Hello Friend, we are David & Sheri Burns from Long Lane Honey Bee Farms in central Illinois. Thanks for joining us for another lesson in beekeeping. I’ve been posting beekeeping lessons for over 3 years now. I hope you enjoy them. Today, I want to examine the importance of using a refractometer! A refractometer is used to measure the moisture level in honey. Beekeepers need to become more aware of what the moisture content is in the honey they are harvesting. Harvest it too soon, and the excess moisture content will cause the honey to go bad or ferment, and when it does, you’ll be seeing customers bringing your honey back wanting a refund and spreading around bad news about your honey to others. You don’t want that. Before we start today’s lesson, let me share some fun we’ve been having here at the bee farm. We had our first ever 2 hour short course and we reached our maximum number of students. It was a great evening. We had Christmas decorations up, Christmas lights up outside and it was snowing…just beautiful. We had warm apple cider made with honey at the door to warm up the travelers as they arrived. First, Sheri handed out a newsletter that we produced on Cooking With Honey. This particular newsletter is available for sale on our website for $3. CLICK HERE. It’s a very nice glossy 4 page newsletter with recipes and lots of tips for cooking with honey. Then, she demonstrated how to cook with honey and took us through breakfast, lunch and supper. Of course, someone had to eat all that food she made so I helped myself. All her dishes included honey. Many beekeepers might spread some honey on their toast in the morning, but few cook with honey in other meals. Sheri demonstrated just how fun and easy it really is. Also, for more on Sheri’s cooking she would love for you to visit her blog at: http://sheriburns.blogspot.com/ After the cooking with honey demonstration, I had a table with 10 varieties of honey to taste sample. These were not flavored honey, but pure honey made from specific floral sources. Some of the different types of honey included were: Buckwheat, Acacia, Eucalyptus, Blueberry, Orange Blossom, Kentucky Mountain, and North Carolina Mountain Honey. After the honey sampling, Angela Faulkner gave an excellent presentation on Candle Making. She demonstrated how to melt wax, select the proper wick, dipping candles and more.
Angela revealed some tips and tricks to make candles like using soda cans and placing tension on the wick by drilling a hole in the can and using plumbers putty. She also stressed how important it is to be safe and never overheat the wax or leave a candle burning unattended. After her demonstration, students were invited to make their own candles. Candle making is such an enjoyable aspect of beekeeping and an excellent way to make some more profit from the hive and make good use of left over beeswax. It is so rewarding to make your own candles. Many claim that pure beeswax candles burn cleaner and can even purify the air. No one can argue that beeswax candles have a delightful fragrance that is therapeutic! Our next 2 hour short course will be on the first Friday night in January, January 7th from 6pm – 8pm on Mead Making. Frank J. Bellafiore, MD will be demonstrating the art of mead making. He moved to Champaign, IL in 1995 and is a staff pathologist with the Carle Physician Group. He also holds an appointment at the University Of Illinois Urbana-Champaign School Of Medicine as a Clinical Assistant Professor of Pathology. While interested in all areas of pathology, he holds a special interest in breast pathology and hematopathology. Dr. Bellafiore took up honey mead-making years ago and he hopes to pass along some of his knowledge and enthusiasm for the wonderful craft of mead-making in this short course. If you're a fun audience, perhaps he'll share a sample of his most recently crafted mead at the end of the course...a ginger-peach melomel! He is very experienced in making mead and will make it understandable, and he’s just a lot of fun to be around! I will also be demonstrating how to make candy boards and queen candy. Join us by clicking here to register. LESSON 89: The Importance Of Using A Refractometer To Make Sure Your Honey Is Ready For Harvest At our last short course, I demonstrated how to use the Refractometer. Most students had never used a refractometer and were amazed at how simple it is to use.
