Hivelights
We have started the medication process now and will continue that until we wrap them up for winter, late in October. The goal now is to make sure they are as healthy as possible and have just enough food to carry them through until spring. Interestingly, they can sometimes have too much honey. That results in the queen not having enough room to lay eggs in the early spring. Thus there are not enough hot little bodies to keep the hive warm if we get those cold springs which have become the standard lately. The 4th Annual Flavours of the Foothills Harvest Festival was blessed with terrific weather and everyone enjoyed the variety of activities we had at Chinook Honey Company. We enjoyed getting the chance to meet and talk with many newcomers to the farm and Highwood Valley Ranch put on a great lunch of smoked beef on a bun for those who wanted to enjoy great grass- fed beef, locally raised. The Grand Prize winner is Joyce Walker and she will enjoy a lovely weekend getaway at the Canadian Rocky Mountain Resort of her choice. Winner of the children’ prize was Sarah Barazzutti. The Flavours of the Foothills group desire to improve the experience of those who like to visit and support Foothills producers and artists so Festival participants were surveyed on how best to do that. To thank them for their time spent we made a draw for two gift baskets of Flavours products. Those winners are Vanessa Lamb and Gina Low. If you had a chance to attend, thanks for your support. And for those who didn’t, with the help of the survey results we are already planning an even better event next year. The Chinook Honey Photo Contest was won by Julie Chandler. She received a |
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Our honey harvest is now done for the year. The first was finished August 21 and the last was done September 14. Considering the poor start to our year (with the 60% loss of our bees) we are pretty happy with the results. Our diligent little bees produced 16,500 lb. of honey. That is less than average but better than last year.
Mead MattersThe batch of Melissa’s Gold mentioned last month was split September 15. To half Art added 150 lb. of Kayben Farms black currants and the second half was bottled on the 25th. Another batch of King Arthurs Dry came out of oak barrels September 2 and has been bottled. It has a softer, more mellow flavour than the previous vintage. |
Product of the MonthLemon Honey Lemon oil is an anti-septic and anti-viral and can help digestion and also detoxify. As you can imagine, it’s wonderful in tea and dresses up scones and biscuits amazingly. It comes in 2 sizes: 227g at $5.00 and 153g at $4.00. |
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The first hard evidence of what is Cherie's Picks1. “Saving Bees: What We Know Now” 2. “Pollinators need your help. Be a Pollinator Observer!” 3. “Bee-eating Chinese hornets spread through France” 4. “Tumors feel the deadly sting of nanobees” 5. “Save Our Bees” |
Teasing TriviaQ. How fast does a honeybee fly? |
