Josephium Harvest

We pulled the honey super off of the Josephium today. Joachim, Eric, and Karen came over at about 2. I had forgotten to put in the escape board, and put it in around 11 a.m. Late, but better than never.

Joachim and I went out with

1. a telescoping top, which we used as a tray to hold the super, 
2. a crown cover, 
3. a bucket lid to put over the hole in the crown cover, 
4. the hive tool and brush, 
5. and an empty medium super.

I took off the full super from above the escape board and Joachim smoked it. Then he retreated a brief distance where our empty super sat on the telescoping "top". I extracted the frames one at a time and brushed them off and handed them to Joachim, who re-smoked them and put them into his super. After we got all of the frames into the new super, we carried the heavy load into the sun room.

Karen, Eric, and Joachim started crushing the comb into some cookie trays. The apiaria assisted. We used

1. three cookie trays,
2. three metal spatulas,
3. a potato smasher, for crushing the comb,
4. a step stool to rest the five-gallon strainer and bottler on,
5. a toolbox to sit on,
6. a metal plate on the floor to catch drippings,
7. a case of bottles, which needed rinsing,
8. and lids

We bottled sixteen half-pounders right off the bat. The apiaria bottled a 17th a little while later. There are still a few pounds left in the extractor, which we will let drain over the next few days.

Not a bad haul for one medium super. I just wish we had gotten some supers from the Benedictium.