So in today’s lesson I want to discuss: 1) How using a refractometer can increase your honey production, 2) How a refractometer works, 3) How to use a refractometer, and 4) How to invest in the right model. First, how can a refractometer increase your honey yields? I took this picture by holding my camera up to the view finder on the refractometer. It reads 18%. Typically, we always say that you should not harvest honey from the hive until all the frames are capped over, meaning all of the cells in the honey frames are sealed with the bee’s wax cappings. But, often the bees fill up the honey cells but do not seal them over. This means that the bees cannot store any additional nectar because there is no room. This is especially the case in certain types of climates where the bees may never completely seal the honey comb. Meanwhile, you could have been giving them more frames to fill. So, what you can do is remove the frames that may still not be completely sealed and give them drawn comb to continue to store incoming nectar. Then, place your filled, but unsealed frames in a room with a dehumidifier and a fan, and use your refractometer to measure and dry the honey to around 17.5% moisture. By removing your frames earlier than normal and drying them, you can place empty frames in the hive to be filled. This is how a refractometer can help increase your honey yields. Secondly, just how does a refractometer work? Prisms bend light. A refractometer operates in much the same way, but instead light reacts differently depending on the amount of sugar as the light passes through the honey (sugar) and the daylight plate and the main prism assembly. How to Use a Refractometer First, open the light plate and expose the light blue area. Now take a couple drops of honey so that the honey will cover the blue area completely. If you use too much honey, it will just be messy. You just need enough to cover the blue plate. Now, close the light gate firmly to spread the honey evenly over the blue plate. Now, simply look into the view finder and take your reading. To clean your refractometer after use, simply use a damp cloth and remove the honey from all areas. How To Invest In The Right Model
While refractometers are very easy to use, I would strongly urge all bee keepers not to purchase the inexpensive refractometers for under $100. These might be accurate, but as many beekeepers have found they are plagued with problems. In my opinion, save up your money and invest in the model we are showing in this lesson. It is not the most expensive model, but it is made by Atago, a superior and well established refractometer company and this model is designed especially for honey. It is perfect every time, durable, handheld and affordable. We sell these for $269. CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE YOURS TODAY maybe in time for an outstanding Christmas gift for the one you love. Many beekeepers have told me how frustrated they were with the cheaper models. So invest in a life long instrument that you’ll be very happy with. Refractometers are designed for measuring moisture in various materials. This model we are showing and selling is specifically manufactured for measuring honey. Before I close today, let me tell you about a new item we are offering. We are offering a unique 3-way queen rearing hive. It is specifically designed to hold 3 queens by keeping them separated by inserts in the deep hive body. These inserts slide into grooves that even travel down into the bottom board so queens cannot travel between sections. What is unique with our design is that when you are finished raising queens, you can pull out the panels, plug the two small openings in the side of the bottom board and all equipment then turns back into usable Langstroth sized equipment. We are selling these for $39. CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO Our next Wildlife Pro Network beekeeping podcast is coming up this Thursday, December 17th! I hope you’ll call in and be a part of this live podcast. I’ll be talking about what bees do in and out of the hive. We encourage you to listen or call in and ask questions. The easiest way for you to call in during the beekeeping show is to call: (724) 444-7444 and enter call ID 16456 when prompted. We’d love for you to call in with a comment or question. I know there are over 1,000 of you who receive this via your Email, so set your timer for Thursday night, 7pm central time. Here’s another link showing what the podcast is all about and additional ways to join in. http://robo.bushkillfarms.com/how-to-participate-in-a-wpn-beekeeping-podcast/ Your overwhelming support of Long Lane Honey Bee Farms would be greatly appreciated during these beekeeping podcasts that I am now hosting each third Thursday of the month. As always we appreciate your business. So many of you have made us your home for all your beekeeping equipment, package bees, nucs and education. Your loyal business keeps us paying the bills so we can continue doing what we do. Be sure to order all your packages, nucs, queens and beekeeping equipment from us. We appreciate your business. Here’s our contact info: MAIN WEBSITE: www.honeybeesonline.com EMAIL: david@honeybeesonline.com ORDER LINE: 217-427-2678 PODCAST: www.honeybeesonline.com/studiobeelive.html Until next time, BEE-HAVE yourself! David & Sheri Burns Long Lane Honey Bee Farms
