The Heart of Cheshire Honey

The honey on sale at Station House Cafe is produced by bees living a field away from the cafe in the lovely Cheshire countryside ,with a view of Beeston Castle  in the distance.
The bees gather the pollen and nectar from the surrounding countryside foraging for it on both trees and wildflowers.
The nectar starts off really watery and high in water content and each night the bees flap their wings and evaporate the moisture until it turns into the lovely honey you see in the jar.
It’s very important that the bees keep enough of their own food so Steve the bee keeper from Heart Of Cheshire Honey ( check out his Facebook page ) only ever takes what’s extra and leave plenty for the bees to use themselves.

When the honey is ready I take the boxes off and slice the cappings before placing the frames into my extractor. They are then spun at low speed gradually increasing the speed until the frames have emptied.
The honey runs down the sides of the stainless steel extractor and out into a stainless rough filter that removes the particles of wax but leaves the micro pollen in the honey.
The frames are then put back into the boxes and returned to the hives the same day so that the bees can clean up the wet frames and reuse the honey.
The method I use to slice the cappings creates very little damage and I’ve seen the bees fix the wax and start refilling the frames two days later.