Yesterday (October 1), Students for Sustainability took a field trip out to Bill Hewett's bee keeping farm. Bill has approximately 75 hives and makes pure honey...yum! Bill was generous enough to not only let students see his hang-out, but taught them the in's and out's of bee keeping and even let them sample some! Needless to say, most left with at least a jar of his pure honey in hand. Below are pictures of Bill and students.
Meet Bill Hewett, Beekeeping expert.
Bill stands amongst the bees, pointing at them as they work away. Students meet the honey-producers face to face. I was too scared to get close.
Inside his honey extracting factory, students look at honeycomb remains as Bill explains the process.
Did I mention that he had delicious treats for us?
Above, Bill has has some honeycomb for us to try. Chelsea Smith, Students for Sustainability V.P. , enjoys a piece along with the rest of the group. I quickly realized after trying some that you're supposed to suck the honey out of the comb, not eat the entire thing.
Now, students hear a summary of how honey is extracted from wooden frames that are in the beehives.
Bees store their honey in these frames. Beekeepers then take these frames out of the hive
to extract the honey.
This is an uncapping knife. It slices off the cappings from the honeycomb.
Next, Bill takes the sheets and puts them in the honey extractor.
And now, we have pure honey!
Bill explains the difference between raw
and pure honey as students watch honey slowly
pour out from the extractor. Pure honey
is put through a filter so that honeycomb
chunks and whatever else the bees put in the wooden frames is left out of the final product.
To the left, Nicole Ortega, Students for Sustainability President, pours warm honey from the extractor into a jar to take home. Most students purchased some honey.
Students thanked Bill for letting them check out his place. If you missed this trip, don't worry. I'm sure we'll visit again in the spring. Keep checking the facebook group and watching for messages about other fun field trips!
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