Hello Friend, we are David & Sheri Burns from Long Lane Honey Bee Farms in central Illinois. Thanks for joining us for another lesson in beekeeping. I’ve been posting beekeeping lessons for over 3 years now. I hope you enjoy them. Today, I want to examine the importance of using a refractometer! A refractometer is used to measure the moisture level in honey. Beekeepers need to become more aware of what the moisture content is in the honey they are harvesting. Harvest it too soon, and the excess moisture content will cause the honey to go bad or ferment, and when it does, you’ll be seeing customers bringing your honey back wanting a refund and spreading around bad news about your honey to others. You don’t want that. Before we start today’s lesson, let me share some fun we’ve been having here at the bee farm. We had our first ever 2 hour short course and we reached our maximum number of students. It was a great evening. We had Christmas decorations up, Christmas lights up outside and it was snowing…just beautiful. We had warm apple cider made with honey at the door to warm up the travelers as they arrived. First, Sheri handed out a newsletter that we produced on Cooking With Honey. This particular newsletter is available for sale on our website for $3. CLICK HERE. It’s a very nice glossy 4 page newsletter with recipes and lots of tips for cooking with honey. Then, she demonstrated how to cook with honey and took us through breakfast, lunch and supper. Of course, someone had to eat all that food she made so I helped myself. All her dishes included honey. Many beekeepers might spread some honey on their toast in the morning, but few cook with honey in other meals. Sheri demonstrated just how fun and easy it really is. Also, for more on Sheri’s cooking she would love for you to visit her blog at: http://sheriburns.blogspot.com/ After the cooking with honey demonstration, I had a table with 10 varieties of honey to taste sample. These were not flavored honey, but pure honey made from specific floral sources. Some of the different types of honey included were: Buckwheat, Acacia, Eucalyptus, Blueberry, Orange Blossom, Kentucky Mountain, and North Carolina Mountain Honey. After the honey sampling, Angela Faulkner gave an excellent presentation on Candle Making. She demonstrated how to melt wax, select the proper wick, dipping candles and more.
Angela revealed some tips and tricks to make candles like using soda cans and placing tension on the wick by drilling a hole in the can and using plumbers putty. She also stressed how important it is to be safe and never overheat the wax or leave a candle burning unattended. After her demonstration, students were invited to make their own candles. Candle making is such an enjoyable aspect of beekeeping and an excellent way to make some more profit from the hive and make good use of left over beeswax. It is so rewarding to make your own candles. Many claim that pure beeswax candles burn cleaner and can even purify the air. No one can argue that beeswax candles have a delightful fragrance that is therapeutic! Our next 2 hour short course will be on the first Friday night in January, January 7th from 6pm – 8pm on Mead Making. Frank J. Bellafiore, MD will be demonstrating the art of mead making. He moved to Champaign, IL in 1995 and is a staff pathologist with the Carle Physician Group. He also holds an appointment at the University Of Illinois Urbana-Champaign School Of Medicine as a Clinical Assistant Professor of Pathology. While interested in all areas of pathology, he holds a special interest in breast pathology and hematopathology. Dr. Bellafiore took up honey mead-making years ago and he hopes to pass along some of his knowledge and enthusiasm for the wonderful craft of mead-making in this short course. If you're a fun audience, perhaps he'll share a sample of his most recently crafted mead at the end of the course...a ginger-peach melomel! He is very experienced in making mead and will make it understandable, and he’s just a lot of fun to be around! I will also be demonstrating how to make candy boards and queen candy. Join us by clicking here to register. LESSON 89: The Importance Of Using A Refractometer To Make Sure Your Honey Is Ready For Harvest At our last short course, I demonstrated how to use the Refractometer. Most students had never used a refractometer and were amazed at how simple it is to use.
