Now that you have your bees busy gathering nectar and pollen and you have your boxes cleaned and painted, are you thinking about the extraction process? You’re not?!! Well, let me share some thoughts with you.

Is your extractor clean? You did clean it when you finished last year, didn’t you? Whew! For a moment I thought you were going to say no. But let me add that just because it was clean then, doesn’t mean it is still clean. All buildings and especially the honey house will get bugs in there, you will track dirt and sand in when you bring stuff in during the Winter. Even if you have a cover on the extractor, dust will settle in.

Just as the camping equipment, pots and pans, and dishes will gather unwanted stuff between trips, your extracting equipment will also gather stuff. You clean your cooking equipment before you use them for this first camping meal, you need to clean the extracting equipment with at least Hot Water before you start extracting your new honey. The sump tank, pump, and piping should also be cleaned and/or rinsed also. Clean your buckets that have been sitting up for several months. Just as you think you are finished, you might want to think of your bears, pints, quarts, and gallon jugs also.

Remember, you are getting your honey ready to sell to the consumer and you would like to furnish to them, the product in the same condition as you would expect the grocery store to furnish it to you. Rule of Thumb – if you would not eat it in that condition, then don’t offer it to you customers. A selling point: “If I sneeze in my hand, then I wash my hands with soap and water before I pick up another container to be filled.”

If you can eat off your honey house floor, then by all means scrape that spilled honey up and bottle it, then place it on your breakfast table.

Take care of your customers, they are the reason for your honey sales.