A friend of mine sent me a link to a Gawker post regarding this article from Delaware. It says that there are somewhat fewer reports of missing bees than in years past, although the numbers of disappearing colonies are still high. Dare we hope that things are improving and the bees are returning?
Please visit our shop to purchase Noe Valley Honey and other hive products from the Pollen Princesses.
Friday, January 29, 2010
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Bottling Time
Looks like the next few days (if not longer) are going to be devoted to bottling the 80+ lbs. of honey that is sitting in tubs in our kitchen. This is going to be tricky, since a bit of it has crystallized already. We can't heat it too much or too quickly as that will affect the quality of the flavor and damage the nutritional value of the pollen, etc. contained in the honey.
If it turns out that I am unable to simply scoop the crystallized honey into jars (rather than pouring it), I will resort to a plate warming tray that we keep for parties. This should work well, if it becomes necessary since the heat generated is low, and the temperature can be controlled to just above normal room temperature. I think that using it I'll be well able to keep the temperature below 90 degrees F which is less than a summer's day in many parts of the country. (Our Summer's days trend in the low 60's.) But I'll be able to let the honey rest at that temperature overnight if need be to get it to a manageable consistency and still keep it raw honey.
fifty pounds of the honey were a surprise find from the Bi-Rite location, and will be sold exclusively at Bi-Rite under their Rooftop Honey label. Fortunately, that is not crystallized at all so it just needs to be strained and bottled.
I have 230 new empty jars that were just delivered, ready to be filled! That means nearly 100 jars of Pollen Princesses honey and over 130 of the Bi-Rite Rooftop honey. Let the stickiness commence!
Please visit our shop to purchase Noe Valley Honey and other hive products from the Pollen Princesses.
If it turns out that I am unable to simply scoop the crystallized honey into jars (rather than pouring it), I will resort to a plate warming tray that we keep for parties. This should work well, if it becomes necessary since the heat generated is low, and the temperature can be controlled to just above normal room temperature. I think that using it I'll be well able to keep the temperature below 90 degrees F which is less than a summer's day in many parts of the country. (Our Summer's days trend in the low 60's.) But I'll be able to let the honey rest at that temperature overnight if need be to get it to a manageable consistency and still keep it raw honey.
fifty pounds of the honey were a surprise find from the Bi-Rite location, and will be sold exclusively at Bi-Rite under their Rooftop Honey label. Fortunately, that is not crystallized at all so it just needs to be strained and bottled.
I have 230 new empty jars that were just delivered, ready to be filled! That means nearly 100 jars of Pollen Princesses honey and over 130 of the Bi-Rite Rooftop honey. Let the stickiness commence!
Please visit our shop to purchase Noe Valley Honey and other hive products from the Pollen Princesses.
Monday, December 14, 2009
The more I learn...Celestial Navigation
Here is an article that was pointed out to me a while back.
Most of you probably are aware of the waggle dance that bees do to direct their sisters to the best nectar sources.
This article discusses that dance, and a couple other bee dances as well as how bees are able to navigate. They really are amazing little critters!
Please visit our shop to purchase Noe Valley Honey and other hive products from the Pollen Princesses.
Most of you probably are aware of the waggle dance that bees do to direct their sisters to the best nectar sources.
This article discusses that dance, and a couple other bee dances as well as how bees are able to navigate. They really are amazing little critters!
Please visit our shop to purchase Noe Valley Honey and other hive products from the Pollen Princesses.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Updated Inventory!
Just a quick note to let you all know that I have updated the inventory on the Etsy storefront, now that we have had a chance to catch up on some bottling. There are still a couple gallons remaining from August to get into jars and that will be up soon as well.
We took this past weekend, after Thanksgiving to swing by our different locations and pick up the last of the honey supers that I had taken off the hives a couple weeks back. These will be extracted as soon as we can find a moment.
Meanwhile, sitting in our back yard we have a sort of sad hive body from our fifth hive that just didn't make it this year. I'm not sure what the problem was, but the colony, which we stared from a swarm, just never was able to reach critical mass with its population. Finally they colony just dwindled away. In case it was disease, we don't want to reuse the wax or frames. We also don't want to try extracting this honey since a lot of it was never quite cured, and there has been some wax moth damage to the comb (including the moth eggs, silk, etc.) I need to scrape down the frames so I can separate the wax and melt it down, then we will burn the frames and scorch the interior of the hive body over a fire to kill any infection that may linger. No sense in endangering another colony by exposing it to any potential disease that may have caused this colony to wither.
Please visit our shop to purchase Noe Valley Honey and other hive products from the Pollen Princesses.
We took this past weekend, after Thanksgiving to swing by our different locations and pick up the last of the honey supers that I had taken off the hives a couple weeks back. These will be extracted as soon as we can find a moment.
Meanwhile, sitting in our back yard we have a sort of sad hive body from our fifth hive that just didn't make it this year. I'm not sure what the problem was, but the colony, which we stared from a swarm, just never was able to reach critical mass with its population. Finally they colony just dwindled away. In case it was disease, we don't want to reuse the wax or frames. We also don't want to try extracting this honey since a lot of it was never quite cured, and there has been some wax moth damage to the comb (including the moth eggs, silk, etc.) I need to scrape down the frames so I can separate the wax and melt it down, then we will burn the frames and scorch the interior of the hive body over a fire to kill any infection that may linger. No sense in endangering another colony by exposing it to any potential disease that may have caused this colony to wither.
