What's the Buzz?

Once again I have an order for a bunch of honey from an aspiring mead-maker. The thought of mead always brings with it the image of medieval England, knights in shining armor, and large joints of meat. I'm not sure why! Mead is kind of a honey wine, although if you include hops in the recipe it will taste more like beer.

I've only had it once, and it left something to be desired....but I continue ever hopeful. Whenever I sell honey to someone for mead making, I do request a sample, but this seldom comes to pass...

The earliest records of mead production date back to about 7000 BC. Pottery vessels containing the beverage were found in Northern China.

The Hindus make mention of it in their hymns in about 1700 BC.

Both Aristotle and Pliny the Elder mention it as being the preferred drink of ancient Greece. 

And for a "don't try this at home" recipe, consider the following from Spanish-Roman naturalist Columella, AD 60:

"Take rainwater kept for several years and mix a sextarius of this water with a pound of honey. For a weaker mead, mix a sextarius of water in nine ounces of honey. The whole is exposed to the sun for 40 days, and then left on a shelf near the fire."

Sounds simply yummy, doesn't it? Bottoms up!

Did you know that this Saturday, August 18th is National Honeybee Awareness Day? Plant some flowers and hug a bee....

OR....check out this link:

http://www.care2.com/greenliving/5-simple-ways-to-help-honeybees.html 

Not the mythical continent! Last night I had the pleasure of giving a little honeybee lecture at Atlantis Natural (www.atlantisnatural.com). They had a really nice event supporting all-natural living. Be Organic Catering (www.beorganiccatering.com) was there, making some delicious shrimp curry and talking to us about the health benefits of organic cooking. And there was a sleep disorder specialist and a meditation teacher who brought a quartz crystal singing bowl and did a very relaxing guided meditation. (Not an easy thing to do with a room is full of little children!)

It was a great group and lots of fun and I hope to go there again soon! They'll be sponsoring one of my "What's the Buzz?" outreach programs...I'll let you know details as soon as we have a date.

I really had a terrific time giving away literature and turning the kids on to honeybees. (The five tastes of honey everyone got didn't hurt!). People are often rather fear based about bees, especially children. So a little bit of education about how much the bees are helping us, and the fact that one in three bites that you take is honeybee dependent helps too. 

I do think that people are not quite as fearful as they once were....the public perception of the honeybee has enjoyed a bit of an improvement since Colony Collapse Disorder began to threaten the honeybee population. I think public support is on the upswing and ignorance is giving way to curiosity. As for me, I'm happy to do my part! I love talking "bees"....

(you might have noticed!) 

We went into the bees this afternoon and harvested another couple of supers filled with Tropical Wildflower honey. Nothing like a honey flow to make one feel bountiful!

However, two of the hives, when opened, were buzzing much louder than the rest. This is the sign of a queenless hive. And that is not a good thing! A hive without a queen is destined to perish if not requeened ASAP.

One way of requeening is to order a queen from a beekeeping supply house. She comes in a little cage with a sugar candy entrance. Over the course of a couple of days, the bees begin to nibble away at the candy. During this time they become accustomed to the scent of the new queen. The hope is that by the time they finish the candy, they've become used to the queen's aroma enough to accept her. This is crucial!

Sometimes when the hive goes queenless, worker bees will begin to lay eggs. The worker bees have never mated, but they can lay eggs in a pinch in an emergency such as this. (In the same way that a hen will lay eggs whether or not she has ever seen a rooster....).

BUT....an unmated worker bee will lay eggs that develop into MALE bees, or drones. The problem here is that the workers....work....and the drones...eat. So if the workers start to lay eggs in the absence of a reigning queen, they will produce baby boys, and in a short time there will be lots of hungry mouths, but no food. Thus ends the life of the colony..... 

We got a call last week from a producer at Univision, asking if they could come out for a visit with our honeybees. And so, on Thursday the crew arrived. We spent 3 hours shooting and demonstrating what we like to do best. First, I would like to thank Ian of Gardens of Ian for handling the hot, heavy work of lighting that smoker and getting into the bees. We went through a couple of hives, and the cameraman got great footage of the girls in action on the honeycombs. Then Ian took out one super of honey, and we brought that back to the patio. Plugged in our electric knife, uncapped the combs, and extracted 40 lbs. of Tropical Wildflower (which, by the way, was delicious!)

