Bee Houses from Eastern Europe to Oak Harbor, Washington

Chruch Hives in Slovenia

I am fascinated by eastern European Bee Houses.  I do not know much about them, so if you do, please share your wisdom.  The mobile ones seem like such a wonderful, elegant solution to moving small numbers of bees around: everyone goes together.  Plus, stationary or moving, they are really lovely.

The bee houses come in all shapes and sizes. The image at the top of this blog is, apparently, the hives of a church in Gradišče Pijavo Gorizia, Slovenia  (Should any of the words or locations be wrong, please correct them.  I’m working off of a translation program.)

Round Tuit Farms Bee House

A friend, Lisa, at  RoundTuIt Farms shares my enthusiasm.  She has a stationarybee house into which she moves her hives each winter.  Visit her bee page for more photos.   It’s wonderful, but she and I are facinated by the bee houses in which the bee hives remain year round.

Learning Trail Hives

I think I love the European ones for  their colors and paintings.  You can tell they don’t shift.  After all that would mess up the painting of the beekeeper on the right.  The idea that the hives stay put is nice.  These are  from the “Location Slovenia” website.  There is a “Learning Trail” at the Information Center Park Caves, near Divaca Hrpelje Kozina.

The trail covers both cultural and natural history themes – which makes beekeeping a perfect match.  More images of hives and houses from multiple sources can be found  HERE.

They’re lovely to look at, but Lisa and I have always wondered: how do they work.  I recently discovered some websites that gave a look inside the hive.

AtlanticMaster's Hives

This image is from a fellow who goes by atlanticmaster (that’s all I could find on him).  From what I can see, each of the hives opens from the back and the frames slide out.  None of the hives are more than 2 boxes.   He has a nice slide show of his hive at this link.

I particularly like the way he included a “well that one didn’t work so well” photo.  Too often we tend to show only what works.  The “oops” are often far more instructional and inspirational.
These are from a Carniolan beekeeper’s site and show how the hives could be created.

Langstroth hives in Carniolia

The Hive Interior

The Beekeeper

The beekeeper’s apiary  is in Upper Carniola (near Jelovica).  At the time of his postings, the beekeeper was running 12 hives.  I tried to contact the beekeeper, but sadly the message was returned: the old “this address has a fatal flaw” message.  What a shame. It is a great website, even reading it though a translation program.  Of course, website that starts off with a brandy recipe has my heart.  He does go on to deal with varroa, oxalic acid, what beekeepers in his are do at different times of year…but it all dates from 2006.

B & S produced hive

Another view of the interior of a bee house is from B & S Budija Production of beehives and beekeeping equipment and laboratory dentistry (B & S Budija sp-Izdelava panjev in čebelarska oprema ter zobotehnični laboratorij).   I think the slated board between the two supers are interesting.  Perhaps it is to add more ventilation to the hive?    I like the name of his company as well, especially the density at the end.  After all if you go to our farm website (Walking-Wild.com), you find beekeeping, honey, handcrafted furniture, DVDs, and photography.  Got to diversify in this world.

His hives would seem to be for sale, although it is a bit far to pop round and get one, but they are well made : “The hives are made from high quality spruce, which is technically in an industrial kiln dried at elevated temperatures and properly conditioned at 12% humidity.”  Hop onto the site for more photos including nucs made in this form.

It’s probably too far to go to buy the hives, but you can build them. Dr. Janko Božič offered a nice diagram of his hives.

What's What In the Hive

He apparently ran a beekeeping training center (in Ljubljana?) but stopped the center in 2000 with a heart breaking message:”The  Beekeeping training is left to the fate of time to April 2000th I hope someone will continue the raised work and beekeepers offering modern methods of holistic education. Personally, I forwarded the initiative on Beekeeping.”  Makes me want to weep.
My translation program gives these definitions of the keys:

• B = back
  BS: brood
  BW plodiscno box (you figure)
  D doors
  F: front
  HS medisce (treatment area?)
  HW medicno box (same?)
  IF inner front
  QE the parent grid (queen excluder?)

