Winter Honey

In response to our unseasonably warm afternoons, Tom and I opened up the hive yesterday for our first check of the year. We wanted to take off the entrance reducer, make sure the bees had enough room, and clean out any old stuff from the winter, as well as preemptively treat for varroa mite. All our plans kind of went out the window the minute we opened the hive. The bees were there, all the way at the back of the hive, and all the bars were full!

To explain why this is so unusual, you need to understand hive logistics. In November here in CA, a hive is opened one last time before winter, to make sure the bees have enough honey for the coming season. At the same time, beekeepers reduce the hive space, which helps the colony conserve heat during cold weather. In Langstroth hives (the ones you’re used to seeing), that means taking off excess boxes and keeping the colony down in the bottommost one or two. It’s a little different in our top bar hive. It’s only one long box, designed a bit like a hanging file system. The bars, about two inches wide, hang from either side on a ledge in the long, narrow box. In summer time, the entire box is filled with these bars - there is no excess room. But in winter, the bars are reduced, and something called a ‘follow board’ is put in behind the last one to make a sort of ‘false’ back to the box. This keeps all the bees up in the front end of the hive, compact and snug, with all their food available to them within a short distance. If I remember correctly, the queen lays her last batch of eggs about a month before the winter solstice. Those bees live a bit longer than usual to help the hive make it through winter. Then the queen starts laying again shortly after solstice, to have new bees ready to go in January as the days start lengthening. Therefore, depending on the weather, the hive can gain quite a few thousand members in late winter, in preparation for spring.

Since it’s still solidly winter, we didn’t expect the bees to have expanded the colony quite as much as they had; finding a full box was a surprise! Not only that, there were four entirely full bars of capped honey, with many more half-full. We took out the full bars, but then we needed to replace those four bars plus the bars we took out in November. I had three bars ready to go back in the hive (they need to be cleaned first, and I glue in a little strip of beeswax at the top to ensure them a good building pattern), but today we need to get the rest ready to go in. We may as well open up the whole hive and let the bees do their thing. With this warm weather, the brood will eventually fill the bottom half of every bar, with stores of honey and pollen at the top to make feeding the babies convenient for the nurse bees. The numbers will increase very rapidly.

Tom’s gone out to get more mason jars, since we have about 20 pounds of honey to bottle up. I don’t believe we’ve ever taken honey this early before. Likely, the bees made it before the first frost, and it’s been ripening all winter. It’s a deep, rich color, unlike the honey made from spring flowers which tends to be lighter in both appearance and flavor.

Meanwhile, the garden is taking off. I’ve been spending a good deal of time clearing out the flower beds in preparation for some new plantings. I believe I’ve written previously with regards to refreshing certain borders. This is a long process which includes cleaning out detritus, taking stock, moving plants that aren’t appropriate for the area, amending the soil, and researching what will do best in the space, with consideration given to which ones will provide the best habitat for insects and wildlife. I’ve recently watched this video of one of my favorite entomologists, Doug Tallamy, and have renewed my vow to make our garden a welcoming place for the ‘Little Things that Run the World,” providing more native plants on which the native insects evolved to depend. Dr. Tallamy has written several books that I can recommend heartily, my favorite being “Bringing Nature Home.”

I’ve also been moving certain big plants around, trying to create the structure that I am longing for in the lower canopy. Tom and I spent a happy hour on my parent’s hillside, cutting very large branches to use in our upcoming trellis project, which should help provide height. We are grazing daily in the garden, eating as we work, and I’ve cleared out the last of the spinach and planted a crop of head lettuce. I think I mentioned that I bought a thermometer for the greenhouse so I can monitor the conditions; I’ve added a bowl of water to see how that affects the humidity. I’m excited to get things moved and planted in there, in preparation for the coming season. This nice weather makes me antsy to do more.

The sad fact is that we’ve had very little rain or snow in California this winter, and the latest maps (from NW Climate Toolbox) show that as of early February, we are running near or below 50% of average precipitation for the state. This does not bode well for the upcoming year. It reminds me to be even more thoughtful while revamping the flower beds, and to carefully choose the right plant for the right place.

