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That’s super: Volunteers learn all about honey extraction in Upper St. Clair activity

By Harry Funk staff Writer hfunk@thealmanac.Net 3 min read
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Upper St. Clair High School students Nicola van der Wal, left, and Sunny Chai work on removing wax cappings in the process of extracting honey.

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Upper St. Clair High School student Lenley Aikin works Mario Chiodo's manual extractor.

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Harry Funk/The Almanac

Upper St. Clair High School science teacher Russ Hoburg lends a hand.

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Streams Elementary School student Cassidy King lends a hand.

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Upper St. Clair staff members Nancy Dunn, left, and Kristie Dawson join Alex Shaw in assisting.

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John Crist talks about the marvels of honeybees.

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Sunny Chai removes wax cappings from a frame full of honey.

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Alex Shaw assists Streams Elementary School student Cassidy King in scraping off wax cappings.

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Harry Funk/The Almanac

Getting a kick out of the proceedings are, from left, Keirsten King, Elise Mostowy and Cassidy King.

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Harry Funk/The Almanac

A volunteer pours honey into a bucket.

Clark Kent has nothing on John Crist and Mario Chiodo.

The Mt. Lebanon residents are beekeepers, and in that context, the word “super” applies to something they work with frequently in their avocation.

Harry Funk/The Almanac

Harry Funk/The Almanac

Alex Shaw assists Streams Elementary School student Keirsten King in scraping off wax cappings.

“When a colony is growing and it needs more room for the bees to store the honey, we put these boxes” – they’re the supers – “on top of the hive, and that’s called supering the hive,” said Crist to a group gathered recently in an Upper St. Clair High School classroom.

Who knew that could qualify as a proper verb?

Nuances of the English language aside, Crist and Chiodo brought bunches of boxes to the school so volunteers could help them extract the sweet stuff inside, and to learn a lot about bees in the process.

“You are about to participate in something that many people are very curious about,” Crist told the high school and elementary students who were lending a hand. “So you’ll be able to tell your grandkids that this is what you did, and they’ll appreciate that.”

Along with discovering another meaning for “super,” the students learned the boxes are full of removable frames in which bees make honey and cap it with wax.

Harry Funk/The Almanac

Harry Funk/The Almanac

Sue Wyble assists Streams Elementary School student Elise Mostowy in scraping off wax cappings.

“The first thing we have to do is to cut off the cappings of the honey,” Crist said about the extraction process, which Chiodo demonstrated by slicing through the wax with a knife.

“Any cappings that I couldn’t get off,” he added, “I’m going to use a scraper and make sure all of them are off.”

After the removal, the frames are put into an extractor – Chiodo brought his manual model, and Crist an electric one from the Scott (Township) Conservancy – that uses centrifugal force to separate the honey and let it flow into a bucket below.

“That honey is ready to be bottled,” Crist said, as the volunteers watched the liquid emerge. “That’s marketable, right there.”

And so they took their places to help extract more honey, some working on capping removal, others cranking the manual machine. Among them was Alex Shaw, who will be an Upper St. Clair High School senior.

“I was expecting us to be in suits, collecting the actual frames with a lot of bees,” he said. “But it’s interesting taking it from a different perspective and getting more of the honey side and not the bee side.”

Harry Funk/The Almanac

Harry Funk/The Almanac

Mario Chiodo demonstrates an early step of honey extraction.

His classmate Sunny Chai thought helping extract honey would be a good way to earn volunteer hours.

“Now that I’m here, I think it’s a really fun thing and it’s nice to be able to help out with this process,” she said.

Many of the supers came from Gilfillan Farm, also in Upper St. Clair, where Crist set up his first apiary. Since then, he has been asked by representatives of the Scott Conservancy and Pittsburgh Botanic Gardens in Collier Township, along with some of his fellow Mt. Lebanon residents, to set up beehives on their properties.

He and Chiodo often collaborate with raising honeybees and giving demonstrations, which many participants find to be particularly enlightening.

“It’s always cool to learn about new things,” Shaw said. “Always.”

Harry Funk/The Almanac

Harry Funk/The Almanac

John Crist explains how an extractor works to Streams Elementary School students, from left, Cassidy King, Keirsten King and Elise Mostowy, and to Upper St. Clair High School teacher Dawn Mostowy.

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