da honey

so, a word about the honey extraction experience. first and foremost, honey is mesmerizing- i found myself staring at it dripping out of the extractor, completely entranced. the bees like it, too, but take it one step further and try to land on the honeyfall, only to be washed down into the bucket of honey and certain sticky doom. i personally watched about 20 bees meet their maker while staring at the honey flow. i tried to save a few but it was hopeless- imagine being covered in goo and trying make your wings fly. nope. there was a layer of pulsating bees on top of the five gallons of honey we got out while i was there- pretty creepy, actually.

secondly, there really needs to be a system in place to make the best use of honey extraction time. this is a system wyatt did not have in place. which resulted in me being annoyed at the lack of organization and taking off early to avoid getting into it with him about best how to do things, which happens enough as it is to not want to deal with it on my day off/volunteer honey project day. my boss's lack of organization combined with poor honey extraction machine design = ashley having to leave early to avoid blowing a gasket.

the honey extractor works like this:

first, you steal the honey comb from the bees. wait, first you accept the fact that the hundreds of robber bees from the neighborhood aren't going to fuck with you because it's not their honey. then you get the combs out from the hives and take a hot knife to scrape off the wax caps from the comb. then you put the comb panels into this contraption (seen above) that will spin around centrifuge-style, making the honey fly out to splatter on the walls and drip down to collect in the bottom. then you open a spout and let it drip out into a strainer where the beeswax bits and dead bees are removed and- voila! you have delicious honey. sounds pretty simple, yes?
-a few problems. one: we only had one extension cord in wyatt's backyard, so we couldn't use the electric hot knife and the honey extractor at the same time, thus creating a lot of stand around time while we're waiting for one or the other to get to a stopping point. 2: we don't have anything to put the uncapped comb into while it waits to be put in the extractor, so honey is dripping all over the yard. 3: the honey is initially too cold and not dripping fast enough through the strainer, so we have to close up the spout and wait for honey to strain- meanwhile, the bees are all excited about the honey collecting in the bucket and landing in it, thus negating the use of the strainer because all the strained honey now has bees sinking into it. 4: and finally: the honey extractor is poorly designed.

i might have to start a list of poorly-designed appliances that piss me off, and with it, a call to all inventors to redesign said appliances to make my life more tolerable. the main problem with the honey thing is this: it's a vat made to hold as much as 100 pounds of honey comb and spin, and yet it is two feet up in the air on three little legs with tiny feet, and therefore unable to spin without moving around violently like an unbalanced washing machine. bad design! furthermore, wyatt's got the feet screwed into a piece of plywood, as though THAT will help, so we all have to stand on the plywood platform thing to try to quell its shaking. this doesn't work very well when you have two small girls trying to outweigh a centrifuge. no. i convinced him to screw it into his deck- even though this resulted in him having a minor freak out because he'd left his drill at the farm.

all in all it was prety frustrating.
but damn tasty. finger lickin' good!

and, in the time it took to scrape beeswax off the comb, i got to hear about how my little elfin lesbian coworker went to a party the previous night that unexpectedly featured naked pudding wrestling. she was clearly traumatized (who wouldn't be?)