In the video, the honey frames collected at the previous stage of the harvest are uncapped and harvested using both the spinner and the honey press.

For me beekeeping and honey harvesting is primarily a labor of love rather than purely a matter of economics. That’s why for honey harvesting I use no shortcuts that would negatively affect the quality and the taste of honey.

For example, to uncap the wax capping I use an uncapping fork rather than a hot knife which is slower and less efficient, however, the honey remains unheated and does not lose any of its natural goodness.

Unlike most conventional beekeepers, I don’t use common honeybees with Italian genetics – they are good honey producers but they also are poorly adapted to cold (Maine) winters and require constant sugar feeding and medications to help them survive. .

I only use hardy USDA Russian bees that are well adapted to cold winters and do not need any sugar feedings or meds to help them. And that is why I never sugar feed them or medicate them. What also helps is the fact that my apiary is in a remote pristine location, far from farmlands’ pesticides and bordering a 3,000 acres of wildlife sanctuary and there’s plenty of natural foraging available to my bees.

Tasting pure honey produced without common sugar-feedings and meds is a completely different joyful experience quite unlike tasting a syrupy ‘funny honey’ substance from a plastic squeezable bear…