OK, it’s not much of help, but it’s a start

The one downside of these hives would seem to be the necessity of constantly pulling honey, Taylors Garden Buildings the U.K.  has a solution to that:

Inside the Bee House

The Exterior

It’s not quite the same.  Their focus is to make beekeeping practical for the elderly and the young.    They’re based in based in Finsbury Park, London.  The company’s main business is building sheds, from the incredibly practical to the outstandingly elegant.  These seem to use the hives based on Langstroth hives, but the sheds could easily be merged with the Eastern European style of boxes.

That’s the tour inspired by a very wet day at Brookfield Farm Bees And Honey, Maple Falls, Washington.

If you use or know more about these wonderful hives, especially how to build them, how they are “supered”, and how honey is harvested from them, please share information and links.  I think there’s a place for these in many of our apiaries.

To feed or not to feed and When to Feed

American Robin

A robin crossed my path a few days ago.  The alders are displaying their still closed catkins. The chickadees have been singing for a few weeks.  Spring is coming.  The crocuses usually follow the robins by 2 weeks.  About 6 weeks later, the big leaf maples bloom.  This is important to me: it’s the first big nectar flow of the year.

Then a friend in Seattle was asking the other day when he should start feeding his bees.  I hear cries of “never” coming from some of you, but I feed and he feeds, so we face this question:  When is the best date to start.

Start too early and you wind up with a lot of field bees with nothing to do.  This, in turn, may retard the queen’s laying, so that you field force is diminished when the nectar flow hits.  Start too late, and you don’t have enough field bees to take full advantage of the honey flow.

Dates and Figures:

Check Those Dates

It takes 3 weeks for an egg to become a worker.  Then it will, usually take about 3 more weeks before that little lady becomes a forager.  So, if one wants to have a booming work force on the first honey flow of the year 7 to 8 weeks before the first flow is the start date for feeding.    The extra week(s) is because you need some time for the bees to realize there is food available and for the queen to kick into high egg-laying gear.

Of course nothing is perfect in nature.  By my calendar 2 years ago, the big leaf maples bloomed in the first week of April.  Last year it was the third week.  So, had I fed last year on the bases of the previous year, I would have had a lot of hungry bees flying about for 2 weeks looking for food.  Which would have meant two more weeks of feeding.

The timing can be missed the other way too: waiting to feed for a bee build-up, then having the bloom come when you don’t have a full work force.   Farming wild is fun, isn’t it?

Options:

Checking Out A Warm Winter Day - Gathered Around Upper Entrance

Start feeding 8 weeks before the first big bloom or pollination contract. That way if the bloom comes early a field force will be in place.   If you’re pollinating, you will be assured a good number of foragers.

Start feeding 6 weeks before the first big bloom, hope it does not come too soon, and know that you won’t have a full field force until at least the 2^nd week of the bloom (if it comes “on schedule” – ha)

Start feeding 3 weeks before the bloom.  This will do nothing for a field crew.  However, if you are feeding essential oils it will get some into the bees before you must stop feeding because they’re bringing in nectar.

Don’t feed at all.  Let nature take its course.  The bees will be eating natural honey and pollen, which really is better for them, as long as they have stores.  You won’t get as much honey, which if you’re selling honey for a living, is not good for you, and thus not good for the bees who need you.  It’s all symbiotic.

How do you know when you need the field force?

Pinhole image of Big Leaf Maple and it's a link to my wilderness pinhole photography blog

Aiming to hit a wild honey flow is a bit harder than meeting a pollination contract.  Nature is just does not run to an exact schedule. If you’ve been keeping bees for a few years, you probably have a written record of when your primary nectar species bloom.  My list is scrolled down the side of each year’s wall calendar.  It’s an easy way to quickly look from one year to the previous years.

First year beekeeping is a bit harder.  You may not have noticed when blooms occur. In large urban areas, your local garden clubs are the best answer.   In cities that lie near countryside, you can ask the local agricultural extension folks, and the garden clubs.  In croplands, the local farmers will know.  In the forests, you might try a local birding or mushroom club.  Those folks are out nearly year-round here and they see what’s around them.  But before you ask, do the homework: what do bees go to in your area?  Ask about specific plants.  And remember, all these people can only give a best estimate.

