In May you can harvest the first honey. If you find that there is too little nectar and pollen, you can feed extra sugar water. In July, the second extraction. About 15 kilograms of honey per box is a good catch. After the second harvest beekeepers let the bees alone. They can be at ease and stockpile to overwinter.
If frames are sealed for ¾, honey is sufficiently mature. If in doubt, do the impact test: we knock firmly on the upper bar of the honey frame, when the honey is not “raining” out, he is sufficiently thickened and may be extracted.
A forward-looking beekeeper placed in the spring a queen excluder (where the queen cannot pass), so almost certainly no brood is in the honey super. We never take honey frames with brood to maintain the population.
The day before extraction you place an bee escape or clearer board which let the animals out, but not inside again.
The heather honey was sold as honey with comb. The pieces were often pressed in a honey block press and traded as liquid heather honey. Because of the pieces of comb in the honey bottles, he was also called chunck honey. The tough honey was difficult to swing without "pricking" with an erica brush or a humming machine, a series of pins to puncture (and possibly stir) the comb. The chunks were also bain-marie heated so that melted floating wax could be removed from the honey.
Children under one year of age can become ill from the bacteria Clostridium botulinum, which sometimes occurs in honey. Honey is safe for older children and pregnant women.
Manuka honey comes from the shrubby manuka tree (Leptospermum scoparium or "Tea" tree) that is found in New Zealand (and parts of Australia). He is known for its antibacterial and fungicidal properties due to the high concentration of bioactive substances such as (poly) phenols. The antibacterial value depends on the amount of methylglyoxal (MGO) and "Unique Manuka Factor" (UMF).