Honey Tasting

Each month, my beekeeping association has a general meeting with a guest speaker. Lately, the folks at UC Davis (our local land-grant university) have been coming to give the talks. We had a great one in July about the latest research in varroa mites (given by Dr. Elina Nino, Program Director for Apiculture), and last week, Amina Harris was our speaker. She is the director for the Honey and Pollination Center. UC Davis is really leading the way in a lot of interesting agricultural studies (have you seen the latest on nitrogen-fixing corn? very exciting) and their participation in apiculture is ground-breaking. Ms. Harris' program is the only one I know of for honey tasting, which is similar to wine, coffee, or beer tasting. But the reason for it is very different. UC Davis wants to help determine if the honey coming into the US is adulterated.

You may remember my post about this very issue. Imported, adulterated honey is a huge problem for our country, and the people manufacturing it keep getting around the chemical tests that have been developed to detect the fake stuff. So, Ms. Harris reasons, if we get humans on the case, with developed palates, we can begin to add another dimension to the testing of imported honey. 

So, she gave us a quick lesson in tasting, and it was fascinating. You can take an official course at UC Davis in this art, but it ain't cheap. So it was fun to have her explain some basics.

First off, she divided all honey into four categories: Fruity, Floral, Buttery, and Brown Sugar. Within those categories there are other sub-categories with about a million flavors for each. She gave us each three samples of honey to demonstrate the first three categories: Blackberry, Orange Blossom (citrus), and Eucalyptus. Let me just state right here that in order to know what the origin of your honey is, you have to have an awful lot of property with dedicated plants. Like three square miles of predominantly eucalyptus trees, because that's the foraging range of bees. I can never state what kind of honey mine is, because my bees forage on such different stuff in my neighborhood. I can guess what they are eating in different seasons, but it's just a guess. So I could never market my honey as one certain kind.

We were instructed on how to smell the honey, and what to think about and look for as we tasted it. I have to say, I'm not so good at this. I never have been. I think I have a good palate and a good sense of smell, but when it comes to describing the way things taste, I'm terrible. I'd be simply rubbish at taste-tests. All honey smells like honey and all honey tastes like honey. However I will say that when you taste test three different honeys side-by-side, you can easily tell the differences in them. But would I be able to say which flower made which honey? Doubtful.

Anyway, surprisingly, I enjoyed the eucalyptus honey the most, because it had the lightest flavor (and Ms. Harris would say 'light' is not a flavor). And yet it had the darkest color, so you would assume it would have a more robust flavor. This honey tasting stuff is pretty eye-opening. Also, you can taste the pollen in the honey (if it's real and not heated) - although less pollen gets into the honey than you would think. Also, that idea that local honey helps with allergies? I've said it before, but it bears repeating: Most allergens come from wind-pollinated trees, and that means that pollen won't be in honey. So really it won't help with your allergies. However honey has a LOT of other health benefits (if it's real, and if it's untreated or heated); it's anti-viral, anti-fungal, anti-bacterial, and it never goes bad. Did you hear about that honey they recently found in an Egyptian burial site? Still good.

And this is the perfect place to insert my mantra about buying honey: We should always buy local honey from a local beekeeper. It will not be cheap, in fact it will be much pricier than the stuff in the bear at your local Safeway. But this way you are sure to get the real stuff, unheated and untreated, simply filtered (to remove any wax or bee-parts) and bottled. Go to your farmers market or local health food store to purchase your honey. 

Today is beer-making day, pickle-relish-making day, and sriracha-making day. We ran out of sriracha a long time ago and miss it terribly. Homemade is so good! If you haven't made it, I highly suggest you do. I'm not a hot-sauce person, but I love a slug of sriracha in my Asian noodle dishes (and Adam will eat it on everything). You can find the recipe here. 

Is the Honey You're Buying Actually Honey?

I noticed yesterday that Netflix added a new documentary series to their stable; it's called "Rotten" and is all about fraud in our food supply chain. There are episodes about chickens, milk, and peanuts, but I have only watched the first one so far, which is about honey.

The problem of adulterated honey came to my attention a few years ago, when I saw a news piece about it. The demand for honey has increased substantially in the last few years, as many folks feel it is a healthier alternative to sugar. I'm not sure I can speak to that claim, but it is true that raw, unfiltered, unheated honey has lots of great nutrients and pollen included. This same honey can also be used on wounds, as it is a natural antibiotic and antifungal. (Many folks feel that eating pure raw honey can help with allergies. My feeling on that is that most of the pollen folks are allergic to are from trees, most of which are wind-pollinated, so don't end up in honey. But it certainly can't hurt.)