What to feed?
Honey and pollen are the best.  I don’t have any left, so it’s cane sugar syrup, with essential oils, and pollen substitute, made with cane sugar syrup and essential oils.  Some people make a thin honey syrup, but I hear that can go off on you.  There are beet sugar and high fructose corn syrup, but I won’t suggest them.  I have heard the first is all GM now, with built in pesticides, and the latter I would not feed to me or any other creature (oh I do miss Mountain Dew….).  Regardless of ones choices, both a sugar feed and a pollen or pollen substitute need should be provided if one feeds.

Issues:

If you do decide to feed, and decide on a date to start, there are still issues. Putting liquid feed into hives in the late winter – early spring is rife with potential problems, especially here in northwest Washington:

With in-hive feeders:

"dollar store" hive top feeder - Brookfield Farm

Snow and cold snaps can still come: if the daytime temperatures drop below 40F my bees won’t take the syrup.  It’s too cold to move to it.

Water in the hive:  Syrup, be it sugar or honey, has water in it.  The last thing the bees need if the weather gets colder or torrential rains come is more water vapor drifting around the hive.

Losing the added insulation (this is probably only applicable to me): my feeders occupy the same space as the winter insulation.  It’s either feed or a layer of insulation for my bees.

With external feeders:

Unless it’s sunny, the feeders will just sit there.  Mice may come by – which makes the bee hive guard kitties very happy, but it does nothing for the bees.

A Balance

Me?  I figure that at the farm and some up-river bee yards.  I’ll set out some feed in external feeders.  If the bees fly, they can find a little something, which might encourage laying.  In two weeks the weather should lighten and the natural progression of laying will start to produce a larger cluster.  Then I’ll place the internal feeders in the hive. It’s looking like a warm late-winter/spring, and it sure would be nice to have the girls in full force when the maples burst forth.  We shall see, and I’ll let you know.

That’s the news this week from Brookfield Farm, Maple Falls, Washington…

Are you spring feeding?  If so, how do you judge when to start?  If not, do you find that the bees build up enough without your help?  Do share, the more we share the more we can all learn.

Taxing Sugar – including honey – to keep us safe?

A recent article in February 2^nd comment section of Nature magazine  has created quite a stir, and indeed set my mind to pondering. The authors point out that sugar, which includes honey, is toxic, if you eat a lot of it on a daily basis.  This can, of course, be said, of many foods. The article proposes that products with added sugar should be taxed due to the dangerous nature of massive sugar consumption.

The “controlling them like alcohol” line was enough to send shivers down the back of this beekeeper who sells  raw honey from naturally-treated hives for a living.   It probably gives the willies to other beekeepers as well.

First lets all acknowledge is that however good honey is and however wonderful it is for you (in my opinion), it is a combination of sugars, with fructose and glucose weighing in at the top, followed by sucrose and then way smaller amounts of other sugars.  So honey would definitely come under a “sugar tax”.

Beekeepers try to keep the price of honey reasonable.  However we do need to account for costs that may not seem evident to the consumer at first glance. All we really don’t need is a new tax to whomp onto our sales price.

However, the article does make compelling points about over-consumption, health issues, personal and social costs.  The authors, all of whom are from the University of California, San Francisco, do have distinguished credentials : Dr. Lustig is at the Department of Pediatrics and the Center for Obesity Assessment, Study and Treatment; Dr. Schmidt and Dr. Brindis are at the Clinical and Translational Science Institute and the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies.

Their primary concern is about the huge amounts of sugar consumed daily in the US and worldwide, as well as the resultant medical and social costs that results from the over-consumption of sugar.  They “…believe that attention should be turned to ‘added sugar’, defined as any sweetener containing the molecule fructose added to food in processing.”

That tends to point at high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), but remember sugar has fructose as well.

Dr. Laura Schmidt

Dr. Schmidt responded to my emailed query by writing:  “Small amounts of sugar in any form are fine from the perspective of metabolic syndrome, and consuming with high fiber foods helps as well.”

