With the beehives once again brimming with honey, NPA staff participated in the first Honey Harvest of the season which took place on Thursday 23 November.
The staff enjoyed learning all about the life of bees which included sampling still-warm honey straight from the frame, making this is a highly educational session. John Prince and Renata Gilbert from Rooftop Bees also brought along a see-through "observation hive" which held one frame of live bees that were viewed during the demonstration.
The Rooftop Bees team took staff though the honey extraction process in which they removed the honey frames from the hives ahead of time and demonstrated how honey is harvested from the frames. This year’s harvest was transferred into a total of 72 jars (330ml each) which featured the iconic Money Honey label.
Staff were taken through the whole process, including active participation, in the removal of bees wax, the turning of a centrifuge that uses gravitational force to push the honey out of three frames at a time, the filtering of the honey and finally the bottling of the honey.
The Craigieburn site’s Money Honey incidentally has been welcomed in central bank common areas throughout the region. This is thanks to the Restaurant Associates team headed by Ankur ‘A.k.’ Mehta who took on the project with enthusiasm.
Funds from the sale of the honey jars are being used to build a community garden next to the Staff Cafeteria – the intention is to grow produce that the catering team can use in the meals they are preparing.
Straight Out of The Hive: A number of NPA staff attended the Honey Harvest event in which staff learned how to move honey from the hive to the jar.