So, the demand has increased tremendously, but the supply has decreased steadily in that time, due to all of the problems honeybees are having. Some of these problems come straight from us and our decimation of the environment, and some of these problems are related to new pests and diseases. Regardless of the cause, honeybee colonies are failing (still) at a rate of 50% per year. 

Which begs the question: Just where is all our honey coming from?

Well, the greatest exporter of honey is China, with Germany coming in second. It became clear to our country early on that China was adulterating their honey, cutting it with corn syrup to increase bulk (classic drug-dealer move). Once we realized that, tests were developed to determine if a product was tainted with fillers, and then China found a way around that, by using rice syrup, which can't be detected. At that point we banned honey coming in from China, but they found a way around that, by sending it through other countries. At the present time a huge amount of honey is coming in from Asia and Europe, a lot of it originally from China. 

Some of the honey is diluted with other plant syrups, but it's also often contaminated with hormones and antibiotics that are not allowed here in the United States, some of them toxic in large doses. Scientists are getting smarter and smarter with their detection of these substances, but a good amount of it still gets through, and it ends up on our grocery store shelves.

Maybe this doesn't concern you, and if that's the case, you can stop reading right now and continue to enjoy your fake honey. However it does concern me. For one thing, I want to know that the food I'm eating is labeled correctly (seems a little thing, but more and more I'm realizing that it's not). But an even greater problem is that the small, local honey bee farmers are being priced out, because people think honey is honey is honey. So they buy the cheap stuff.

Your small, local producer knows nearly every plant from which his or her bees are feeding (a large area, but we know our neighborhoods, and most of us provide gardens nearby from which our bees mainly forage). They are completely hands-on, checking hives daily. They extract and bottle the honey by hand, no small job. If they label it raw and unfiltered, that means nothing has been done to it, except for screening out a few dead bees and a stray wing or two. If it's labeled organic, that means that farmer had control of 3 -5 square miles of territory, as the bees can forage that distance if they need to. That's a huge area, if you consider a mile is 640 acres. It's not easy to find organic honey, simply because most farmers can't afford that kind of land, especially in California. Your neighborhood beekeeper probably won't be able to say he or she is organic, but that's ok - in this case it's more important to know that you're buying real honey rather than the fake stuff.

Buying local means that your average jar of honey at the farmer's market is going to cost twice as much, if not three times as much, as that bear-shaped container in your grocery store. And most of us don't like to pay that much for food. We have become accustomed to thinking that our food should be cheap. I've said it before, with regards to eggs and meat, and I'll say it again: Your food should not be cheap. Stop buying $4 cups of coffee and new iPhones, and instead put that money into pastured, organic food. Support your local farmers. Budget more for the stuff you put in your mouth, because it really matters, not only to your health and your conscience, but also to keeping the little guys in business. 

We personally don't sell our extra honey (and we do get more than we need from just one hive), because we like to give it as gifts to our neighbors, teachers, family, and friends. I know they are all grateful for those small gifts, but I often wonder if they know how precious this stuff really is, considering that what is in our food supply chain is so inferior. The honey that comes from local hives tastes different depending on the season and what the bees were foraging on. It's different colors and has different scents. It has just as much terroir as a bottle of good wine. I'm sure those who drink milk from their family cow feel quite the same way about that milk. These things need to be better appreciated. You deserve to drink good wine, right? You deserve just as fully to eat good honey. 

So buy local. Find your farmers market. Get to know your neighborhood beekeeper. Buy from small local groceries. Ask questions. Know the providence of your food.

Honey, Beeswax, a Bird House, and an Olive Correction

Here it is.

Six half-pints (plus another quarter pint in the cupboard now) of lovely, golden honey. The best part is, we didn't expect it. And we're totally out of honey, so it couldn't have come at a better time.

Tom asked that we save the beeswax and render it, so I did some research on that. I finally found a method on a blog called Montana Homesteader  that sounded doable. 

First, I gathered the leftover wax into a cheesecloth package, securing it at the top with a rubber band.

Then, I plopped this whole parcel into a large pot of water which had been heating on medium-low for a while.

I probably let this go for about an hour, just on that low heat, while the wax melted out into the water, and the cheesecloth held on to the bits of bees and other gunk that was stuck in the wax. Then, when I thought it was close to done, I used tongs to smush the cheesecloth together and squeeze out all the melted wax. I threw that cheesecloth away. Then, you just have to let the pot sit and cool. The wax rises to the top and forms a disc floating on the water.