After that, we went on to affiliated activities.....We rolled up some honeycomb candles and then I made them some honey cinnamon oatmeal soap. And a good time was had by all.

This is going to be edited into a two minute feature on a cooking show, which is supposed to air in two weeks. I'll keep you posted when I get more detailed information about when and where the segment will air...

It's that time again! Steve came back from the Florida Keys with my favorite honey of the year. We call it "Butterbee Pancake Honey" because it flows so easily. I think many honeys are too thick for pancakes, but this one really is perfect.

I don't know what makes it taste so unique. It's primary floral sources are Dogwood and Black Mangrove. But there are so many other yummy tropical flowers in the Keys it's hard to know for sure who all of the players are that contribute their essence to this combo.

It was a rainy Spring, which helps make the honey more liquid. As a matter of fact, I'm going to keep it in the house, in air conditioning, to thicken it up a bit to prevent fermentation.....something "wet" honeys can do more quickly than thicker ones like Orange Blossom.

As for me? I'm hitting the bottle again! It's only 10 AM and I sit cheerily by my computer, honey jar by my side. I've probably drunk 5 oz. of it already. Goes down so smooth. I may sprout wings by the end of the day!

On Friday nights I have a tradition: I bottle honey and make soap. I began with the basic melt-and-pour glycerine soaps, adding honey and other yummy ingredients. But as time went on, I discovered that not all soaps are created equal. There's a nasty ingredient or two that make their way into most soaps and shampoos, going by the acronym SLS. That's Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, and it's sidekick, Sodium Laureth Sulfate. These are foaming agents which cause a host of health problems, and are in practically everything!

Here are some of the fun facts I discovered about this dastardly duo:

 Shocking, isn't it! What was even more shocking was when I discovered that my melt-n-pour soap base contained SLS. I quickly did some homework, and found another formula or two. My soaps are now SLS FREE, and instead they're based on Coconut oil and other happy, healthy (delicious) ingredients. I always add honey, and frequently add things like cinnamon, nutmeg, oatmeal, or poppy seeds and lemongrass, or turmeric and olive oil. Did I mention Shea butter? Cocoa Butter? My Friday night explorations include all the best kitchen goodies I can find!!! The smell is incredible. The soaps are moisturizing enough to use on your face,  I've heard from my daughter that the soap tastes good, too, although I prefer to use it just for washing!!!

Don't ask me about bees! Unless you have some time....i get really excited about them and will drone on for twenty minutes, at least. Sigh. I try to slow down and take a breath, but no, the listener is going to find out an awful lot before they get an opportunity to escape....

At least I've focused this tendency for the good of the community. Now I do outreach programs and lectures at events, schools, etc. It's a ton of fun... On Tuesday night I trudged up to Fort Lauderdale beach in the pouring rain to do an informal presentation for the South Florida ISES meeting (International Special Events Society).  

I set up a tasting table, so everyone could get the opportunity to experience the subtle and not-so-subtle differences between honey varieties. We had several, including Tropical Wildflower 1 & 2 out for comparison.

That was really satisfying....In my last harvest a couple of weeks ago, I took two supers filled with frames of honeycomb from a single hive. Because the bees start from the bottom box and work upward, the top super was the most recently harvested nectar, and the super below it was from a few weeks before.

So I had two kinds of honey from the same hive, harvested on the same day. One was light and fruity, the other was dark and bold. I figure that's because this hive is right next to my avocado tree, which would have still been flowering when this honey was made.

I also shared my honey soaps, gave everyone an "I Love You Honey" sticker, and then we made honeycomb candles, which are really quick and easy and require no heat. You just roll them up with a wick. A preschooler can do it. (Well, with a little help!)

If you have a group, camp, or organization in need of a speaker, just give me a buzz.... 

Are you passionate about passionfruit? I know I am! When we were looking at houses, once upon a time, one of the first things we noticed was a huge passionflower vine climbing up a large tree in the yard. We bought that house! And we had passionfruit drinks, sorbets, jellies and ice creams until the parrots discovered the vine.....after which all we got were empty husks that fell to the ground after the parrots had their party!

I found the most wonderful all-natural passionfruit flavor that was originally meant for gelato. (Rolf's a chef, so I have access to all kinds of cool and unusual ingredients...) I tried infusing some raw Orange Blossom honey with a tiny bit of the passionfruit essence and WOW!!!! It's more subtle than the Key Lime Sublime, and really yummy!

