Rosie, do you have a way of extracting the honey? If all you need is something to bottle it with just buy the valve and put it on a plastic bucket that you can buy for a few bucks at Home Depot.

There's always some small particles or bee parts when you extract that you would want to filter out.You could go with Item #804 with is the 5 gal bucket with gate and three filters for $30 You can get extra buckets free or almost free from your local bakery which you know will be food-safe.If you'd like, buy a few plastic honey gates and you'll be all set.

We use the double stainless sieve which sells for around $50. It sets on top of a bucket.We run the extracted honey through that directly into a bucket with gate for bottling. We bottle about 4oo lbs per year and it works great

So what ya'll are telling me is I have to have an extractor first?

Not necessarily. You have a number of options. If you join a beekeeping club, chances are someone will let you use an extractor. Another thing you can do is comb honey. The simplest way to do this is use unwired cut-comb foundation in shallow supers. When the honey is capped you just cut the comb from the frames and store it in containers. You could also cut the comb out and squeeze it through a cloth bag and use the wax for candles, lip balm, etc.
You can also use regular wired foundation and uncap the frames and just let them drain, then strain the honey.

Thanks Tonybeeguy. We have the wired frames so can't just cut the comb but did order some unwired frames last night. You wouldn't believe the idea we came up with for draining the honey so won't even tell you until after we've tried it. Plan to take pictures and if all goes well might post them.

Hopefully it's not tying a couple of strings to the frame and swinging it around the room to extract it then scraping the dripping honey off the walls.

Even if you don't try tonybeeguy's variation on drying lettuce, you might still end up with honey dripping off the walls. A more experienced beekeeper and I laughed till our ribs hurt sharing stories of our first extracting/bottling experiences. He had used an extractor, I did not (only one hive and a few pounds of honey) Leaning the frame against the top cupboard door to drain into a pan results in having to clean cupboard doors. Not using a funnel results in honey on bottom doors and floors. (me) Stepping in honey and walking through house results in honey everywhere (him, and not many of us in the non-commercial end of this have honey-houses). HIs wife came home one day, having forgotten he was 'processing' honey. She put her hand on the front door knob, and was instantly reminded of what was going on....as she walked through the sticky tracks throughout the house.
My city born, bred and raised mother in law is just mystified and deeply bothered by the entire honey harvesting process in the kitchen. I really believe she thinks it is unhygenic, and refuses to eat the honey. Today her helper saw a "cockroach" (probably a centipede or earwig) and my mother in law speculated it was "because of the honey". I found the 8 oz jar of honey in an aluminum, plasic wrap, pastic bag sarcophagus. If I hadn't been laughing, I'd have been angry about impuning the reputation of my bees.

Here is the place to learn about crush and strain.
http://beekeeperlinda.blogspot.com/
If you have a strong colony you can place empty frames between drawn frames and have foundationless honey comb that you just cut out and crush to let the honey drain out.

the whole thing became very simple for me when I discovered michael bush's site ...bush farms...

you don't need an extractor

I use the buckets with strainers from Brushy Mnt - my neighbor just uses free 'food grade' buckets with holes they drilled in the bottom with a hand drill

remember, people processed honey for hundreds of years without extractors and expensive equipment

an old timer told me to never heat the honey, it kills the good stuff

Ok. So my question is if I use an extractor to harvest honey from the medium supers, can I return the frames with the drawn out wax back into additional supers and save bee time with building new cells? Or do the bees have to work harder to resize the cells?

Using plastic foundations.