When it was totally cool, I ran an offset spatula around the edge of the pan, scooped out the disc (breaking it, darn) and put that on several thicknesses of paper towel. I then scooped out any random bits and pieces of wax and added them to the paper towel.

It's pretty, isn't it? Maybe we'll melt this down further and make it in to a candle or something, but I have to say the clean up from rendering wax makes me never want to do it again. Beeswax melts easily, so I just warmed up the utensils I was using over a hot burner flame (gas) and then wiped off the melted wax with paper towels. The pot was warmed over the burner and then wiped out with many, many paper towels, then given a coat of coconut oil and wiped again for good measure. This uses a lot of paper towels that can't be put in the compost, but on one beekeeping forum a guy said he uses these for lighting his smoker. This is a good idea, but I don't use the smoker very long, as I only have one hive to check, and I don't like the idea of melted wax all over it. So I just threw the paper towels away, guiltily.

If one was going to make a habit of rendering beeswax and melting it, one might consider getting a dedicated set of tools. Ahem.

I forgot to show you a picture of the new birdhouse we got, a gift from my parents who visit Williamsburg every year. This is an authentic Williamsburg-era birdhouse. Tom installed it behind a cover of ceanothus, as we find the birds are more likely to use houses we give them if they are behind cover.

One more thing I wanted to share with you today: I tasted the olives in that extremely salty brine I made, and holy shrunken tastebuds, it's waaaaay too salty. So I drained all the olives, rinsed them thoroughly, washed the containers, and made a new brine using a recipe I found on the UC extension preserving website. It involved a little salt, some red wine vinegar, and water. I re-packed the olives in this brine, again with herbs and garlic, and with a thin layer of olive oil on top. These will keep for a year at 60-80 degrees.

Super Bee Sunday

Ha ha. The game is on here, but we're not really watching it. It's been an interesting week in San Francisco with pre-game events and concerts, all of which we've largely ignored. There's been controversy about the homeless of SF, of which there are way too many, and 'where to put them' so the tourists wouldn't be affected in any way. To be frank, I'm tired of going to the morning paper and seeing Super Bowl news. Today at least, the hoopla is down closer to San Jose, about an hour/hour and a half south of us. 

Anyway, our list of chores didn't change any. We still had all kinds of stuff to accomplish in the garden and kitchen, and it all got done. Since it's a beautiful day, we decided to open the hive and see how the bees were faring. Over the past week (sunny and warm) I had noticed some limited activity, and I wanted to make sure the bees were ok. 

I tried this trick Dad said he uses, which is to set a timer for a minute and count how many bees come back to the hive (after foraging). He has two hives; one is very strong, and he had 30 bees come back within a minute. His other hive, which he thought he lost this winter, had 10 bees come back within a minute. Me? I had 5 bees come back. So I was a little nervous about the state of the colony.

But what we found was very encouraging. We really have very few bees, I mean it seemed like maybe a hundred (though I'm sure that's wrong). However we found the queen, we found a small bit of brood, we found plenty of honey still in the hive (and several bees were eating it) and new pollen being packed in to cells. So while they are extremely diminished in number, they are also beginning to recover.  

House bees working near the brood

Sorry so fuzzy, but that's the Queen up top. She moves fast and it's hard to focus before she's gone!

We rearranged some bars, moving those full of honey up close to the cluster. We saw an opportunity to take out some old bars on which the bees had built comb sideways (it's been a pain to work around these bars since last spring), as they were at the back of the hive and being completely ignored. As I've said before, bees won't travel to the back of the hive in cold weather, as long as they have enough honey nearby - they need to stay warm in the cluster. Now was the time to take these bars out of rotation.

And that meant we could have the honey from those bars!

We cut the comb off of five bars, dropping it in to bowls lined with colanders. We soon realized that this wouldn't be a large enough solution, so Tom ran to the hardware store and picked up two buckets, then drilled holes in the bottom of one bucket, making an impromptu drainage system that I think we will probably now use forever. 

Tom drilled the holes, then I washed the buckets with soap and water.

Stacked one on top of the other, there's a good half foot between them inside.

Crushed comb goes in the top layer...

... draining in to the bottom. Simple!

This was a totally unexpected benefit of opening the hive today. How lovely that the colony made so much honey last summer that they still have plenty to eat, and extra to give to us!