I headed out to the kitchen, turned on the light and was heading into the family room for my shoes (which I had left out there last night). Suddenly, my right foot stepped into something – it was wet and felt spongy – I stepped over “it” with my left foot, only to land in the same thing.

I switched on the lights in the family room and found myself standing in a river of honey!

Upon further investigation, I found a broken thumb screw on the honey gate (the little valve that opens on the bottom of a bucket to allow easy pouring of honey during the bottling process) and the gate was no longer pressed against the back plate, but was hanging open… and honey was still dripping out of the opening.

The bucket as still over half full when I went to bed last night – about 30 – 35 pounds of honey – which was now an oozing, lazy river flowing all over the hardwood floor – a swath as wide as a bowling alley lane and about 1/2 inch deep.

Needless to say, I was NOT a happy camper. It was the last bucket of honey, and had been reserved as our personal stash.

I stomped into the bedroom to tell my lovely wife what I found. of course, she was none too happy to be faced with Mr. Grinch, and proceeded to tell me so – and that it wasn’t the end of the world.

She was right, of course – I went downstairs and out side the garage and got a plastic snow shovel and she started clean up while I got a tub full of hot water and some rags for her.

She scooped up the honey and saved it for me to feed the bees with.

Oh well, hopefully next year I’ll get to eat my own honey.
At least the bees will be fed this winter…

–Pat