On July 31st we harvested and then bottled our first honey crop from the blue/purple hive at my house.

I put the empty super back onto the hive for the bees to clean up, and they were able to fill it again!

Today was a nice day in the upper 80's with clear skies and I decided to extract the honey before the weather got any cooler. I also wanted to satisfy my curiosity for what our fall honey crop tastes like.

The bees did not cap the honey frames, so I used my refractometer and determined the moisture content to be 17.5% which was dry enough for me to extract.

Below you can see the refractometer, right after I placed a few drops of honey on the glass, and before I closed it up and took the reading.



Once inside the basement (honey house) our helper Garrison (20 months old) was at the ready.





When we were all done, we harvested almost exactly 1 gallon (14 lbs) of honey today. That brings this year's total for the purple/blue hive to 4 gallons (52 lbs) - an awesome amount for a first year hive!



This fall honey has a different taste then our spring honey. I'd say it's a touch sweeter...but then again, I am partial to my own honey!