What's the Buzz?

Do YOU know how honey is made?
Honey starts as flower nectar collected by bees, which gets broken down into simple sugars stored inside the honeycomb. Constant fanning of the bees' wings causes evaporation, creating sweet liquid honey. Honey's color and flavor varies based on the type of nectar collected. Oange blossom nectar is light in color so the honey created is also light. Honey from avocado or wildflowers might have a dark amber color. The darker honeys are a bit more robust in flavor. I think they're the most interesting, personally. But they all have their place, and when you're cooking it's fun to have choices...

We thought it would be fun to share this from the National Honey Board:

https://honey.com/about-honey/honey-benefits 

In addition to being an amazing natural sweetener, honey has benefits that have gone largely unknown. It's a wholesome sore-throat soother, a natural energy booster and more. 

Nutrition

It's not just versatile, varied and delicious. Research has shown that honey contains a wide array of vitamins, minerals, amino acids and antioxidants3. Flavonoids and phenolic acids, which act as antioxidants, are found in honey3. The amount and type of these compounds depends largely on the floral source3. 

Sweetener

Honey is sweet—that’s a given. And it adds a special touch to almost every recipe. It can be your secret ingredient that's always revealing new possibilities. Many people think of honey as a drizzle in desserts or a topping for toast. But more and more, honey is being recognized as a pantry staple. It gives your recipes unbeatable flavor and unexpected functional benefits. From balancing flavors to providing moisture to baked goods, honey excels in a slew of tasks—all from one little bottle and only one ingredient.

Natural Energy

Honey is a natural source of carbohydrates, providing 17 grams per tablespoon, which makes it ideal for your working muscles. Since carbohydrates are the primary fuel the body uses, honey can help maintain muscle glycogen, also known as stored carbohydrates, which gives athletes the boost they need when they need it most.

Cough Suppressant

Honey has been used for centuries to help alleviate symptoms of the common cold, and now research confirms this approach for children ages one and older. Honey offers an effective and natural alternative to over-the-counter cough medicine4. Though time is the most important healer of a sore throat, a spoonful of honey can help relieve the irritation4.

Important Reminder

Honey is a versatile and wholesome food for older children and adults. Honey may be introduced into a child’s diet after the age of one, but not before4, 5.

We are so grateful that our beehives in Miami were not damaged by Hurricane Irma! And we are especially happy that we harvested our Black Mangrove honey from Big Pine Key before the hurricane wreaked its havoc and destruction! 

It may be quite some time before we can harvest from there again, but for now, we've got a 50 lb. bucket of one of our favorite floral varieties safely here in Miami.

The reason we love this Florida Keys honey is that it tastes like, well, butterscotch. The flavor is created by the blend of Black Mangrove nectar, along with some of the other tropical nectars from flowers that blossom at the same time.....It is remarkably reminiscent of butterscotch.

Another thing I like about it is it's low viscosity.

What does that mean? Well, Orange Blossom is a very thick honey, for instance. That's great sometimes, but if you put it in a pitcher of iced tea it would sink straight to the bottom. Black Mangrove honey, being very runny honey, disperses happily in your iced tea, and is my absolute favorite on french toast or pancakes. Doesn't glue the pancakes together, but absorbs and flows, and frankly, makes it so that you need very little butter.

I also like to use it in my smoothies, uncooked sauces (like honey/mustard sauce for stone crabs) and salad dressings for the same reason....disperses easily.

And I've been known to drink it from the squeeze bottle, straight. I can't help it. 

So I'm thrilled that we have enough to get us through the season, until flowers can blossom there once again. And my heart goes out to those in the Florida Keys who are still waiting for power and assessing the damage to their homes and their lives. May their storm recovery be as rapid and painless as possible!

Add-ins:Half way through the churning add up to 1 cup of fruit. Or, during the last 2 to 5 minutes add 1/2 cup nuts, bits of pure honey comb or chocolate bits.https://honey.com/recipe/homemade-honey-ice-cream-master-recipe

It all happened last Sunday. We were enjoying the aroma of newly ripening honey in our backyard apiary. Inspiration and sweetness filled the air. And Rolf said...."What about a club where folks could get different kinds of honey all year long?"  I might be prejudiced, but I thought it was a brilliant idea.

And so, the "Honey of the Harvest Club" was born!

