For the past few years, our four hives have produced a total of 11-17.5 gallons of delicious and useful honey each summer (depending on weather and hive population). And to my delight, each year's harvest tastes different: 2016 tasted deliciously like caramel and 2017 offered a wonderfully floral flavor. This year's low production (because of all the rain?) is tasty but without the extra quality of the prior two years. What will next year bring?
To someone who thinks of honey as a topper only for an occasional biscuit, our homestead production volumes may seem excessive. Me, too, at first. The harvests inspired me to find many uses for that delectable golden syrup. I learned that food is only one end product. Below are various frequent uses as well as information about the bees we raise and how we extract the honey.
Hygiene:
Honey is a humectant, so it attracts water molecules in the air, as a natural moisturizer. It can soothe sunburn or windburned skin as well as dry hair. I give myself a honey facial and hair treatment 2 or 3 times a month. Imagine how lovely that smells! I simply dilute a few tablespoons of honey and slather it all over my head and face, letting it rest for about 20 minutes. It rinses out (easily) in a bath or shower, leaving soft skin and fluffy hair with healthier looking ends. I have made moisturizing bars with honey, beeswax, and lanolin for friends, but at home, it is easiest to spoon the honey straight out of a jar. If you have a pint in your pantry, give it a try.
Medicine: Honey tempers the sting of a burn or bug bite, and its anti-microbial properties have been known for thousands of years to protect cuts and scrapes from infection. Many people add it to hot liquids to calm a cough or sore throat, and to render strong tasting medicines more palatable. For example, some people soak garlic cloves in honey and pop those to ward off pesky colds.
Alcohol: I have made several batches of mead. For some reason, the straight honey/water/yeast mixture ferments less reliably for me than those mixed with wild plants and their natural yeasts. So I favor the latter. Raspberry mead is my favorite. The results have been dry with a gorgeous color, a fruit forward scent and a lingering nutty aftertaste. I have also flavored mead with elderflowers which impart a delicate flavor. Maybe I will try a cranberry mead this fall.
My husband makes his favored Belgian style beer with honey rather than sugar (and with orange rinds we dry in the oven).
Cooking: I utilize honey in many recipes that list sugar: baked goods, barbeque sauce, spaghetti sauce, for example, as well as traditional honey based products such as poultry glazes, granola, and salad dressings (honey is an emulsifier). Cookies made with honey tend be softer than those made with sugar, which are crispier. My morning coffee sweetener is a chai infused honey (with cinnamon, cardamom, ginger). Yum.
Annual honey variations:
The quantity, color, quality, and flavor of honey depend on weather and available flowers that appeal to them (some flowers are pollinated by other insects, not by honeybees) obviously, but also on the species of bee and the health of the colony. Over the past four years, we have raised Italian, Carniolan, and Buckfast bees (which produce a darker honey than the others) to see which species thrives in our setting, but my impression is that weather has the biggest impact. Rainy and/or cool summers (like this year) lower production since bees do not like to fly in those conditions, and, therefore, they gather less pollen and the honey they create tends to have a higher water content, which is undesirable for a variety of reasons. The health of the queen bee is paramount. In peak condition, she can lay more than 1000 eggs per day (!), which grow to become pollen collectors (or other roles) in a month and basically work themselves to death in 6 weeks. It has been interesting to note that each hive has its own culture - some are hard working and productive and others seem downright lazy. Even their skill in building honeycomb and fending off yellow jackets varies from hive to hive. In some cases, a queen dies and the colony dwindles. In others, the workers create a queen replacement fast enough for the population to rebound. In some, the population is so robust that half abscond (swarm). Mother Nature is endlessly interesting to observe.
Northern beekeepers face the added question of whether a particular hive can successfully overwinter. We have not had much success on that score, but each year we tweak our arrangements to increase the success rate, with some exterior insulation and snow cover. This year, we are going to try moving them into our unheated greenhouse, in the hope that protection from wind chill, if not ambient temperature, may make a difference. Of the four hives, #1 had the least procreative queen, so that colony will lack the population to keep warm this winter and will surely die. Hives #2 and #4 have healthy populations, with a lot of larvae going into the fall to help generate heat, so they may overwinter. #3? Call your bet. Our winters are long. However, the effort is worthwhile, since it costs Alaska beekeepers about $250 to buy a “nuc” - a queen with a small, nuclear colony to start each hive each spring.
In mid-August, Bryan pulled frames out of the hives, scraped off the beeswax cap, and extracted the honey by centripetal force in a hand crank extractor. The liquid drains to the bottom and from there into jars. He then lays the boxes and emptied frames in the bee yard so the bees can eat the remaining honey (it is a food source for them, too) and clean up the comb, which they do with enthusiasm in a few days, for a neat start the following spring.
