Sunday afternoon I checked on the hive to see how the bee escape was working. After 36 hours, almost all the bees were out of the 4th super which let me easily harvest 3 full frames of honey. For some reason, I thought there were at least 5 frames ready in the 4th super, but I was mistaken. That will teach me to take better notes next time I inspect my hive.
I replaced the frames I removed and then took off the bee escape. The girls looked super crowded being forced back into just 3 supers so I’m sure they were happy to get back in the 4th again.
I setup my harvesting station in the kitchen. I have a two 5 gallon bucket system that I purchased from Brushy Mountain that strains your honey as well as having a honey gate to allow you to bottle.
For this type of extraction, you scape off the comb and honey into the first bucket.
Here’s a closer shot of the sweet sweet honey on the frame.
The top bucket has a sieve that catches the wax cappings. I saved those to be melted at a later date to get some beeswax. I put it in a baggie and stuck it in the freezer.
The honey goes through the sieve and then through a nylon mesh bag for further straining. After that it ends up in the bottom bucket ready to be bottled.
After that you can bottle the honey. Three full frames got me 21 8 oz. bottles of honey. Considering the 3rd super is all honey and the 4th is well on its way as well, I need to get a lot more bottles here quickly.
Urban Beekeeping in Austin, Texas 
Hi Karl, greetings from Nova Scotia. I’ve been enjoy your blog for a few weeks now. Got a question about your strainer. Once you uncapped the comb, did you just let the honey drip out of the frames, or did you have to crush them?
Hi Jay. I’m glad you are enjoying the blog. I’m using black plastic frames so I basically just scraped the comb and honey down to the plastic foundation into the top bucket which got the majority of the honey out. I then put the frames on cookie sheets to let the remaining honey drip off the plastic comb. If you are using wax foundation, this is a good video to watch:
http://beekeeperlinda.blogspot.com/2007/06/honey-harvest-crush-and-strain.html
Good luck on your hive!
Thanks for the video, Karl. Linda’s blog is one of my favourites. I plan to crush and strain my top-bar combs like this. I thought you were just scraping the cappings.