This is what we've implemented so far: Members will receive 12 different honeys, in 1 lb. bottles, free recipes and a quarterly e-newsletter. All of our honey is Fresh from Florida, raw, unfiltered and unprocessed.

We're working on all sorts of additional things as well: special pricing on soaps, gifts, and candles. Tours of our apiary and edible food forest for our members. Stuff like that.

So what do you think? You can contact us at: marcie@beemyhoney.buzz  or call Rolf at (305) 332-5892. We'd love your feedback! 

Baking with honey always feels so good! Far more virtuous than sugar, honey has lots of benefits, such as keeping your baked goods fresh and moist longer. Here are a few things to keep in mind:

Sweeter: Honey is slightly sweeter than sugar, so less can be used to achieve the same sweetness intensity.

Flavor: Honey imparts a unique flavor to any dish, and it also balances and enhances the flavor profiles of other ingredients used in a recipe. Choose a honey that seems to go along with the type of flavor you're looking for. For instance, I use our Melaleuca honey along with molasses for my gingerbread. I use Black Mangrove, syrupy with butterscotch overtones, on my french toast, and Tropical Wildflower or Tutti Frutti in my tea and salad dressings.

Emulsifier: Honey acts as a binder and thickener for sauces, dressings, marinades and dips.

Humectant: Honey provides and retains moisture to a variety of dishes and can even extend the shelf life of baked goods.

Temperature: Honey makes baked items brown faster. So try lowering the baking temperature by 25° so things don't over-brown!

And keep in mind...honey is a liquid. So if you replace sugar, a dry ingredient, with liquid honey, then you might want to add a tiny bit more flour in order to offset the additional liquid. (But not by much, don't want it to be dry!).

 If you need some honey, we're home for the holidays and have plenty bottled up. We have at least three floral varieties available. Just call us at (305) 323-2363 if you're in South Florida and want to pick some up!

Have the happiest of holidays! 

Directions

To prepare the salsa, combine the mango, bell pepper, red onion, cilantro, 1 tablespoon of lime juice, 1 tablespoon honey and jalapeno in a medium bowl. Stir well and refrigerate until ready to use. Whisk together the honey, hot sauce and remaining lime juice in a small bowl. Rinse salmon and pat dry; brush liberally with honey mixture. Place skin side up on a well oiled grill over medium coals; cook for 2 to 3 minutes until lightly charred. Turn and cook for 8 to 10 minutes more, basting liberally with sauce during cooking. Remove from grill and transfer to a serving platter. Top with mango salsa.

This recipe is courtesy of the National Honey Board! Stay tuned for more yummy things to do with honey..... Ho Ho Ho! 

Yay, Chef Rolf! Our in-house chef had a real stroke of brilliance the other day....

He took some Lychee, Orange Blossom, Tropical Wildflower, and Mangrove honey and blended them all together! The results were UN-believable!!!! The different notes mingle beautifully and merge into a symphony of sweetness.

So if you are looking for some marvelous honey for your holiday baking, look no farther! You won't find THIS one anywhere else.....

It has been quite some time since we last had Saw Palmetto honey in stock. Some years Ron Ehmann park down the street does a "contained blaze" and burns the Saw Palmettos down to the ground as a pine forest management strategy. But not this year! This year we've gotten our Saw Palmetto! It's really a lovely amber honey. 

But did you know how RARE Saw Palmetto honey has become? Saw Palmetto honey comes from the dwarf American palm tree, called the Palmetto palm. During the last century, real estate developers destroyed thousands of acres of Palmettos. A limited area from Sarasota to Miami, known as the "Palmetto belt" is the only region in the US that has a high enough concentration of these palms to support commercial honey production.

It's yummy and raw, and we've got about 15 pounds of it left. Bottles arrived today, so we'll be busy...... 

I love it! This is my favorite time of year! We're drowning in mangos, and the Lychee honey has been taken off the hives. Many years it's Lychee/Avocado, but not this year. The Avocados didn't do much while the Lychees were blossoming this Spring, so they are not represented in this honey.

It's nice and sweet and thick, about as thick as Orange Blossom.....but darker. Not the almost black of the Avocado, but a lovely dark Amber. Yes, I have it right next to me here on my desk, and YES I "hit the bottle" during that mid-afternoon energy slump and drink that honey straight up. It's an occupational hazard, I guess.

