Honey exiting the extractor.

Last weekend heralded the start of “Sticky Season” at my house.  It’s that wonderful time when pretty much every horizontal surface (and many of the vertical ones, too) are sticky with… honey.

Oozy, goozy, golden droplets and dribbles of honey.  Honey flung out the top of the extractor, because the covers are pain to keep taking on and off.  Honey dripping from the bottoms of sieves, honey-coated hands and clothing.  Honey-coated bees, dropping into the tray where I keep the cut wax cappings, drunk and staggering, leaving tiny honey trails behind their fat bellies rubbing along the garage floor.

It is the happiest of messes, this.  Our little dog, Chloe, spent the better part of yesterday evening hunting down all the honey drops and licking each one clean.  This was a good thing, since when she’s occupied she’s not barking or annoying our old boy dog, Hoover.

The beeswax cappings went into a pot, I added boiling water, and let the wax float to the top to cool.  I will pour off the dirty water, melt it down again, then run it through a cheesecloth into a mold.  This wax is one of the main ingredients in my Lees Bees brand lip balms, creams and salves.  http://www.leesbeesnj.etsy.com