So in today’s lesson I want to discuss: 1) How using a refractometer can increase your honey production, 2) How a refractometer works, 3) How to use a refractometer, and 4) How to invest in the right model. First, how can a refractometer increase your honey yields? I took this picture by holding my camera up to the view finder on the refractometer. It reads 18%. Typically, we always say that you should not harvest honey from the hive until all the frames are capped over, meaning all of the cells in the honey frames are sealed with the bee’s wax cappings. But, often the bees fill up the honey cells but do not seal them over. This means that the bees cannot store any additional nectar because there is no room. This is especially the case in certain types of climates where the bees may never completely seal the honey comb. Meanwhile, you could have been giving them more frames to fill. So, what you can do is remove the frames that may still not be completely sealed and give them drawn comb to continue to store incoming nectar. Then, place your filled, but unsealed frames in a room with a dehumidifier and a fan, and use your refractometer to measure and dry the honey to around 17.5% moisture. By removing your frames earlier than normal and drying them, you can place empty frames in the hive to be filled. This is how a refractometer can help increase your honey yields. Secondly, just how does a refractometer work? Prisms bend light. A refractometer operates in much the same way, but instead light reacts differently depending on the amount of sugar as the light passes through the honey (sugar) and the daylight plate and the main prism assembly. How to Use a Refractometer First, open the light plate and expose the light blue area. Now take a couple drops of honey so that the honey will cover the blue area completely. If you use too much honey, it will just be messy. You just need enough to cover the blue plate. Now, close the light gate firmly to spread the honey evenly over the blue plate. Now, simply look into the view finder and take your reading. To clean your refractometer after use, simply use a damp cloth and remove the honey from all areas. How To Invest In The Right Model
While refractometers are very easy to use, I would strongly urge all bee keepers not to purchase the inexpensive refractometers for under $100. These might be accurate, but as many beekeepers have found they are plagued with problems. In my opinion, save up your money and invest in the model we are showing in this lesson. It is not the most expensive model, but it is made by Atago, a superior and well established refractometer company and this model is designed especially for honey. It is perfect every time, durable, handheld and affordable. We sell these for $269. CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE YOURS TODAY maybe in time for an outstanding Christmas gift for the one you love. Many beekeepers have told me how frustrated they were with the cheaper models. So invest in a life long instrument that you’ll be very happy with. Refractometers are designed for measuring moisture in various materials. This model we are showing and selling is specifically manufactured for measuring honey. Before I close today, let me tell you about a new item we are offering. We are offering a unique 3-way queen rearing hive. It is specifically designed to hold 3 queens by keeping them separated by inserts in the deep hive body. These inserts slide into grooves that even travel down into the bottom board so queens cannot travel between sections. What is unique with our design is that when you are finished raising queens, you can pull out the panels, plug the two small openings in the side of the bottom board and all equipment then turns back into usable Langstroth sized equipment. We are selling these for $39. CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO Our next Wildlife Pro Network beekeeping podcast is coming up this Thursday, December 17th! I hope you’ll call in and be a part of this live podcast. I’ll be talking about what bees do in and out of the hive. We encourage you to listen or call in and ask questions. The easiest way for you to call in during the beekeeping show is to call: (724) 444-7444 and enter call ID 16456 when prompted. We’d love for you to call in with a comment or question. I know there are over 1,000 of you who receive this via your Email, so set your timer for Thursday night, 7pm central time. Here’s another link showing what the podcast is all about and additional ways to join in. http://robo.bushkillfarms.com/how-to-participate-in-a-wpn-beekeeping-podcast/ Your overwhelming support of Long Lane Honey Bee Farms would be greatly appreciated during these beekeeping podcasts that I am now hosting each third Thursday of the month. As always we appreciate your business. So many of you have made us your home for all your beekeeping equipment, package bees, nucs and education. Your loyal business keeps us paying the bills so we can continue doing what we do. Be sure to order all your packages, nucs, queens and beekeeping equipment from us. We appreciate your business. Here’s our contact info: MAIN WEBSITE: www.honeybeesonline.com EMAIL: david@honeybeesonline.com ORDER LINE: 217-427-2678 PODCAST: www.honeybeesonline.com/studiobeelive.html Until next time, BEE-HAVE yourself! David & Sheri Burns Long Lane Honey Bee Farms