Dr. Robert Lustig

 
Dr. Lustig did point out in an email : “Honey, gram for gram, calorie for calorie, has equal amounts of fructose as does sugar. But because honey is more expensive and has its own individual flavor, people tend to use less of it. Which is a good thing.”

 

Dr. Claire Brindis

Dr. Brindis added, via email, that “A key element in all of this is the huge reliance on over-processed foods and that we are now eating close to 28 teaspoons of sugar a day (as there is so much sugar in 80% of foods), representing 3 times as much consumption as we did 30 years ago (we should be at  about 9 teaspoons).  An element here is moderation—your customers are probably not going to go overboard in terms of honey consumption, even if they have honey in their diet. The question is what else and other sources of sugar are they using….”

Why Too Much Sugar Can Be Bad

The authors do cite a rather frightening array of issues linked to the over consumption of sugar. A few of these are:

• “…heart disease, cancer and diabetes [now] pose a greater health burden worldwide than do infections diseases”…
• Scientific evidence shows that fructose can “…trigger processes that lead to liver toxicity and a host of other chronic diseases”  {my aside, remember honey contains natural fructose}
• Studies have shown sugar is addicting: it messes with hormones so that our bodies think we are still hungry when we are full and increases the desire to eat more sugar (not simply eat more).
• People eat way too much sugar world-wide, with the US leading the way with an average consumption of over 600 calories a day per person.  (The map highlighting this in the article is frighten but fascinating – Ecuador is low, while Columbia is high, go figure).
• 30% more people are obese than malnourished worldwide.  In the US the US Joint Chief of Staffs have now declared obesity a “threat to national security.”

Whose Taxing – What’s Proposed:

According to the article, Canada and many countries in Europe already have a tax on some sweetened food.  In the US the government is apparently thinking about putting a 1-cent per ounce tax on sweetened food.   Honey not being “sweetened” is pretty safe, but a fabulous raw honey infused organic vinegar would be taxed (now why would I think of that product?)

The Authors Tax Proposal:

Again, the authors do not seem to be after jars of honey, but rather the foods to which sugar has bee added.  “…We propose adding taxes to processed foods that contain any form of added sugars, such as HFCS and sucrose.” These would seem to include sodas, juice, spots drinks, sugared cereal, and value-added honey products.  The also propose regulating when and where drinks like sodas, sugar-added juices, and sports drinks could be sold.

In my humble opinion:

In the US, rather than taxing the food, perhaps the authors might look to putting on pressure to end the US corn subsidies, which have made HFCS a cheap, and clearly addicitive, ingredient in so many foods and drinks.   A rise the price of the corn syrup will affect the manufactures and processors far more quickly than a new food tax on the general population.  At the same time, the efforts to educate people though the media could be increased.

Why the Emphasis on Taxation, not Education:

The authors do propose both education and taxation (but not limitations on corn subsidies).  Their main emphasis is on taxation, however.  As a reason, they point to tobacco and alcohol.  They feel that while education helped, the rise in prices, due to taxes, was the primary contributor to the decline in the consumption of these products.  They’ve got the research, but it seems to me that a few cents never slowed anyone down from smoking or drinking. I think media saturation about deaths and the human costs to ones family and friends due to tobacco and alcohol spread the word and had a lot to do with reduced consumption. The authors seem to hope that a few cents will change how the general public shops and eats.  Maybe they are correct, but I have my doubts.

All Things In Moderation

The research presented by Dr. Lustig, Dr. Schmidt and Dr. Brindis is compelling.  We need to consume less sugar for our health and reduce or remove the added “sugar” from processed foods, which will keep health care costs down.   We can still eat honey.  Remember, Dr. Brindis said: “… we should be at about 9 teaspoons (a day).”  So eating honey’s still OK.  Just don’t go overboard – all things in moderation seems to work for most things in life.

To Find The Article:

The article is well written, fascinating, and frightening.  It’s in Nature, February 2, 2012, (Volume #482).  You can read it on line for $36.

If you don’t have $36 to spare to read it on line, head on down to your library.  If the library does not have Nature, have them get it for you though an interlibrary loan.  Hopefully this works outside of the US as well.