Raising honeybees has made me much more aware of all the different pollinators, each with its favorite wild and domesticated plants. Our summer is winding down and the flowers are fading. Bryan supplements their declining food sources with vats of sugar water in their hive boxes. Then, we will see what winter brings.
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| Lots of bees making honey! |
To someone who thinks of honey as a topper only for an occasional biscuit, our homestead production volumes may seem excessive. Me, too, at first. The harvests inspired me to find many uses for that delectable golden syrup. I learned that food is only one end product. Below are various frequent uses as well as information about the bees we raise and how we extract the honey.
Hygiene:
Honey is a humectant, so it attracts water molecules in the air, as a natural moisturizer. It can soothe sunburn or windburned skin as well as dry hair. I give myself a honey facial and hair treatment 2 or 3 times a month. Imagine how lovely that smells! I simply dilute a few tablespoons of honey and slather it all over my head and face, letting it rest for about 20 minutes. It rinses out (easily) in a bath or shower, leaving soft skin and fluffy hair with healthier looking ends. I have made moisturizing bars with honey, beeswax, and lanolin for friends, but at home, it is easiest to spoon the honey straight out of a jar. If you have a pint in your pantry, give it a try.
Medicine: Honey tempers the sting of a burn or bug bite, and its anti-microbial properties have been known for thousands of years to protect cuts and scrapes from infection. Many people add it to hot liquids to calm a cough or sore throat, and to render strong tasting medicines more palatable. For example, some people soak garlic cloves in honey and pop those to ward off pesky colds.
 |
| Regular hive check |
Alcohol: I have made several batches of mead. For some reason, the straight honey/water/yeast mixture ferments less reliably for me than those mixed with wild plants and their natural yeasts. So I favor the latter. Raspberry mead is my favorite. The results have been dry with a gorgeous color, a fruit forward scent and a lingering nutty aftertaste. I have also flavored mead with elderflowers which impart a delicate flavor. Maybe I will try a cranberry mead this fall.
My husband makes his favored Belgian style beer with honey rather than sugar (and with orange rinds we dry in the oven).
Cooking: I utilize honey in many recipes that list sugar: baked goods, barbeque sauce, spaghetti sauce, for example, as well as traditional honey based products such as poultry glazes, granola, and salad dressings (honey is an emulsifier). Cookies made with honey tend be softer than those made with sugar, which are crispier. My morning coffee sweetener is a chai infused honey (with cinnamon, cardamom, ginger). Yum.
 |
| Spinning comb in our hand-crank extractor |
Annual honey variations:
The quantity, color, quality, and flavor of honey depend on weather and available flowers that appeal to them (some flowers are pollinated by other insects, not by honeybees) obviously, but also on the species of bee and the health of the colony. Over the past four years, we have raised Italian, Carniolan, and Buckfast bees (which produce a darker honey than the others) to see which species thrives in our setting, but my impression is that weather has the biggest impact. Rainy and/or cool summers (like this year) lower production since bees do not like to fly in those conditions, and, therefore, they gather less pollen and the honey they create tends to have a higher water content, which is undesirable for a variety of reasons. The health of the queen bee is paramount. In peak condition, she can lay more than 1000 eggs per day (!), which grow to become pollen collectors (or other roles) in a month and basically work themselves to death in 6 weeks. It has been interesting to note that each hive has its own culture - some are hard working and productive and others seem downright lazy. Even their skill in building honeycomb and fending off yellow jackets varies from hive to hive. In some cases, a queen dies and the colony dwindles. In others, the workers create a queen replacement fast enough for the population to rebound. In some, the population is so robust that half abscond (swarm). Mother Nature is endlessly interesting to observe.
 |
| One of our hives swarming in a nearby tree |
Northern beekeepers face the added question of whether a particular hive can successfully overwinter. We have not had much success on that score, but each year we tweak our arrangements to increase the success rate, with some exterior insulation and snow cover. This year, we are going to try moving them into our unheated greenhouse, in the hope that protection from wind chill, if not ambient temperature, may make a difference. Of the four hives, #1 had the least procreative queen, so that colony will lack the population to keep warm this winter and will surely die. Hives #2 and #4 have healthy populations, with a lot of larvae going into the fall to help generate heat, so they may overwinter. #3? Call your bet. Our winters are long. However, the effort is worthwhile, since it costs Alaska beekeepers about $250 to buy a “nuc” - a queen with a small, nuclear colony to start each hive each spring.
 |
| Moose and baby staying away from our 13,000 volts |
Raising honeybees has made me much more aware of all the different pollinators, each with its favorite wild and domesticated plants. Our summer is winding down and the flowers are fading. Bryan supplements their declining food sources with vats of sugar water in their hive boxes. Then, we will see what winter brings.
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