Solar Beeswax melter

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Putting the sun to work melting bees wax is quite a pleasure. I say this having hijacked pots from the kitchen and made them quite a big mess to clean up. Not worth the trouble. So I fabricated this solar wax melter and it works better than I ever thought it would. I put 8 to 10 pounds of wax, honey, propolis and miscellaneous bee stuff into this rig... and out comes bleached wax and pollen infused honey. The photo tells the story, this took about 6 hours in the sun. I still need to paint and make a permanent glass door for the top. Just had to try it out as it was 90 degrees and sunny today.

Sweet Sweet August

It has been two years in the making and now we have our first harvest of honey. We used to keep bees 20 years ago when it was easy as far as keeping healthy bees. Now it is a bit dicey to get them to winter over because of the mites and diseases. So I guess it is in my blood, and to get 100 pounds of honey from two hives while leaving the bees 70 or 80 pounds for themselves to get them through the winter is just too much fun. To give you an idea, 100 pounds is about 8 gallons of an incredible local food / sugar with enzymes and pollen for our health. Without the help of my son Dan and my life mate Kathie, it would have never happened ...Thanks to both of you.

Maple sugar candy

We decided to take our syrup hobby to a new level and ty our hand at some confections. In our pursuit we were gifted with a candy mold (Thanks Mom) and here are the results of our first attempt.

Danny ,our son, says they are addictive. I think he may be right.

They just keep coming

Instead of finding ones and twos we found several larger groups this morning.

Morels for Supper

I have been working in the shop and will show off my labors soon, but for now the morning break was spent with a rite of spring around here, hunting morels. We already ate about half of them for lunch. What a treat!

The end product

Here is a sample for color comparison of the two batches that we have finished so far. It is interesting, the experts say that as the season goes on the syrup gets darker.........thats what they say. In this case we did a better job of keeping our second batch boiling and it turned out a bit lighter in color. I can't say I can tell the difference in flavor between the two. But maybe when we get to the end of the season there will be a difference. I'll let you know. Next boil, maybe Monday?

Haul and boil.......

Boiling pan

Just started a fresh batch and got 15 gallons to a boil in 40 min. The system is working great and I just wish that I had more trees to tap

Hauling in from the woods

This part is more work than one thinks it might be when contemplating this venture. Soon we will have some sweet sweet syrup to dribble over sourdough pancakes. If I could only make a living having this much fun!

Door knobs

Mushroom style pull 3" dia

I couldn't resist , I needed to put some sort of pull on the door to the sugar shack and so I turned a couple of different styles as an exercise and to add a little class to an otherwise dilapidated old building (that I might add has a new life and will now be cared for with a new attitude.)

Colonial style 3" dia

This is the more ornate of the two and my mate requested that I put it on the inside where it is more protected. They may look nice but they are just knobs to pull the door closed.

by the way: we will be boiling Monday morning as we are in a good run and we have 50 gals of sap gathered and ready to go.

Maple syrup

Here's a shot of the old ice house that the previous residents ,the Amish, used for ice and we are now useing as a sugar shack. It keeps us out of the wind and a little warmer on the cool nights boiling sap.

For a bit of a change from my woodworking I just finished our maple syrup evaporator pan and wood fired arch. We just ran our first batch of 35 gallons of sap through the process with all its inherent difficult moments and we learned a lot. What fun! The door is open just to help show what is going on.