Hello from David & Sheri Burns at Long Lane Honey Bee Farms in central Illinois. In today’s lesson, Sheri will be giving insights into cooking with honey. Now that it’s fall and the holidays are approaching and holiday meals to plan out, why not spice things up with some honey? Then I’ll share some techniques to mouse proof your hives. Mice in the hive can be a real problem, so be sure to put up a good defense. You can have great bees that are healthy and ready for winter, but the mice can take them out. We are in the news again. FULL ARTICLE There is never a dull moment at Long Lane Honey Bee Farms. Believe it or not, we are already gearing up for the 2011 bee season. It’s not that far away. We’ll be shipping bees in approximately 24 weeks. There is lots of work to do in the next 24 weeks. We are about 30 days away from taking orders for package bees. Can you believe it! On Monday November 15 we will begin taking orders for package bees. CLICK HERE to order your package bees starting Nov. 15. Last year, we sold out very fast, months before anticipated, and we regretted having to tell hundreds of customers we were sold out of package bees. So order early! In this photo I’m talking with Dr. Jeff Harris of the USDA BEE LAB at Baton Rouge, La. Dr. Stu Jacobson, Phil Raines and myself continue to lead the way for the Illinois Queen Initiative, a program designed to promote the development and adoption of disease and mite resistant honey bees and queens that survive well and are productive under Illinois conditions. We had our yearly meeting at the Grand Bear Lodge in northern Illinois over the weekend and we enjoyed Dr. Jeff Harris as our main speaker. Jeff first worked on the Suppress Mite Reproduction (SMR) honey bee along with Dr. Harbo, which are now called VSH, Varroa Sensitive Hygienic bees. These bees are able to detect mites under sealed brood and remove the mite infested pupa. Jeff continues to preserve and research the VSH queens. Sheri and I have just unveiled our classes for 2011. This will help prospective students plan which class(es) will fit their schedule best. All our classes can be found at http://www.honeybeesonline.com/classes.html We have two types of classes for 2011: our regular Saturday classes, and now we are adding a special 2 hour class on the first Friday of every month. Our first 2 hour class will be December 3rd from 6pm- 8pm and will be on Candle Making, Cooking with Honey & Sampling Honey. The cost of our 2 hour classes is $20. CLICK HERE TO JOIN US FOR OUR VERY FIRST 2 HOUR CLASS DEC. 3rd The link to register for this class is http://www.honeybeesonline.com/servlet/Detail?no=68 And before we start today’s lesson, let me first tell you that today we are rolling out our HOLIDAY SPECIAL. This was very well received last year, and this year we are hoping it will help introduce more first time beekeepers into beekeeping. Though we will start taking orders for packages on Nov. 15th, if you order one of our holiday specials starting today, they include bees. We have created a special webpage to help explain our holiday beekeeping packages. Great as Christmas gifts! They’ll never guess what you are getting them for Christmas this year. Click Here for our Holiday Specials or follow this link: http://www.honeybeesonline.com/specials.htmlYour patronage to our business is a very BIG HELP to Sheri and me and is very much appreciated! Hope to see some of you tomorrow (Friday & Saturday Oct 22-23, 2010)at the Missouri State Beekeeper’s Association state meeting in Cape Girardeau! We are already down here! Here are my topics: Friday, "Benefits Of Raising Local Queens.” Saturday Morning, "Overwintering Colonies In Nucs And Single Deeps," and Saturday Afternoon, "Pheromones In The Hive." LESSON 84: FALL COOKING WITH HONEY & MOUSE PROOFING YOUR HIVE FOR WINTER Hi, it’s Sheri and I want to talk to you about cooking with honey. Don’t you just love this time of year? The leaves are turning brilliant colors, pumpkins and colorful gourds adorn porches, the fields are being harvested and the sky is crystal blue and the air crisp. You, the beekeeper, have just finished extracting that liquid gold. You have gallons of it. What do you do with it now? Sure, you know it’s great in your coffee, tea, and