Do give a read and let me know what you think.

Raw Honey infused Organic Vinegar: Suddenly We’re Fashionable

Drinking Vinegar, and so much more

Imagine my surprise when I discovered yesterday that my wonderful (if I do say so myself) Raw Honey Infused Organic Vinegars are totally cool!  Do we still say “totally cool”?  That alone should show how far out of the loop I am.  The last time I was told that I was “with it” was back in the early 1990’s when a young friend saw my patched jeans from the 1970’s and told me that they were perfect for wearing to a rave.

I only discovered my new “au courant” nature during a search for magazines, reviewers, bloggers, and chefs to whom I could offer some samples of  my raw honey infusions in the heart-felt desire to create a little shameless self-promotion for my products.

 

 

Brookfield Farm’s Raw Honey Infused Organic Vinegar Background:

I started making two different styles of these a few years ago for friends and family.  I chose brown rice and apple cider because I like those vinegars.  My raw honey infused organic vinegars are drinking vinegars that also have a multitude of other culinary applications.

Raw honey and organic vinegar are delicious, as long as they are cold-matured.  They need the time to “become friends” Ok, somewhere out there there’s a chemist muttering the acids are breaking down the sugar esters (or some such thing).  If there is such a person reading this, can you tell me what’s in the chemical world is happening, I’d like to know.  All I know is that they taste great together.

Brookfield Farm Market Booth : Fremont Market, Seattle

Later, during the on-going search for ways to pay my bills, I took them commercial: Retail and Wholesale sales.  I got two Washington State Department of Agriculture permits that allowed me to create these, along with my raw honeys infused with spices, flowers and nuts.  Two permits are needed: one for the commercial kitchen where they are made, and one for the warehouse in which they are stored.

Now my raw honey infused organic vinegars are in local shops and markets as well as at our farmers’ market booths.

What One Does with Raw Honey Infused Organic Vinegars:

You can use them on salads, with or without oil.
Put them on vegetables instead of butter.
Marinade meat, fish, or fowl with them
Add them to the water in which you are poaching a fish – adds a lovely flavo
Put them in stir-fries and hot-pots
Use them as a part of all your culinary creations
Drink them straight (that’s a bit much for me, but a friend does this)
Drink them after adding water hot or cold (about a shot of my raw honey infused organic vinegar to a pint of water does it for me).

Their use as drinking vinegars is what makes me a happening kind of beekeeper.

Why I’m Suddenly Hip:

Drinking vinegars are apparently coming into fashion here in the US.   Mixologists are blending them with and without alcohol in many gathering spots from New York City to Santa Monica, CA, and beyond.  They even made it into the New York Times.  You can also find recipes for “shrub” on the web: which are fruit and herb infused sweetened vinegars.  (Sadly a lot of these call for sugar – if you make these at home, use honey, so much better.)

I do understand their popularity in a restaurant/bar situation.  First they taste great, so they’re good any where.  They do make wonderful mixers with many alcohols as well. But if you don’t drink and you are out for the evening, they make a nice break from orange and tomato juice.  If you do drink, and you’re thinking about having “just one more drink”, to keep those other drinks you’ve downed company, try a non-alcoholic raw honey infused organic vinegar and water mix instead, it satisfies that craving and leaves you able to have a coherent conversation.

A Bit of History (drinking vinegars, not me)

Folks have been drinking vinegar and water for centuries.  The Roman armies marched on water, vinegar, and honey.  Drinking vinegars were popular in the US and Europe before the advent of soft drinks.  In Asia, they have been popular for hundreds of year, and continue to be sought after today.

According to Majiro News (http://www.majiroxnews.com) “From Colonial times onwards in the United States, until soda pop and other sugared drinks vanquished it, “Switchel” was the drink of choice at haying time or other times when heavy labor was demanded on the farm. “Switchel” is basically vinegar, water, ginger and either molasses or honey to sweeten it.”  Sounds good to me.

