mike. Pretty good harvest considering the crazy year you have had. Good stuff as always!

You can probably run your RH closer to 50% to sufficiently dry the honey. Selling honey by weight, it's beneficial to sell as much water as possible.

Great job Mike! (papa bee)

Awesome

Fume boards were the game changer. So glad you did videos on them, Mr Ed did too. I made one and it worked fantastic.

Härligt att se :) Önskar jag får en fin skörd skörd av honung nästa år! Då vore det fint med en kvalitetsmaskin från Hilco ultra max som kan slunga ramar flera timmar utan problem

Almost 400lbs for me this year, first and biggest harvest. I've been raising bees last few years so not much honey production. This year was awesome!!! 15.5 % water on average, lowest was 13% for my uncapped.

Thanks Mike, this harvest is proof God knows a lot more than we do, and I love your gratitude. God Bless !

Still love watching anything your doing.

The Lord does take care of us. You have a decent harvest after all, and I'm glad for you. So that was about what 50 lbs of honey per hive average? Now it is time for mite treatments and getting ready for winter, at least for you. My bees are still on a moderate flow here in MN and I'm just over 50 lbs per hive average already. My honey's color is about the same as last year, a light amber and very mild. My early honey had some dandelion nectar in it and was not real good so I used it to make flavored creamed honey. Take care. and have a great weekend Mike

Mike, I’m happy for you! The Good Lord blessed you and your girls for working so hard!

👍

🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝 Brother Mike, You're faithfulness has been rewarded by the ALMIGHTY. GOD resist the proud, and favors the humble. Several of us of this way have been talking about quitting pollinating and going into honey production. However, my chief concern right now is to dig deeper and try to learn more about the decline of the health of some of our colonies. Mike, I'm very seriously considering switching to caucasians and possibly carniolins. I have noticed that when you travel your bees across the country there is less and less propolis being made and we take them into areas of very high chemical applications. My own guilt tells me we need to really put dollar signs behind us and really try to enhance our bee populations. Remember what Jesus said when he was talking to Peter ❓ "Get thee behind me Satan"..... When I look at how much I have lost this year since Ian hit and now seeing far too much drop in brood size and longevity. Still seen a graveyard in front of every hive and it doesn't seem to stop. I can tell you for sure, that it's not related to Varroa mite. I am counting on GOD'S help, because as you also know, Mike, GOD said, "And this too shall come to pass" Thanks for a great video and all the wonderful help you spread across this world. GOD Bless 📖🛐🐝🐝🐝

Happy to hear you were blessed with a better harvest than you expected. May God continue to bless as you wrap up the harvest and begin prep for over wintering them.

Thanks for the video, Mike. I appreciate your gratefulness for the honey harvest.

I always enjoy your videos Mike! Glad your harvest was more abundant than you expected 😊

Congratulations Mike!! So glad to see honey flowing in your honey house!!! We ARE truly blessed!!! Take care!!

Great harvest Mike. Yes God is good, all the time. Summer is flying by as usual and looking toward winter plans.

Glad to hear that you were able to get something this year, seeing how the season went. I have to agree with you when you said that this year was a strange year! We did end up with a decent honey harvest this year in middle GA but it came in trickles and spurts. Our honey harvest up in the Georgia mountains has been another story due to swarming this year.

Congratulations Mike!! Definitely a harvest to be thankful for, especially in light of your sketchy tallow spring start.

Mike is your refractometer calibrated that seems awful dry for your high humidity area. Honey that dry takes a long time to spin out. Love your videos 👍

As always great video Mike and thank you so much for sharing .That honey looks so good .

This will be me in about 10 days. Your harvest turned out better than I thought it would be considering how hard the nectar flow got hit by the weather. God gives us blessings so we need to appreciate what he gives us. I hope to see you at Kamon's next conference. Stay safe in the heat.

Guess I need to get into my hives and see if I have anything to pull

Alot of people having problems with buckets splitting. Keep your eyes open. I don't even pick buckets by handles and don't fill to 60 lb per 5 gal. Pick up holding the sides till I get where I'm going with it

When I have those odd frames (partials and mismatched sides) I sort those frames out and run them all together at the end of the extraction. I usually try and find two frames that are the same in content and place them in the extractor opposite each other in the drum also being mindful of which frames are "heavier" and which are "lighter" when loading. By doing this I end up with a more balanced drum that won't walk the floor. Also start out slow and work up to speed. Definetely been a different year even up here in south central Pennsylvania too. And in stead of just hazy, hot and humid we can add smokey as well still having Canadian wildfire smoke blowing through our area. Wishing you all some relief from the heatwave down your way.

I'm glad to see your harvest rebounded to be a reasonable season, Mr. Mike. It was definitely a different type of year for me here in South Carolina, but blessed non the less.

Glad you got your moisture down. Checked some of mine today and 19.5% and 24%, so still going to wait to pull supers. Nice haul and some nice looking frames. Love your equipment. Stay cool in that AC honey house! Oh yeah, I used to have that same Shibara tractor. It had Japanese writing on the controls and didnt know what they did. lol

Our honey was darker, too, in BR.

Love your channel Mike! Great editing, great content, and most of all fun to watch. Keep up the good work. Getting ready to harvest my Michigan basswood honey! Also thank you for spreading the message of God, may be subtle but its powerful, just like all of His creations.🐝🐝🐝🐝

Your extractor looks like my Mann Lake 18/9 extractor it does a good job.

