Our Raw and Local Honey
Our honey is raw and unfiltered so the very best flavor and health benefits are retained (we only strain our honey to remove the large pieces of wax cappings). We usually sell our honey in small quantities in the summer while the u-pick is open, so everyone has a chance to try. We often sell out of our honey by the end of the season, but we'll update our FB page if we end up with extra!
We only feed sugar during a nectar dearth to prevent starvation and we never use Corn Syrup. If sugar feeding is ever necessary, we remove our Supers (upper hive boxes where their extra honey is stored), so that the honey we collect for you is only from pure nectar. Some beekeepers feed their bees syrup or sugar to increase output of “honey", but we feel it isn't as healthy for the bees and the resulting honey isn't as nature intended. Our spring honey can taste like the blueberry flower nectar and our late summer honey can taste of berries from the bees also eating the ripe berries!
Honey Bees will eat the ripe Blueberries in the late summer and it not only changes the color of the honey but also the taste! It’s delicious!
Our bees are treated with care and we only take the extra honey they make, which is also why our supplies are limited. We do not take their comb or any main hive honey (as some do to get the beeswax and extra honey). Taking the bees' main hive honey can mean starvation and death for the bees,(especially in the winter), which we believe is cruel. We let the bees have first dibs on their honey, and we overwinter them with fully stocked honey. We feel this is more humane with a potential genetic benefit of producing stronger, more resilient bees that can survive the winter for future generations.
Farmer Shane is gathering honey from a “Super” where nectar-derived honey is stored.
Dandelions may not be your favorite flower, but they can be one of the first foods available to the bees in the spring! Please remove Dandelions manually after they have bloomed to give the bees a chance to get their fill. Pull them out before they go to seed (when they change from yellow to cottony white), to prevent overpopulation.
Centrifugal force is used to extract the honey from the frames. It’s quite a process from start to finish!
We have also invested in a bloodline called VHS or Hygienic Bees to improve the genetics of our bees. Their hygienic/pest removal traits mean that the bees will clean Varroa mites off of each other to help them survive attacks - without chemical treatments. It’s an art and a science to breed our own Queens and Shane’s hard work over the years to integrate the Hygienic genes has resulted in much happier, healthier bees!
Farmer Shane breeding queens with the Hygienic traits.
Bees can travel for up to 3 miles, so the flavor and consistency of our bees' honey will vary through the year depending on what they find on the farm and in your gardens. So plant what you want to taste! Whatever bee-friendly flowers you decide to grow in your yard, please avoid using any sprays (pesticides and herbicides) so the bees stay as healthy as possible. Even “natural” sprays can be toxic to honey bees, so please use physical traps if wasps or hornets are an issue. We are happy to explain more, if you reach out!
All Bees are in trouble and they need our help. It's up to us to make sure when they visit our gardens that they can drink sweet nectar and gather pollen without being poisoned! Thank you for helping us support our local bee populations!