Honey Harvest

I mentioned that we were due to start the Honey harvest. Well, we did start..and the electric spinner broke down. Oh, well, at least we still had the old hand spinner. So on we went - and then we found that a lot of the honey had already set in the comb. We knew that it was not oilseed rape honey, as the bees were not bringing it in, and this was also in later supers. So we think it must be Clover honey. Clover makes gorgeous honey, but it meant that the harvest went on into the following week-end. We can't spin off honey that has set, so we had to clear up one set of equiptment, then get out,and clean and prepare another lot.

This is set honey, cut from the frame, ready to be extracted.

The main problem was that it ran into Fibrefest weekend! I finally left home, and got to Coldharbour Mill at 3 pm on Sunday. Not ideal. I did manage to get around and see everything, though. I met Jowatso, who set up and ran U.K. Ravelry Day, and hope to see her again.

There was an amazing display of fibres. Actually, I was boggled. So many lovely things. Getting there so late, did mean that many things had sold out. Which was great for the stall holders, and probably just as well for my bank balance. I did buy some wonderful stuff, though.


The lovely rusty brown alpaca is from Alandale Alpacas. Two 25 gram skeins of hand spun, from an alpaca called Fiona.

The verdigris green is merino and silk. It comes in 100 gram skein, and is double knitting weight. This is for a cardigan.

The red is the same, but I only got one skein, probably for a scarf. I bought them from Fyberspates.

These gorgeous Vintage buttons were on the Wheeldale Woolcrafts stand. I don't think I would have seen them, if I had been there when it was busy.

Quite a busy couple of weekends. Now we are preparing the bees for Winter. The supers are clean, and we have put feeders on all of the hives. Now feeding comences. We have to make sure they have sufficient stores to last the winter.

And at last it is cool enough to knit! I have a sleeveless pullover that I have been working on, which is a 'thank-you ' present from the knitting group I belong to, 'Close Knit', to Karen, who taught us Knitters Yoga. Just a few inches left, and then the making up. It has a fancy cable neck border. I am looking forward to seeing it finished.