What's the Buzz?

Guess how many miles of flying it takes to make one pound of honey.... (Tune in tomorrow for the answer.)

The girls are settling in nicely! I love sitting and drinking my tea, looking at the far reaches of the backyard, filled with towering colonies of bees. The four hives that were already here are full... I need to schedule a day to go into those hives and harvest some honey!

Early this morning I heard the familiar rumble of Steve's truck as it idled outside of my bedroom window while he unlocked the gate, getting ready for some bee-time.

I scrambled into my clothes and hightailed it into the yard, sandals still unbuckled. I didn't want to miss anything!

I knew we were going to get some new hives this week, and today was the day. Yay! We've got nine new beehives, plus the four established colonies that have been working steadily all spring. Thirteen! Sounds lucky to me!  

How many blossoms does it take to make one pound of honey?

Answer: TWO MILLION! 

Who knows how many blossoms it takes to make one pound of honey?

(Tune in tomorrow, and you'll find out...!) 

Did you know that we have a really cool outreach program for children and adults? It's called "What's the Buzz?".

I used to create and facilitate educational outreach programs for Miami Children's Museum and Miami SeaQuarium.....so when I got into bees, I just couldn't help myself.....

We dress up a volunteer as a beekeeper, light the smoker, spin out honey from the honeycombs and have a honey tasting. For adults we have a mini- cooking class, kids get to do the "bee dance", and everyone has the option of making a beeswax candle (no heat required!)

It's a ton of fun and great for groups, camps, schools and parties. If you want to find out more, we've got details at: http://www.fireladyproductions.com/Education/Whats_the_Buzz.html 

Know what? Honey that is made from tree blossoms stays liquid longer! I think that's a fascinating fact, and something that just came to my attention. As we've discussed before, all raw, unprocessed honey will crystallize over time. 

How much time depends upon the chemistry and combination of sugars and pollens within the mix of that particular honeyflow. But when the majority of nectar comes from the flowers of trees, the resulting honey crystallizes more slowly.

For instance, Orange Blossom honey will stay liquid for about a year. Ditto our new Lychee honey. Tropical Wildflower (made from whatever is blooming at the time and changing throughout the year....) will crystallize somewhat more quickly. Some Tropical Wildflower will stay liquid for seven or eight months or more, while other floral sources will result in granulation in just a couple of months.

I find the whole thing so fascinating!

Of course, you remember what to do if your honey crystallizes and you prefer it liquid....just put the jar of honey in some hot water, stir every couple of minutes, and it will re-liquify. And remember, if you have glass jars, put them in the water when it is cold, and heat slowly so you don't crack the glass!!!!!

By the way, if you haven't tried our new Lychee honey....now's the time! 

So this is FUN....

We now have lots of yummy fresh lychees...the very lychees whose nectar made the honey. The bees did a great job of pollinating, and now we have the fruit too!

We'll have about three weeks worth of fruit.

If you want to pick some up, we'll have some at the Coconut Grove Farmer's Market (along with the honey) on Saturday, May 21st. The market is located on Grand Ave. in Coconut Grove. We'll be there from 10-4. See you there! 

It's TIME!!!!!!!

The new crop of Lychee/Longan honey is ready. I'm about to harvest it today, and I can't wait to taste it! We wait all year for this!

Will keep you posted, but get ready! It goes fast..... 

Discomfort from allergies is nothing to sneeze at! Before you reach for medication, check out your local beekeeper. RAW, LOCAL honey can help! You'll need honey from your neighborhood, honey with the same floral mix as what's ailing you. 

Here's how it works: There's little bits of pollen in your raw honey. Some you can see, some too small to see. If you take 1 tsp a day of raw, local honey, you'll soon stop being so sensitive to the airborne pollen, and your body will no longer over-react when exposed.

For my customers, I always recommend TROPICAL WILDFLOWER honey if they need allergy help. It has the broadest spectrum of South Florida's floral sources and will do the most good.

We've got nine new beehives. When we go out the back door the aroma of ripening honey fills the air and smells so SWEET!

I just love going back there and watching them in action. They are so active, buzzing all around and pollinating everything in sight...