toast, but what else? October autumns are a great time to talk about cooking with honey. This time of year comes with lots of special treats like apple cider, pumpkin pie and caramel apples. Some of our most favorite foods for this season can easily be made with honey. Any recipe that calls for sugar can be substituted with honey. It isn’t an exact ratio, i.e.: if your recipe calls for ½ cup sugar, then you use ½ cup honey. But with a little tinkering, or a really good cookbook, you can make delicious fall-time foods. Honey, in its unadulterated, raw, pure state is a superior food. It is all natural, loaded with great enzymes and antioxidants (as long as it’s not heated up), tastes sweeter, and makes foods more moist. Foods made with honey also last longer and freeze nicely. Give the trick-or treating kiddies a treat with these popcorn balls: ¾ c sugar 1 tsp salt ½ c water ¾ c honey 3 quarts popcorn Cook sugar, salt and water (stir until sugar is dissolved) to a very brittle stage of 300 degrees. Add honey slowly, stirring until blended. Cook again until thermometer registers 240 degrees. Pour over popcorn and form into balls. Wrap in heavy waxed paper. Who doesn’t love pumpkin pie? Piled high with whipped cream, it is the symbol of autumn. Try this one at your next gathering: ½ c dry milk powder ½ tsp ground ginger 1-1/2 c cooked pumpkin 1-1/4 c water 1 tsp vanilla ½ tsp salt 1 tsp cinnamon 3 eggs beaten 1/3 c honey Mix dry ingredients. Add pumpkin, eggs, water, honey and vanilla. Pour into unbaked pie shell, bake at 450 degrees for 10 minutes. Then reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake 30 – 35 minutes longer. Baked Boneless turkey breast Boneless Turkey breast ½-1 c honey breading of your choice Pound turkey breast until thickness desired. Roll in honey. Coat with breading. Bake or fry as desired. Turkey marinade ½ c honey ½ c brown sugar 2 tbs mustard ½ c ketchup Juice of 1 lemon, or orange ¼ c olive oil Mix all ingredients. Feel free to add other ingredients as you wish, such as salt, pepper, parsley, onion flakes and chives. The more the merrier when it comes to marinade. This is great grilled!! Experiment with honey instead of sugar in your favorite wheat bread recipe. Chocolate chip cookies made with honey instead of sugar are moister and keep longer. Add it to Greek yogurt or drizzled over ice cream. Heat up a mug of spiced cider with honey. Experiment this winter with your fudge and candy recipes. Whatever you do, it’s good! Thanks Sheri, and now you know why I have to run 3 miles a day to stay in shape. Sheri is certain one day to have her own cooking show. While Sheri’s been cooking great fall treats, I’ve been working out in the bee yard getting the hives to bed for winter. One of my “must do” chores is to secure the hives against mice. Why do mice love hives so much? A hive is a cozy winter shelter and bees and honey makes for a nice snack on cold winter days. Occasionally, mice co-exist and do not bother the winter cluster of bees. However, that usually is not the case. It is more common for mice to chew up comb, eat honey, bees, and pollen, then eventual kill the hive. Mice will urinate on the combs which will discourage the bees from using that comb again. Comb that has been chewed by mice is usually repaired by the bees, but made into drone sized cells. Mice will use hives to raise their young, usually nesting on the bottom board and slightly up into the comb. If the bees remain healthy through the winter, they will take revenge on the mice in the spring and run the mice out of the hive. 10 – 20 stings will kill a mouse. But during the winter, bees are too cold to defend the hive against the mice. I’ve heard some say that in the spring if a hive cannot remove a dead mouse from the hive they will mummify the mouse with propolis, encasing it to prevent any bacterial growth in the hive. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. So now is the time to keep the mice out. The most effective way to prevent mice from entering the hive is to restrict the entrance. Entrance reducers (cleats) substantially reduce the entrance restricting mice from entering. Choose the smallest size opening on your entrance reducer. There are many different styles of mice guards for hives. Some are made of metal and have small round holes where the bees can go in and out, but the holes are too small for mice. When do you restrict the entrance? When nights get cold and fields are harvested, mice seek new shelter, so here in Illinois we have to place our reducers on the hive late September or early October. WARNING: Be sure a mouse is not already in your hive before you restrict the entrance. You may have to choose a warm day and lift up the hive from the bottom board and verify that no mice are in the hive. They will hide between frames.