Mike, you are a retired Navy Senior Chief? No wonder I like your style, I served in the Corps and seriously appreciated my Navy brothers while I was in. Your no nonsense approach and straight forward talking is now understood and I appreciate it even more! How long were the frames in your honey house before this extraction? With your humidity those bees must have been working their tails of to dry the uncapped cells out if it wasn't very long, I would think. As always, I love seeing your videos, and this one just adds to why Mr. Ed calls you World Famous. What's the backstory to that title, I haven't come across it yet?

Looks good bud, but you need one of those cheap chinese fruit presses for your cappings ... you will be amazed how much honey comes out after a little pressing, I leave mine overnight just giving it an occasional screw and the next day there is a plug of solid wax and a bucket of honey.

Great video, glad your harvest turned out well. God Bless!

Always put some calico or plastic fly screen on the top and bottom of the wax. It helps stop any suction caused by the mixture of wax and sticky honey. The presses start at less than $100 here in Australia, they are stainless steel and real easy to keep clean. They are available in several sizes.

Wow wow wow that is so great to see just how much it all turned around. Your little girls proved if it is out there they can get it done. I am like you I Purchased a hot knife well I never even plugged my up an have been using my bread knife. This season with my knife tho ever once in a while it was like it would start to pull clumps of comb out like my knife was getting dull . Any thoughts . That was a first . Also Mike on overwintering your supers like that with them being in the open an full light do you not have any problems with wax moths even if there are some brood/honey frames out there . ?? . I have had maybe four frames this season first year frames honey only that the wax moth had started leaving trails in them fast . Get my crop sold this season I guess I will be calling John hill for my 18 frame extractor an I think I will keep my Maxant also . I

I made mistake in putting my wets back on hives this year hoping. All I got was robbing and lost hives. Live and learn

I am happy that you got more than you expected.

Mike as always it's a pleasure to see you with your bees and man that honey harvest was awesome congrats Mike. I'm glad you were blessed with some delicious looking honey. May God continue to bless you Mike with your bees and with making amazing videos. Thank you again Mike your awesome God bless you.

Always love seeing your harvest vidz! Blessings Mike!

Took me about 3 minutes to clean mine the other day! Nice job Mike.

Always love watching your how you do videos.Looking to build a honey house and was wondering what size your is? Always where did you get your bread knife? Keep doing what you do!! God Bless!

Looking good Mike. I’m working on my video. Pulled about 700 pounds this year from about 20 hives.

How often do you check your refractometer? And what do you check it with?

Our honey was very dry and dark here in central Arkansas as well.

You keep out doing yourself on your videos and information please keep it up.

Man, Mike you know how to handle that knife!

Mike, we had some areas of Ohio with the same, 15.5% uncapped. I tested mine and saw 17.5% in some and 16% in other. Quite the harvest you had.

I started pulling today. Moisture between 16 and 17.5%. I am running my dehumidifier due to the air moisture being so high. I am hoping for about half of last year. We will see. Glad you did so well.

I’m getting darker honey also. It has a vanilla taste.

Thank you for your content, what size is your shed? 10’*20’?

Awesome job as usual Mike!!!!

My honey was dark this year and last year the first harvest was light gold and the fall harvest was dark. Probably be a reverse this year when the goldenrod comes in.

Ps now that's black 🖤 as coal honey that stuff. Makes a good wine as well if ya drink on the job 😂 elder Berri wine one can not feel the stings.

#hillco What I'm seeing is that when you use the cold knife that it makes the comb a uniform depth. 👍 Edit: moving that many boxes I'd be crippled because my back would be hurting! Love the uncapping!

Nice setup!! I think I'm going to have to get a proper uncapping tank at some point soon. Just curious - you said the refractometer is new... what do you do with a new refractometer to ensure it is calibrated to start out so that you know the reading is correct?

Bet milk weed base. Bees here get stuck into elder berrie trees .

How do you clean the wax out of your double filter? Mine gets embedded with wax.

Is that a Hillco extractor? I just bought one.❤

Who is your decapping tank made by. Enjoyed the video.

Mike do you have much trouble with mice getting in your supers by stacking them uncovered?

Where do you find a center bevel bladed bread knife that is that long and also that thin?? Been looking everywhere! Blades that favor the edge to the side tend to eat into the wood.

Where do you get your buckets from that you store your honey in and do they ever leak? I've been using Tractor supply buckets but I think I got a bad batch I had 2 from the last 6 start leaking on the bottom

This has definitely been a weird year for honey. That last late frost really screwed up the nectar mixture this year. It tastes and looks different.

What problems do you have leaving the honey supers out like that?

Can't find a good bread knife.... do you have a source?

Thanks for the video Mike. Do you have the maker and model of the knife you were using? Is it long enough to also uncap deep frames? Thanks again Mike.

MIke, what kind of a knife are you using?

My bees really tear up the comb if I just set frames out for them to clean. If I put them back on the colonies they repair it and clean it. Any idea why the difference? It's like they're robbing instead of just eating/cleaning.

well done Mike. I too was not expecting the harvest I got. Enjoy and thanks for sharing from Seattle