There is lots of talk about the health benefits of drinking vinegar, especially apple cider vinegar. I’ll not go into all those here.  I could not dig up a lot of studies showing one way or the other. Wikipedia has links to quite a few studies with the effects on rats’ cholesterol, blood pressure, body weight and beyond.  As to the notion that drinking vinegar helps memory, I’m probably proof it doesn’t help much.

Do remember, however, that vinegar is an acid, and, drunken straight, can have a detrimental effect on your teeth.  So if you chug it or sip it straight, brush those pearly whites afterwards.

My Raw Honey Infused Organic Vinegars are just that : raw honey, organic vinegar.  If you make something similar but add fruits or spices, and you’re willing to share what you do, please do share.   New ideas for delicious drinks are always welcome.

Beekeeper Gloves

Gloves: some beekeepers use them, some don’t.  I do not like to be stung.  I wear gloves. It is said that if you work well, bees will not sting you.  I always wonder if the people who say this have those sweet Italian bees and live in areas where storms don’t come though on a near daily basis.  It’s nice here in northwest Washington, it’s just not very dry, and I now know the meaning of occluded front (one miserable weather front following close on the heels of another).

What follows is a tale of the gloves I have known and, well, tolerated, I don’t love any of them.

it has a "life" of its own

I started out with the standard issue beekeeper gloves.  This is one that I found at the bottom of an older bee bag. They were thick.  No bee could sting me.  On the other hand, I couldn’t feel a thing, which made manipulating frames very hard.

good, but still has issues

Then I discovered these gloves.  They are goatskin, I think.  The glove is thin enough to allow me to work easily and still not get stung.  But you can see that they still don’t meld with my hands.  The down side is that they are thin and wear out.  I go though about 3 of these a year.  Happily they are not that expensive.  I get them though Buckoo Gloves.

useful when painting too

If I’m working with mating nucs my Buckoo gloves are still too thick.  Bare hands are the best, but sometimes the bees get a little jumpy, especially when a storm is brewing, and, as I said, I don’t like to be stung.   Then I turn to these nitrile gloves.  I just learned about them this year.  My first encounter was from another beekeeper in our queen-rearing group, but his were very thin and ripped.  I’m very financially conservative (ok call it cheap), and I like things to last a while.  Then one day at the paint section of a box store I discovered these very fashionable blue nitrile gloves: painter’s nitrile gloves.  They work really well, and you can reuse them for quite a while before they do finally rip. Plus they’re quite nice when you’re painting the new honey storage area too.  On the downside, here’s my computer’s dictionary’s definition of nitrile: an organic compound containing a cyanide group (just puts you at ease, doesn’t it?)

Every glove has its downside.  The mesh of all the beekeepers gloves drives me mad.  At least once a week a bee will suddenly realize that my skin is available to be stung though the mesh.  I keep telling myself it’s probably very good for my wrists: no arthritis there.  And my lovely painters nitrile gloves are short, so the bees get me in the same place.   This year I’m getting some gloves without mesh from Buckoo Gloves – they tell me they’re longer.  I just figure I will look totally chic in elbow-length gloves.  Who says beekeeping isn’t fashionable?

I would love to work without gloves all the time, but it’s not going to happen.  I’ll get stung.  My friend, Pat Ray (4^th generation beekeeper, all around good guy, and someone who will work bees in a short sleeve shirt) once said to me that people should just wear what makes them comfortable while working with bees because as long as you are comfortable you will handle the bees gently.   I couldn’t put it better.

Do you have gloves that work well for you?  Share – we can all use new knowledge.

Winter Honeybee Candy (Fondant)

Fondant

After a hard year of rains, we’ve been having a warm(ish) winter here in the Pacific Northwest.  It’s been downright “tropical”: highs to 45 degrees F on a regular basis.  I like this, but it’s not so good for the bees.  They don’t slow-down as much or go into prolonged cluster.  They eat a lot.  So when the weather got even warmer, 50 degrees F (break out the bathing suits!), we made some bee candy (fondant) and I went around the hives to distribute it to those who looked like they were already eating in the top box.

Background: 

I leave 50 to 70 pounds of honey on each hive going into winter.

Many of my hives had larger colonies of bees than normal for this time of year.

Many of the bees in those hives were already in the top box.

