Spin honey: learn from beekeepers
Spinning honey is part of the honey harvest and therefore a very special job for every beekeeper. During the harvest, the honey is "thrown" out of the honeycomb thanks to a centrifugal machine. Here you can read exactly how this honey harvesting process works.
How to fling your honey
You fling your honey when you want to harvest your honey. Almost every honey sold in Germany is centrifuged honey. Pure hygiene at harvest is essential, as honey is a raw food.
- You become a beekeeper by buying a beehive and bee colony from a beekeeping association.
- In addition to an apiary, as a beekeeper you also need special beekeeping protective clothing with a beekeeper's hat, beekeeping tunic, gloves and tools such as the beekeeper's pipe.
- Bees produce honey between March and October. This is how you harvest in May or June and again in late summer (July or August). With a new bee colony, it takes a year before you can harvest honey for the first time.
- If you want to harvest your honey, you have to be extremely clean in all steps, because honey is a purely natural food. Dirt can spoil the crop very quickly.
- First, remove the honeycomb from the beehive. The cells of the honeycomb are closed with a wax lid. Therefore, you must remove this seal with uncapping dishes and an uncapping fork before putting them in the centrifuge.
- Beeswax serves as a practical by-product when harvesting honey.
- Make sure that you only remove honeycombs from the beehive. If brood gets into the centrifuge, it contaminates the honey harvest.
- You also have to make sure that the honey is actually ripe. Because it still contains too much water, it is not yet ripe and can spoil quickly after harvesting.
- Then put the honeycomb in the slingshot. Depending on the type of machine, place or hang it in the machine. When centrifuging, the machine extracts the honey liquid from the honeycomb thanks to the centrifugal forces.
- You can borrow such machines from your beekeeping association. There are different versions here. Some are operated using a hand crank, others have an electric drive.
- You can then hang the empty honeycomb back into the beehive.
- Choose a clean room for the harvest. Too much moisture or mold can damage honey. It is also advisable to keep the room warm enough so that the honey does not get cold and is easier to throw out of the honey cells
- The room and all equipment and machines for the honey harvest must be hygienically clean.
In the next article you will read how you can contribute to bee protection.