For the life of me, I can't figure out why everyone doesn't keep bees. It is a blast! I suppose bees have been falsely portrayed as "killler bees" taking over homes and whole cities. That's Hollywood, not reality. Anyone can keep bees. It's easy. As you continue keeping bees over the years, you learn more and more.



Most beekeepers find their bees to be very calm and workable. About a month ago, I worked about 20 of our hives with no shirt on. Not one sting. Sometimes, I just sit by my hives, and watch the bees work, flying in and out. It's therapeutic. Here's what a few hives looked like this afternoon.

Honeybees are extremely profitable, with one hive alone making nearly $500 per year. Not to mention what hives earn in pollination. My long range goal is to operate 4,000 hives, raise and sell queens and packaged bees. I am currently attempting to breed a special Illinois survival stock queen. Wouldn't it be something to able to breed a queen that is resistant toward the cause(s) of CCD! Like Thomas Edison, I've eliminated a lot of mistakes in queen rearing in 2007. I'll be that much ahead for 2008.

To help finance the increase in the number of our hives we manufacture beehive wooden ware.  We also provide beekeeping equipment such as electrical hot uncapping knives, micron honey filters, protective clothing, smokers, hive tools, fume boards and fume and the whole works!!



Not only do we sell honey, but we also melt and mold our own beeswax. People love to buy pure beeswax. It smells so good and can be used for making candles, lotion, lip balm, and lubricating bows or sticky drawers--just to name a few of its many uses. After processing the honey supers, we have a lot of wax cappings left over. These cappings make the finest, and newest beeswax. They are washed thoroughly to remove any honey from the wax. We repeat this wash cycle several times.

Then, we melt our wax the old fashion way. We simply melt it in a large pan on the family's grill. Here's how we get our grill going good to melt our wax. Seems like a few steaks and some chicken gets the fire good and ready to melt the wax. Of course, the fire is only ready about the time I have finished my steak dinner. After all, there's no need to let all that good charcoal go to waste, right! Who needs to buy an expensive wax melter when you can have such a good excuse for eating steak!




After the wax melts, I allow the more solid matter within the wax to sink to the bottom of the pan. Then, I pour it into another container that has a cloth filter on the top. From this container, I am now ready to pour the wax into my various shaped molds. It hardens very fast, then it pops out real easy. It is then wrapped and sold, locally or through our Internet stores.

So you can see why I ask, "Why doesn't everyone keep bees?"
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Buying Out Another Bee Business...
From Florida To Illinois

Back in August of 2006, I traveled to Florida from Illinois to purchase the bees and honey processing operation from Mr. James West, the inventor of the West Small Hive Beetle Trap. I purchased around 70 hives, two huge radial motor powered extractors, a nice honey pump, a hot-water tank, a 500 gallon stainless steel honey storage tank, a cowen automatic uncapper, lots of old hive bodies, supers, queen excluders, beetle traps and other beekeeping equipment. What a journey!!


It took me exactly one year to design and engineer my honey processing building. First, I had to place a pump in the well located near our honey building. I rented a Terramite backhoe and started trenching a water line to the building. Then, we had to add cold and hot water lines throughout the building. We also had to dig a dry well.

The next step was to design a way for hot water to flow to the sink and down the drain, but also create a way for hot water to recirculate through the 500 gallon honey storage tank, as well as through the knife blades on the automatic uncapper. The blades require heat to melt the cappings from the frames. With the help of my brother, Mark Burns who works for WPS Industries Group, I was able to complete the hot water recirculation plumbing.

Why run hot water through the honey storage tank? Actually, the tank is doubled-walled, so the water never touches the honey. In the winter, we want to make sure the honey does not freeze and crystallize. So, the warm water allows us to keep the honey around 70-80 degrees Fahrenheit during our Illinois winter. The room in which this tank stands is sometimes not heated during the night.

RESTORING OLD, BUT GREAT EQUIPMENT!

The next step was carried out while doing all the above. That's why it took me a year! I had to restore the old equipment, primarily the honey extractor and the uncapper.

Below is a before and after shot of a section of the Cowen Uncapper. I had to replace worn out bolts, bearings, bars, chains and rewire it. I know every piece, personally, and totally repainted every piece.

What is an uncapper? When the bees produce honey, they seal it off in the comb with a wax capping over the cells. In order for us to extract or sling out the honey, we must uncap the wax seal first.

Many beekeepers use a hot knife for small operations, which is all that is needed.

However, larger operations can process more frames at a time with an automatic uncapper. In our case, our uncapper will uncap 10 frames of medium supers in 60 seconds. Both sides!

Here's a video of the uncapper...

Once uncapped, the frames, filled with honey, travel down a conveyor belt to an operator who then places them into our 33 frame radial extractor. This extractor is operated by a pressure clutch system and is driven by a 3/4 horse motor. We coated the inside of the extractor with FDA Food approved epoxy coating, primarily to make it easier to clean up after each use. In the photo to the left, you can see the uncapper being wired, and the extractor in the background.

Stop back in tomorrow for a continuation of our tour through the honey room!

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