From Hive to Home
Under our Bees section, we described how honey is made by honeybees. Now let’s talk about what happens after the bees cap and seal the cells. What does it take to get the honey from hive to bottle to your kitchen table?
Step 1
When the supers (michiganbee.org) are full of honey, the beekeeper carefully removes the bees and then transports the hive boxes to the extraction facility.
Step 2
Frames are removed from the supers and placed into an uncapping machine designed to remove the bees’ wax seal.
Step 3
A honey extractor spins the frames at a high speed, forcing the honey out by using centrifugal force.
Step 4
The honey is pumped into a storage tank where it is minimally strained to remove any foreign matter.
Step 5
55-gallon drums are filled with the honey, sealed, assigned a lot code, and moved to a staging area for shipment to the honey packer facility.
Step 6
Our packing facilities receive the raw honey, which most times crystallizes during shipping, and samples from each lot are drawn by our Quality personnel. The honey is not released until testing is complete and deemed acceptable.
Step 7
A gentle warming process is applied to slowly liquefy the honey. The honey is then filtered or strained to remove natural and foreign matter.
Step 8
Once it’s ready, honey is bottled, labeled, coded and boxed for shipment.