What goes into bottling honey, you ask?
Honey Comb - is it ready?
Well, an ol' timer may say to not extract honey that isn't capped. Why? The bees will "cap" honey when the moisture content is right and then it is ready. See the photo below? That's what "capped" honey looks like. It has a hard surface that holds the honey back - it's basically a layer of new wax the bees put over it to protect it when they know it is at the right moisture level. If you take it before, it will be tough to remove the moisture from it.
There is a certain amount of water that is contained in honey. However, too much and it could ferment if you don't eat it fast enough. The acceptable level is somewhere between between 15.5% and 18.6% with high quality under 17%.
How do you measure the content? Well, again, your experience beekeeper will only extract the capped honey above. And that's what Christian did. Me as the scientific mind wanted to know what it really was.
Extraction
Equipment Needed: Knife, comb scratcher, food grade bucket (like a honey bucket) and an extractor (plus a food grade bin to cut the wax into)
Being cheap, I decided to get the VINGLI 2 Frames Manual Honey Extractor Separator, Food Grade Stainless Steel Honeycomb Spinner Drum Crank by Hand with Adjustable Height Stands, Beekeeping Pro Extraction Apiary Centrifuge Equipment from Amazon. Christian had to modify it this year. It isn't sturdy enough on its legs to not rock. Dad and Christian removed the legs and put in its place 2x4 legs with a base of plywood on the bottom. Standing on the plywood, it doesn't rock now.
Anyway - using the knife (get a honey uncapping knife), cut the wax capping off the frame. Usually, you can place the knife against the frame and cut up/down. Also, for ease, you can balance on the side of a food grade bin to cut them into.
Then you place two at a time in the extractor and spin. When the bin fills up, you let it empty into a food grade honey bucket. Once you are done (with all your buckets), put a lid on and leave it sit for 24 hours. This allows it to settle.
As a side note, we do use a filter at the bottom of the extractor and on the top of the bucket. This keeps chunkiness down. Also, I then save the wax, the filtered mess and melt it down later. You'll go through several more filtering when you melt down the wax.
Science
You thought I wasn't going to say anything about the percentage, didn't you?
Using a refractometer, you can determine the percentage of moisture in the honey. What does it look like? Take a peek, because I'm super proud:
Less than 17% - ya, that's good honey!
Bottling
After you waited a couple days to let the air settle out of the honey in the buckets, you can use the spout at the bottom and carefully fill bottles. Oh pick any bottle you like. I see in our area that an ounce is about $1 each or a little more. Make yourself some labels and be sure to add the nutrition labels.
I tell everyone that I give a bottle to that they should not feed to infants under 1. (Side note: I am only selling to friends; but if I were selling it on a bigger scale, I would totally put a label on the bottle for it.) There's labels for that and informational ones like how to liquify honey. Actually, there's a whole business in labels on Etsy and various beekeeper shops.
That's the process in a nutshell. We had 58 bottles total (about 7 gallons of honey), plus a small jelly canning jar for that last little bit in the honey bucket. And you guessed it - they are 16 ounce bottles for $16. Get them while they are here! Next? What to do with all the cappings and extra wax! (PS> I'm so proud of Christian. What an accomplishment to finally have the honey to sell! Last year, we had 20 bottles that we shared with friends and family.)
