How Is Honey Made?
Our Honey Extraction Process
Ever wondered how honey is made? Here’s exactly how we do it, start to finish, to make the raw Western Australian honey you’ll find in our shop.
At Piesseful Bees Honey, our extraction process is carefully designed to prioritise the wellbeing of our bees and the quality of the honey you love.
We extract all of our honey at our home property in a custom-built extraction plant inside a converted shipping container, designed and built by Casey himself. Having a dedicated, purpose-built space means we can process our honey efficiently and hygienically, with a workflow that has been set up specifically for the way we work.
How is honey made at Piesseful Bees Honey?
Honey is made by the bees, but getting it from the comb into your jar takes six careful steps. Here’s how our honey is made, from the hive to the last hand-poured tub.
Step 1: Preparing the Hives
About 48 hours before we begin extraction, we insert clearer boards between the brood box and the honey supers. These boards allow the bees to move down into the hive but prevent them from returning to the honey boxes. By the time we return, most boxes are bee-free, making collection safe, smooth, and calm for everyone involved.
We then gently remove the full honey boxes and load them onto our trailer. Every single box and frame is branded with our unique beekeeper ID, so we can trace and return each one to its rightful hive in the exact order it was removed. This is an essential part of our process, supporting hygiene standards and biosecurity protocols for disease traceability.
Step 2: Transport to the Extraction Plant
Once the full honey boxes are loaded, we bring them back to our property where our extraction plant is waiting. Our hives are located across a number of sites, so transport distances vary. What doesn’t vary is the care taken to keep every box intact and in order for the extraction ahead.
Step 3: Uncapping the Frames
Inside the extraction plant, frames are loaded into our uncapping machine, which uses heated blades to slice off the wax cappings and expose the honeycomb beneath. We process 30 to 50 frames at a time, working through three to five boxes in each run.
As the cappings are removed, the wax falls down into a wax press directly below, where any residual honey is squeezed out and collected into the settling tank underneath. The extracted wax is then set aside to be made into beeswax candles or sold on its own. Nothing goes to waste.
Step 4: Spinning the Honey
Uncapped frames are loaded into our 60-frame stainless steel extractor and spun in both directions to release every last drop of honey. The extractor runs for around 10 minutes in each direction, making sure we get a thorough spin each time. Like before, the extractor has a marked starting point so frame and hive order is maintained throughout.
The honey is flung from the comb and flows directly into the settling tank below, joining anything already collected from the wax press. From there, honey is pumped into large food-grade IBCs or drums where it continues to settle naturally.
All surfaces that come into contact with our honey are stainless steel or certified food-grade material. That’s non-negotiable for us.
Step 5: Returning the Frames
Once extracted, each frame is placed back into its original box in the correct order. The empty boxes are loaded back onto the trailer and returned to their hives, where they’re placed underneath any remaining full boxes and above the brood box. Bees naturally build and store honey from the top down, so by placing the empty boxes beneath the full ones, we slot them back into the process without interrupting it.
The bees then get back to work, cleaning and refilling the freshly harvested frames. We love watching them settle back into their rhythm. Happy bees make the best honey, and everything about our process is designed with that in mind.
Step 6: Pouring Your Honey
Once the honey has settled in the drums or IBCs, it’s pumped into buckets to fill our stainless steel vats, ready for pouring. We let the honey settle naturally for at least one to two days, allowing any remaining wax, pollen, or bee particles to float to the surface. We then pour from the bottom, leaving all that goodness right where it belongs.
We don’t filter our honey. Not even a little bit. Settling naturally means all the enzymes, pollens, and nutrients stay exactly as the bees made them. Every single jar and tub is hand-poured by us, and that’s something we’re genuinely proud of. Piesseful Bees Honey is a family business at every level.
What Makes Our Honey Extraction process Unique? Unique?
Our honey is raw, local, and minimally handled. We built our extraction plant from the ground up specifically for the way we work, which means every step of the process has been thought through with both quality and bee welfare in mind.
We settle, not strain. We trace every frame back to its hive. We hand-pour every jar. And we never take shortcuts, because the honey deserves better than that and so do you.
Sourced straight from our WA hives, our honey is:
- Ethically harvested
- Minimally processed
- Free from additives, heat, and shortcuts
- Never filtered, always settled naturally
- Traceable from hive to jar
Now you know how our honey is made, taste the result for yourself.
How Is Honey Made?
Your Questions Answered
How is honey made?
It starts with our bees collecting nectar and turning it into honey inside the comb. Once the frames are full and capped, we bring them back to our extraction plant, uncap the wax, spin the honey out, let it settle naturally, and hand-pour it into jars. No heating, no filtering, just honey the way the bees made it.
Do you heat or filter your honey?
No to both. We don’t filter our honey at all, and we don’t heat it to push it through a filter. Instead we let it settle naturally for a day or two so the wax, pollen and bee particles rise to the top, then pour from the bottom. That keeps the enzymes, pollens and nutrients exactly as the bees made them.
How long does it take to make a jar of honey?
The bees do the slow part, filling and capping a frame over several weeks. Once we collect the full boxes, the extraction itself takes about a day, and then we let the honey settle for at least one to two days before hand-pouring. So from full frame to finished jar, it’s a matter of days at our end.
How is creamed honey made?
It starts exactly the same way, raw honey extracted and settled just as above. Our creamed honey is then gently stirred and kept at a controlled temperature so it sets with a smooth, spreadable texture rather than staying runny. It’s still 100% raw honey, just with a different feel.