We'll have this in stock for probably a month, maybe two. That is, if I don't drink it all up before you call! 

i bought some beautiful sunflowers to plant at Home Depot the other day. When I got them home, I saw the plastic tag which read: "This plant is protected from problematic Aphids, White Flies, Beetles and Mealy Bugs". What caught my attention were the words PROTECTED FROM, not the usual RESISTANT TO, which would indicate that the variety had been bred to not be so bothered by a specific issue, usually a wilt or other disease. When I looked at this PROTECTED FROM wording, I thought….yuck, sounds to me like maybe it's got some pesticide thing going on here. Sure enough, I turned the tag over and it said, "TREATED WITH NEONICOTINOIDS. These pesticides are approved by the EPA". Typically that means that the seed was dipped in pesticide before planting. The resulting plant and flowers which grow from such seeds are toxic throughout their lives. Anything that lands on, sucks on, takes a bite of, or pollinates these plants is history. So happy I saw this before I planted them! Doing so would have caused my honeybees certain death. They are now wilting on my screened in patio in order to save pollinators from a horrible fate. Check out this relevant program on LINKTV. You can play the whole thing here at this link. BUYERS BEWARE! "Neonics" are messing with your very much needed FOOD SUPPLY! Killing bees is suicide!!!!

https://www.linktv.org/shows/earth-focus/episodes/neonicotinoids-the-new-ddt?utm_source=Link+Letter&utm_campaign=2607e64f86-LinkLetter_160526&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8c3f106259-2607e64f86-86713901 

Here's a great article by Jacqueline Freeman, a natural beekeeper from Southwest Washington.

Don't Forget to Free the Bee

This is a key point! I write myself a note, reminding me in the morning that my little lost bees are in the parlor. I write the note because I have twice woken up and gone about my day, not remembering the bee jar until later. By then their time apart from the colony was too long and the bees had died. Now I tape the note on the bathroom mirror or the kitchen table.

After the sun’s up I peek at the sleepover bees in the jar and nearly always they are just fine. Once they start moving around, I walk up the path to the hives and open the jar. They head immediately home.

Forager bees are used to being on comb for the evening. Knowing they were stressed about not making it home before dark, I wanted to recreate as much as possible a hive-ish place to give them a sense of familiarity about where they are, with known scents of wax comb, fragrant propolis, sweet honey and water.

Why Rescue a Honeybee?

Does it matter that one little bee makes it through the night?

I believe it does. Being kind to one bee, when it likely won't make much difference to the hive or even the bee community, is a good thing for us humans to do. Maybe the world won't change because I saved a bee. But too often the callousness of my inattention denies me the opportunity to develop benevolence. No being is inconsequential; every life matters.

When we treat all beings as deserving of our consideration, even a little bee can assist us in our task of becoming more gentle, more thoughtful, more human.

You can see the original article (and more!) at: http://thegrownetwork.com/how-to-rescue-a-honeybee/

I had no idea that Natural Awakenings magazine had a FREE digital version that they encourage us to share. They sent me an email this morning with the link. So Free to one and all, here's our plight of the honeybee article on page 50 plus the entire issue. Have fun!

https://issuu.com/naturalawakenings-miami/docs/na_miami_final_april_2016_web/50?e=0 

Very happy with our article in this issue of "Natural Awakenings" magazine. Our story, "What's the Buzz?" about the plight of the honeybee is on page 50. They did a great job. (Sometimes editors can really chop things up, but they kept it smooth as silk.) It's a lovely publication all around. Would like to write for them again…..

It's that time of year again! I went out to my car this morning and it is covered with a familiar yellow dust, and so is the front porch. Pollen….falling fast, fine and furious, from the tree next to my house. Figures….I'd just gotten my car washed yesterday! Oh well!

That yellow coating reminded me that a lot of my honey customers come running when pollen borne allergies make them miserable.

Tropical Wildflower, our latest harvest, is the perfect honey to help alleviate seasonal allergies. It's got the widest varieties of local pollens and nectars, and a tablespoon a day makes most of my customers feel happier and healthier. Of course it's RAW, unfiltered and unprocessed. (We DO strain out the bees that drown themselves in pure bliss as the honey is extracted!)

We're in Miami, but wherever you're at, find your local beekeeper and get some unprocessed, pure raw honey! You'll be glad you did!