There is NO Forage in this area from October to February, and February is only Alder Pollen.

Why Candy?

I would never feed liquid feed in the winter here.  It is wet enough in this northwest corner of Washington.  The bees do not need added moisture in their hives.  Plus, you never know when it is going to snow.

Fondant

Fondant (aka bee candy)

For years that name put me off.  Fancy name, must be complicated.  It’s not difficult at all.  Fondant is “a thick paste made of sugar and water…(or) candy made of such a paste”, according to the dictionary that comes with my Mac.

Recipes for this appear in many bee magazines and on the web, but the easiest one I’ve found to follow is in my husband’s mother’s 1935 cookbook from England: the basic sugar candy recipe.

One part water, 4 parts sugar, boil until it forms hard “tails” when dropped into water. That’s about 200 degrees F, according to Ian (the husband) who made the bee candy this year.

Because I had bee feed left from the fall we started with that.  It’s a ¾ sugar, ¼ water mix with spearmint, lemongrass, and thyme oil.  Then Ian added more cane sugar.  (No photos of him cooking it, he kindly did this while I was working on the web at the library).

He did mention that it was a pain, until he realized he could just walk away and let it cook down while he made furniture (he does fabulous handcrafted furniture of historical designs that can be seen at Walking-Wild.com).  Now, Ian cooks brilliantly, if I walked away from a cooking pot it would burn.

Pouring out the Bee Candy

The candy is poured into cookie trays lined with wax paper.  Then set in my work area to cool.  I’ve realized I should have done something like cut it into squares before it completely cooled.  As that would have been some time in the middle of the night, I would not have done it any way.

Getting the Candy Out

Cracking The Bee Candy

Thus, to break the candy and get it out of the trays, I used a small hammer and a chisel.  A few smacks and the candy came out of the tray and then could be broken into nice chunks.

I put these into a sealable bucket, with each layer lined with wax paper.

A single piece of fondant

Putting the Candy In

Bees Meet Fondant

I only open the tops of the hives at this time of year.  So each lid was popped, the insulation (bead board) removed, and the burlap lifted to reveal the top bars.

The candy is simply placed on the top bars.  In some hives this is greeted with elation.  In others, I probably don’t have to do it, but now I’ll worry less.

Then burlap back down, insulation back in, top closed, and the hive’s “rain hat”: a piece of asphalt roofing lied back down.

Happy Bee

One day latter the snows arrived.  Two days later we could no longer drive to the farm beeyard : a 3/4 mile walk though 2 feet of snow.

I’ll still worry, but I’ll worry less.

Before The Snow Storm!

USDA Organic Honey – What Does It Mean?

We've All Seen It

We have all seen the USDA certification symbol on some honeys.  But what does it really mean?  It can mean a lot, or it can mean nothing at all.  Confusing?  Yes.  And that’s the best term for honey labeled “organic”.

According to an email correspondence I had with the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service “, honey can be certified organic using the organic livestock standards… However, NOSB {National Organic Standards Board} recommendations are not part of the regulations until/unless the National Organic Program adopts through rulemaking process.”

In more normal words: Your honey can be certified organic by the US government, although they have no regulations to define organic honey.  You got to love the federal government.

WHO CERTIFIES IT ORGANIC?

UNITED STATES HONEY:

The federal government does not inspect for organic honey. In the US there are certifying agencies that will certify honey as organic.  They seem to use the NOSB recommendations.  But as I mentioned before the USDA has never accepted the recommendations.

IMPORTED HONEY:

If the honey is harvested outside of the US it is considered Organic if it meets that country’s organic standards as well as the US standards.  Remember, there are NO U.S. STANDARDS, so compliance on that point is quite easy.  In some countries Organic standards are rough: the UK, the European Union, Canada, Singapore…they all have tough standards.  In other places, “organic” honey is not so “organic”.

WHAT MAKES IT ORGANIC IN THE US?

The independent certifying agencies in the US do pretty much follow the NOSB’s recommendations.  It’s not easy to make the grade, and it’s not cheap for large producers.