So be disciplined. Protect your hives from mice and enjoy your honey crop in some good fall food. Hope you can join us here on December 3rd for our 2 hour course mentioned above. We’d love to meet you. Bee-have yourself! OUR WEBSITE: www.honeybeesonline.com David & Sheri Burns
Long Lane Honey Bee Farms
14556 N. 1020 E. Rd
Fairmount, IL 61841 217-427-2678 or email us at: david@honeybeesonline.com
Before we start today’s lesson, let me share some fun we’ve been having here at the bee farm. We had our first ever 2 hour short course and we reached our maximum number of students. It was a great evening. We had Christmas decorations up, Christmas lights up outside and it was snowing…just beautiful. We had warm apple cider made with honey at the door to warm up the travelers as they arrived. 
First, Sheri handed out a newsletter that we produced on Cooking With Honey. This particular newsletter is available for sale on our website for $3. CLICK HERE. It’s a very nice glossy 4 page newsletter with recipes and lots of tips for cooking with honey. 
Then, she demonstrated how to cook with honey and took us through breakfast, lunch and supper. Of course, someone had to eat all that food she made so I helped myself. All her dishes included honey.
After the cooking with honey demonstration, I had a table with 10 varieties of honey to taste sample. These were not flavored honey, but pure honey made from specific floral sources. Some of the different types of honey included were: Buckwheat, Acacia, Eucalyptus, Blueberry, Orange Blossom, Kentucky Mountain, and North Carolina Mountain Honey.
After the honey sampling, Angela Faulkner gave an excellent presentation on Candle Making. She demonstrated how to melt wax, select the proper wick, dipping candles and more. 
Angela revealed some tips and tricks to make candles like using soda cans and placing tension on the wick by drilling a hole in the can and using plumbers putty. She also stressed how important it is to be safe and never overheat the wax or leave a candle burning unattended.
After her demonstration, students were invited to make their own candles. Candle making is such an enjoyable aspect of beekeeping and an excellent way to make some more profit from the hive and make good use of left over beeswax.
It is so rewarding to make your own candles. Many claim that pure beeswax candles burn cleaner and can even purify the air. No one can argue that beeswax candles have a delightful fragrance that is therapeutic!
At our last short course, I demonstrated how to use the Refractometer. Most students had never used a refractometer and were amazed at how simple it is to use. 
First, how can a refractometer increase your honey yields? I took this picture by holding my camera up to the view finder on the refractometer. It reads 18%. Typically, we always say that you should not harvest honey from the hive until all the frames are capped over, meaning all of the cells in the honey frames are sealed with the bee’s wax cappings. But, often the bees fill up the honey cells but do not seal them over. This means that the bees cannot store any additional nectar because there is no room. This is especially the case in certain types of climates where the bees may never completely seal the honey comb. Meanwhile, you could have been giving them more frames to fill. So, what you can do is remove the frames that may still not be completely sealed and give them drawn comb to continue to store incoming nectar. Then, place your filled, but unsealed frames in a room with a dehumidifier and a fan, and use your refractometer to measure and dry the honey to around 17.5% moisture. By removing your frames earlier than normal and drying them, you can place empty frames in the hive to be filled. This is how a refractometer can help increase your honey yields. 
Secondly, just how does a refractometer work? Prisms bend light. A refractometer operates in much the same way, but instead light reacts differently depending on the amount of sugar as the light passes through the honey (sugar) and the daylight plate and the main prism assembly.
First, open the light plate and expose the light blue area. Now take a couple drops of honey so that the honey will cover the blue area completely. If you use too much honey, it will just be messy. You just need enough to cover the blue plate.
Now, close the light gate firmly to spread the honey evenly over the blue plate. Now, simply look into the view finder and take your reading. 