Please visit our shop to purchase Noe Valley Honey and other hive products from the Pollen Princesses.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
The Chronicle had an article about Bi-Rite this week. In it our hives are mentioned, although we are not called out by name.
However, you can see the honey from one of those hives, alongside our own Noe Valley Honey (from July) on the shelves in the store.
You should do yourself a favor and try the Rooftop Honey -- it is amazingly tasty. I kinda wish we could have it under our own label.
Please visit our shop to purchase Noe Valley Honey and other hive products from the Pollen Princesses.
However, you can see the honey from one of those hives, alongside our own Noe Valley Honey (from July) on the shelves in the store.
You should do yourself a favor and try the Rooftop Honey -- it is amazingly tasty. I kinda wish we could have it under our own label.
Please visit our shop to purchase Noe Valley Honey and other hive products from the Pollen Princesses.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Getting Ready for Winter
This past week has been about visiting all four of the hives that are still going and getting them set for the Winter. Not that Winter poses a big issue for the bees in the Bay Area, but still with much rain projected this year we want to make sure that the hives are set.
A few days back I visited the Dolores Park location to check the two hives there. One hive still had a lot of activity in both hive bodies, and brood and supplies in each. I took the super off the hive and set it aside for extraction -- about four full frames of honey there. The top hive body still has plenty of honey for the bees to use. They will have both hive bodies for the winter, but they seem to have a large population so it won't be an issue for them to heat.
The second hive had not been opened for a long time, though we took a super full of honey off it a couple of weeks ago. When I started pulling frames out of the upper hive body I realized that the entire upper body was all honey, no brood, no pollen.
The lower body contained a little brood and some eggs (meaning the queen is still present and healthy) and a lot of honey with some pollen. Clearly this hive has backed off on brood rearing in preparation for the Winter. I went ahead and took the hive body full of honey off and left just the one hive body for the bees. Less space for them to keep warm, but still plenty of supplies.
Rescuing honey!
On Saturday, we both went to our friend's to check the other two hives. These are both now very busy hives. Both hives had brood and supplies in both hive bodies, and the hive that had started out so slow actually had a super full of honey! The other stronger hive had a super full of capped honey, and one that just had a few frames of nectar not yet cured. We removed all the supers but left both hive bodies on each hive. We added entrance reducers to all the hives to aid in keeping down drafts and minimizing the need for them to dedicate guard bees when they need all the bodies they can get to keep warm.
We will extract all the honey in the supers and the one full hive body (another 80 lbs maybe?) The one super that has only nectar will be stored and returned to the bees in the Spring. They won't have to heat the space over the Winter, but they will have the supplies as a head start in the Spring.
A quick dusting of powdered sugar in all the remaining supers to keep the mites under control and we closed everyone back up. We'll come back to them in February or March, when the rains start to let up to check on how they fared.
Please visit our shop to purchase Noe Valley Honey and other hive products from the Pollen Princesses.
A few days back I visited the Dolores Park location to check the two hives there. One hive still had a lot of activity in both hive bodies, and brood and supplies in each. I took the super off the hive and set it aside for extraction -- about four full frames of honey there. The top hive body still has plenty of honey for the bees to use. They will have both hive bodies for the winter, but they seem to have a large population so it won't be an issue for them to heat.
The second hive had not been opened for a long time, though we took a super full of honey off it a couple of weeks ago. When I started pulling frames out of the upper hive body I realized that the entire upper body was all honey, no brood, no pollen.
The lower body contained a little brood and some eggs (meaning the queen is still present and healthy) and a lot of honey with some pollen. Clearly this hive has backed off on brood rearing in preparation for the Winter. I went ahead and took the hive body full of honey off and left just the one hive body for the bees. Less space for them to keep warm, but still plenty of supplies.
Rescuing honey!
On Saturday, we both went to our friend's to check the other two hives. These are both now very busy hives. Both hives had brood and supplies in both hive bodies, and the hive that had started out so slow actually had a super full of honey! The other stronger hive had a super full of capped honey, and one that just had a few frames of nectar not yet cured. We removed all the supers but left both hive bodies on each hive. We added entrance reducers to all the hives to aid in keeping down drafts and minimizing the need for them to dedicate guard bees when they need all the bodies they can get to keep warm.
We will extract all the honey in the supers and the one full hive body (another 80 lbs maybe?) The one super that has only nectar will be stored and returned to the bees in the Spring. They won't have to heat the space over the Winter, but they will have the supplies as a head start in the Spring.
A quick dusting of powdered sugar in all the remaining supers to keep the mites under control and we closed everyone back up. We'll come back to them in February or March, when the rains start to let up to check on how they fared.
Please visit our shop to purchase Noe Valley Honey and other hive products from the Pollen Princesses.
Upcoming
Next on the agenda, bottling and labeling all this honey!
Please visit our shop to purchase Noe Valley Honey and other hive products from the Pollen Princesses.
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