Small producers who make less than $5000 worth of organic honey in a year have it easier.  They can just put on the USDA Organic Label.  Someone might come round to check your records, but who knows when.  After all, there are no government regulations.

For all other organic honey producers the check list offered by most agencies is extensive.  And everything must be documented.  Just a few items covered are:

1) Forage: What the bees eat and drink

2) Where they live and what they live in and on.

3) What the beekeeper feeds them

4) How the beekeeper treats them for parasites

5) How the beekeeper processes the honey they produce

6) How the beekeeper labels that honey

7) How the beekeeper keeps records

FORAGE: What and Where The Bees Eat

Is It Organic?

Honeybees fly an average of 2 miles from their hives in their search for nectar and pollen.  A hive would have to be in the center of a minimally 16 square miles of organic plants.  Wild plants sound good but there could be an issue there if the hives are near any land where herbicides are used, which includes much of the Dept of Natural Resources lands.  The list of prohibited places goes on to include such places as non-organic farms, golf courses, residential neighborhoods, and industrial areas.  Places where water may contain chemicals is off-limits.  In a bow to our present form of agriculture, genetically modified crops are a no-go zone, one to which an even greater buffer zone is added.   Basically if the bees can reach any area that has chemicals, synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, or sludge, they cannot produce organic honey.  This requirement alone will make the production of organic honey impossible for most beekeepers (If you live in a place like this: 16 square miles of no chemicals, please share where that is.)

HOW THE BEES LIVE

Let’s say you have the perfect place to put your hives.  Now you have to give them an organic environment in which to live.  The hive boxes are pretty simple: wood.  But the foundation is a bit more of a challenge.  Beeswax foundation must be organic.  That’s really, really hard to find.  You can make your own, but it has to be from your organic hives, which you can’t have until you get that organic foundation – Catch 22.

Strangely, to me, plastic foundation can be used, as long as it’s coated with organic wax.  Organic wax is difficult to find.   Smaller apiaries that meet all the other organic recommendations could start with foundationless hives, and use that wax.  We are talking about a lot of time here.

TREATMENTS FOR PARASITES

Chemicals are out; no real surprise there.  So it’s screened bottom boards, physical traps, and other integrated pest management techniques.  Some of the milder miticide treatments are considered OK: The thyme based ApiLifeVar and ApiGard as well as Formic Acid.  The recommendations I’ve seen are considering including Oxalic Acid in the mix.  None of the ingredients in these are organic, but they are natural (not synthesized chemicals).

TOO MANY RECOMMENDATIONS TO MENTION

There are far more recommendations, they can be found In a PDF at:

www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2011-11-08/pdf/2011-28800.pdf

The recommendations range from the type and temperature of equipment used during extraction (stainless steel and cold knives) to how the honey is labeled as well as how, when, and what records must be kept and where the bees come from – and how long they have lived in organically certified hives.

Before any agency will certify the apiary has to have a record of being organic for one year.  My hat’s off to any beekeeper who actually does the work to meet all the recommendations.  Sadly, after all that work, they’ll still be competing with “organic” honey from countries that have lesser organic standards and from companies that will simply put a USDA Organic label on their honey without going though a certifying agency (remember, that’s not a government agency because the US government does not have any Organic Honey Standards).

WHAT IF YOU JUST PUT ON THE LABEL?

It’s a $10,000 fine. 

BROOKFIELD FARM BEES?

Some Hives At the Farm

Nope, we’re not organic and could never be.  My down-river bee yards are in agricultural areas; you can bet pesticides are in used in some of those fields.  My mountain bee yards are all within 2 miles of Washington Dept of Natural Resource lands, where herbicides are routinely used to knock down Alders and Maple Trees that grow in the clear cuts.

I don’t use antibiotics and have always used natural pest control methods.  But I do use beeswax foundation – I just don’t like plastic, even if our government recommendations say it’s OK if you cover it in organic wax.  That just doesn’t make sense to me.  So no USDA Organic Honey from us, just wonderful honey from hives where only natural treatments are used.  It rather fits my philosophy: Do as little harm as possible as we stumble though this world.  And always tell your customers how you manage your bees.

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and the new year brings great joys.