Harvesting Honey in South Florida

After enjoying four or five days going different places south and west of Miami, we packed up the car and headed north. It was time to visit our friends Debbi and Terry Miller for lunch and catching up.We’ve known each other for long enough for the catching up part to take awhile. And catch up we did! This is not the place to go on and on about our conversations, things like boasting about our accomplishments, our children, our homes, and on and on. You can just imagine what we said and probably be right. Instead I want to tell you about the highlight of the day: harvesting honey. 

As an aside, and sort of an apology, I have to say that it was a surprise to find Debbi to be happy growing fruit of various kinds on their three-acre lot. Farmer Debbi was not on the list of things we expected to find. In the half-century or so since we’d been around each other regularly, it was only to be expected that all four of us had been through life changes and formed new personal goals. That’s a necessary component of maturing and living life. It’s simply my limited expectations that caused me to feel surprised that Debbi had moved in her current direction of enjoying gardening. And keeping bees! 

And that’s what she does. After lunch Debbi and Judy gathered things together, rode a small electric vehicle through the mango trees, and approached the hives. I stayed a safe distance away just long enough to capture a few images, then retreated to the safety of the indoors. Judy had a new experience that I was quite frankly happy to avoid. I’m very thankful for the honey we were given to bring home, and Judy seemed to enjoy herself thoroughly. 

I could go into detail about all of this, but I’ll let the photos and videos below fill you in on the process.

That was the final event of our South Florida Adventure. All we did after that was drive back to Miami, turn the car in, spend one more night in the airport Hilton, then fly home. All that was left to do was plan our next trip!