Honey Extraction Party

There's a guy who lives a few blocks from me who has a lovely garden on his roof.  Also on his roof, he keeps a couple of rather large hives of bees, which have been quite successful in the last few years. Every fall, he invites all his friends over for the Honey Extraction Party, and you're best advised to go dressed to work.

Before the party guests arrive, he smokes out the bees and brings all the honeycomb inside.  The stack of boxes is taller than I am, and each box holds about 10 combs.  They come out of the boxes one at a time, and you use a heated knife to trim all the beeswax from either side.  That goes into a big tub with a drainage pan, and the honey drips out of the wax assisted only by gravity.

The combs go vertically, six at a time, into the extractor, a giant stainless steel drum with a simple gear and crankshaft running to a handle at the top.  Once it's fully loaded, you spin and spin and spin and spin and the centrifugal force sends all the honey flying out to the walls of the extractor.  It runs down to the bottom and out the valve into a waiting 5-gallon bucket.  You can eat it raw, or wait until it's in its final, twice-filtered form.

We probably filled six buckets. I would've taken pictures, but my hands were covered with honey!