buttered popcorn

Last night as I strolled down to feed my a bees a little extra sugar water I was stunned to catch a strong whiff of buttered popcorn.  Never having smelled the distinct smell of buttered popcorn in the open outdoors my mind was racing. 

Is the smell the scent of a fall weed? Are my bees sick, infested?

Unsure of the exact source of the buttered popcorn smell I moved forward with my head tilted back, nostrils in the air, and flailing.  I inhaled the flowering weeds.

Aha-Choo! Nope, not coming from the weeds. 
It's the beehive, I KNOW it's the beehive!

For your enjoyment I will tell you at this point my nose is touching the beehive. No lie! I'm being embarrassingly honest here. My beak is smashed right up to the backside of the wooden high rise.

THE BEEHIVE smells like buttered popcorn....What in the World??
CRAP-O-LA!! 
Here I've been worried about aiding their survival through the winter. It's nearly fall! And, it's my STRONG hive, the honey producers, the gals who NEEDED the high rise!

Determined to save my bees and conquer this buttered popcorn smell I sat down at the computer ready to research.  I jumped on my favorite bee websites, blogs, and was filled with relief to discover that the buttered popcorn smell was the scent of a fall honey flow.  Hallelujah!!  Specifically it is the smell of honey produced from fall flowers like Goldenrod and Aster.  I have yet to peek in at their hard work. I'm super excited to do so. I'm hoping for a golden surprise. Maybe enough capped honey for one last extraction?

the processs

Introducing.....the honeybee gals.

Meet Hive West and Hive East. As you can see Hive East has excelled in productivity and created quite a high rise for living accommodations.

As one might guess, all of my extracted honey has been taken from the East Hive, where there appears to be a surplus of honey. Because I'm working solo I have no photos of the actual removal. It involves,smoke-lots of smoke, heavy lifting(who knew honey could weigh so much),

mucho praying, hoping 98% of the little darlings stay at their home, and rushing the capped comb into the house without getting the entire 60,000 family members buzzin' m-a-d! I was fortunate to only bring 4 bees into the house, but for every bee came 10 flies. So is life on the farm:) I DID not get stung on extraction day, but did find my arms sticky to the elbows along with a smudge of honey through my right eyebrow...good bye salon eyebrow waxing;)

The capped honeycomb.

Honey beeing extracted.

The finished product.

6 frames=17 small bottles & 8 medium bottles

18 frames to go......Would you like honey for your biscuits friends?

oodles and oodles of honey

Yesterday, after an early a.m. bike ride, I suited up to rob my bees of their delicious sweet sticky golden stuff. It was a hot endeavour but the payoff was superb. I couldn't be more happy with how hard the little gals have worked. I've harvested honey from 6 frames of an 8 frame hive and bottled oodles and oodles of honey. I honestly can't believe how much honey I have! Pictures will come.