My girls have been working hard. I installed the swarm the first week of November, and they've really been doing well, in spite of having to draw out a whole new set of frames (producing wax takes energy, and energy comes from honey or nectar).
I only took 4 frames, but they were all loaded, wall to wall, with capped honey. I uncapped them by scraping, with an ordinary table fork; I might invest in a wider tool for a cappings scratcher for next time, but it worked okay.
I have a hand-crank 4 frame tangential extractor, so two spin sessions of about 10 minutes did the trick. It went smoother than I expected. Ran the honey through a kitchen sieve to catch the cappings wax, but no heating or anything - straight raw honey, I'd guess about 2 gallons.
Time to make some mead! Tomorrow, though, I'm a bit shattered today. It's sweaty work, cracking a hive open, examining the frames (well, 2 of the 3 boxes anyway), and then all the equipment, cleaning the extractor, lifting, etc. Apologies for not taking photos today.
Oh, and I finally got a sting today - several, in fact. Today I worked the hive without gloves, because it's just so much easier, and cooler. I went quite a while, maybe 20 minutes, before the first girl stung me. Got a few more after that, all on the back of my hands. Very minor. I did put the gloves on, at the very end, because when I was re-assembling their boxes, I knew I'd be squishing a dozen or two (it can't be helped, there are so many of them). And squished bees puts the others in a stinging mood.
The honey is a very pale yellow, and very delicious. I have no idea what the bees are making it from exactly, but probably a variety of sources. It's quite lush around here, and the honey flow is strong. I'll probably take some more honey in a month or so.