I'm a stickler for purity! And my honey is this holy sort of thing that I don't mess around with. No heating, just from the hive into the bottle. But based on customer demand for high-end flavored honey, we have experimented just a teeny weeny bit with excellent results. Still all natural and still totally raw, but you can't deny "delicious".  And so, we have begun to bottle our "Passionfruit Pizzazz". It keeps selling out, so I guess we're onto something....sweet!

As I sit here at the computer, just outside my window is a hungry blue jay, wondering why my bird feeder is empty and soggy. We just finished a record breaking five days of rain, which rarely happens in our locale except maybe in August as a tropical storm. Spring is usually dry as a bone, and we had actually been suffering a bit of a draught.

The honeybees get very unhappy when it rains! They can't fly, so they all sit crowded in the hive and buzz. Feed the babies. Fan their wings at the nectar. Even when there is a small break in the rain, the showers have washed the nectar out of the flowers so they get cranky.

I had a small container of honey mixed with honeycomb. Cappings from my last day of extracting. I took it out to the bees for them to recycle. I'm sure that cheered them up.

Meanwhile, I am pretty cheered up. Not only did it stop raining, but we have a nice spring harvest of Orange Blossom honey. It's so sweet and thick. Nice and smooth. And a very good base for having some fun.

My fiancé is a chef, so he has access to ingredients that we mere mortals never see. He had an awesome, all natural Key Lime flavoring that I think was originally developed to flavor gelato. Anyway, I had been waiting anxiously for months because last year, Rolf took a little of this Key Lime deliciousness and mixed a small amount with some Orange Blossom honey. A marriage made in heaven, that's all I can say!!!

Philosophically, I don't like to do anything to honey. We never heat it, never filter it, never add anything to it.....it's nakedly pure and unprocessed. I do make an exception, however, to allow for an all natural bit of collaboration between the sweet sisters and ourselves, every so often. Like now.

We are the happy lovers of a bucket of Key Lime Sublime. And...we're willing to share. Want a taste? Let me know. You can come visit the bees while you're at it. Or just come say hi at the Coconut Grove Market on Saturdays. We'll give you a spoonful!

A busy day today....I'm bottling up lots of honey and making soap for the Food & Garden Festival at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden this weekend. It's the first time I've been a vendor there, although I attend events there all the time because I'm a member. So I'm busily labeling jars, shrink wrapping soap, and getting all kinds of handouts and literature ready for sharing.

Also, on Saturday morning at 11:30 AM I'll be doing an event for kids. It'll be a short version of my "What's the Buzz?" program. We'll be tasting honey and making honeycomb candles, which is always fun.

So come see me! It's Saturday and Sunday, April 14-15, 2012, from 9:30 AM - 4:30 PM.  Address: 10901 Old Cutler Road, Coral Gables FL  33156.

See you there! 

Spring has Sprung! And the Oranges have blossomed!!! We wait all year for this! The first of the orange blossom honey is IN and today I am spending the day bottling it up. Orange blossom is a premiere honey, and there are many who prefer it to all others. That zippy citrus mellowed by the smooth sweetness makes it a favorite.

We don't have orange groves here in Miami, but Steve keeps several hundred hives in various groves upstate. On Monday morning he got up at 4:00 AM (not at all unusual for him), got in his truck and drove a couple of hours north to harvest the beginning of this year's crop.

I met him at the "honey house" at about 6:00 PM. Weary and exhilarated, he tipped the drum of fresh honey into as many buckets as my little red Jeep would hold.

His truck was still full of supers filled with honey, and the air was thick with buzzing bees. It might have been terrifying to some, but the drone of the bees as they flew swiftly by was rather comforting. A celebration, really, that Spring has come at last, and there is nectar and honey for all! 

Zombie Bees? Sounds like an idea for next year's Halloween costume! So now, in addition to worrying about toxic flowers and pollen caused by systemic pesticides, we have another culprit to add to the mix.

Apparently, there is a parasitic fly, known as the phorid fly, or apocephalus borealis, which lays its eggs in the bees abdomen, causing the bees to exhibit "zombie like" beehavior, and destroys their sense of direction. It also causes deformed wings, another symptom of Colony Collapse Disorder.

Not to be gloom-and-doom oriented, truly I am an optimist by nature. However, all of this information helps to give us an understanding of the widespread group of challenges experienced by today's honeybee.

To see the whole article, go to: http://www.capitalpress.com/content/AP-colony-collapse-010412