When they get a little more established, we'll be putting more supers on them so they can store surplus honey. Will keep you posted as to when harvest time is near! 

There are many theories circulating regarding Colony Collapse Disorder. When Steve and I were talking the other day, the subject came up again. WHY are millions of bees missing in action? 

Pesticide use is often cited as a primary cause. Bees are notoriously sensitive to pesticides. Some speculate that a chemical component is messing with the bees internal GPS and they are not being able to find their way home.

Some blame cell phones.

And here's another, rather sensible, theory. After continued exposure to pollutants and chemicals in the environment, the residues build up over time in the honeycombs themselves....the very structure where babies, nectar and pollen are stored become unfit to live in.

At a certain point of honeycomb toxicity, the bees decide, en masse, to evacuate and try their luck in another location. In places like Florida, where I live, this is not a bad move....there is almost always a tree, garbage can, or home where they can set up housekeeping and start again. In northern climes they fare not so well.....they'll abandon their hive and look for a new place to call home, but if the season is wrong, or local nectar is not available at that time, they will quickly perish.

Might it be prudent to change out the honeycombs more often and give the bees fresh new foundation to extrude new combs? Only time will tell... 

We just harvested our first honeyflow for 2011. And a Happy New Year it is....60 lbs. of TROPICAL WILDFLOWER honey. It's delicious! All of our honey is RAW....comes out of the hive and into the honey jar....the only "processing" is to strain out the bees who insist on drowning themselves in sweet joy as we harvest the honey.

TROPICAL WILDFLOWER is what I always recommend to customers who suffer from seasonal allergies. Since it contains microscopic bits of pollen from the widest variety of sources it provides the most benefit.

I love it because it's so dynamic....it's flavor, color and viscosity changes throughout the year based on what's in bloom.

Our harvest was a bit smaller than expected, due to cold dry weather. Thankfully we just had a couple of days of rain and so the flowers should be nice and juicy with nectar.

Our bees love that! 

Brrrrrrrr.............What's that Christmas song about "Honey, it's cold outside"? It surely is.....we have a freeze warning tonight for South Florida and we're busily bringing in all sensitive plants and picking starfruit (Carembolas) before they perish.

The bees, however, should be fine. During nippy weather they "ball" up and cuddle to keep themselves and their babies (brood) warm.

Since honey crystallizes at cooler temperatures, especially raw honey, I'm bathing my honey jars in a nice warm tub to prevent granulation tonight. The tub looks cute with all of those bottles standing in a row. 

Won't be much pollination taking place for the next few days..... 

Halfway between an organic circus and Woodstock, farmers markets are changing my life. The people, their energy, and all of this whole food are nourishing me in ways beyond my original expectation that this would be a decent venue for selling honey.

At FIU there's a free yoga class on the grass in front of my booth. Smoothies, veggie sushi and the whole university setting is relaxing and stimulating. And when I say I see people jumping through hoops, I'm not kidding.....They're using these for exercise, I guess, hoola hoop style, but then they roll them across the lawn and members of our farmers market take a running leap and dive through the rolling hoops. Not a bad backdrop for sharing samples of raw, local honey.

The Coconut Grove farmers market, where I am now all day on Saturdays, is a multicultural potpourri of tastes and smells. I've got wheatgrass on my right, old world soups on my left, and the wonderful Muslim woman from Indonesia who keeps feeding me. The children of the vendors do gymnastics in the dust of our wooded corner lot, and write the name of our products with sticks in the dirt in front of our booths. There's the "Salad Girl" who's about to give birth to, I think, her eighth baby.....while her other children keep me company, singing and playing with my iPhone and doing handsprings while I watch.  

Yesterday, two new guys from NY came to demonstrate their Thai deep tissue massage. With their feet!  When finished with my booth I happily laid down on the mat and let them walk all over me.... I feel great.

And so, I leave each days work with a little cash, and a heart full of love for my newfound gypsy tribe. I am well nourished, and the visitors to our market are nourished and nourishing as well.

 If you want to "share the love" check out the Coconut Grove Farmers Market on Grand Ave. (Miami, FL). It's open Saturdays from 10-7. Full details can be found at: http://www.glaserorganicfarms.com/market.html 

See you there!