Campbell's Honey

September is here, and we are well into extracting our fall honey crop. Its been a lighter honey harvest than usual because of the cool wet summer. However we are pleased to see the brood chambers full of honey, and a good population of healthy bees, as we remove the honey from the colonies.

The bees will continue to forage for honey, and pack it into every available spot in the brood chambers,  even thought the honey supers have been removed from the hive. We are seeing the worker bees expelling the drones already. The workers wait by the hive entrance, and block the drones as they try to enter the hive after their daily flight. The worker bees do this to conserve food in preparation for a long cold winter. A drones usefullness is past once the Queen is mated, and he will do nothing but eat honey all winter,( a waste of food which will not be tolerated by the colony.)

Today we picked the honey from 6 beeyards, and brought it into the honeyhouse. We were surprised to find that this honey was a mixture Purple Loosestrife, Buckwheat, and Goldenrod.

Once its extracted and in the tank,  the  taste and color of this unusual blend of delightful fall honeys will tell the story. Everything depends on how it looks, and how it tastes.

This honey season has been cool and wet, and our Purple Loosestrife Honey is coming in with a high moisture content. Fortunately we have the equipment to dry it down to a exceptable level.

In order to store honey in its pure natural state, the moisture content must be below 19%. A high level of moisture in honey will produce a fermentation, which destroys the flavor and  renders the product inedible.

Small honey producers avoid this problem by  extracting the fully capped frames, and leaving the uncapped  (probably high in moisture ) frames in the hive to be dried, and capped, by the bees at a later date. Commercial operators with  many colonies, have a limited time frame in which to get the honey off the hive and extracted. This makes it necessary to have a setup in the honey-house to dry the honey as it comes in from the hive.

As we bring the honey in, its wheeled off the truck on skids, and left in the cooling room overnight. As it cools,  the few bees remaining in the honey supers vacate, and fly to the window where they cluster. Next day the skids of honey are wheeled into the heating room and set in rows over a slatted floor.

The heating room  is connected to an oil furnace which blows warm air up through the honey supers as they sit on open center skids on the slatted floor.  This arrangement will lower the moisture of the honey by approximately 1% each day. We also have the option, on a hot summer day, of circulating hot air from the attic, through the honey, via the furnace fan, which helps the environment by saving oil, while drying the honey.

Multinational Honey Packing Companies who buy honey from the beekeeper, prefer a low moisture honey. They process our fine Canadian Honey by pasteurization and filtering. The filter takes out the natural pollen, ( and most of the health benefits)  while the pasteurization assures the keeping qualities after they add enough water to bring the product up to 22% moisture. The finished product is a blend of filtered Canadian Honey, water, and a percentage of low quality off shore honey. However the water and filtering  give it a nice clear sparkle in the glass, and the uneducated consumer, happily, scoops it off the grocery shelves.

The moral of the story is - if you want pure natural Honey, read the label on the container. Look for the name and address of the Beekeeper who produced it.

Buy local honey!

You don't need the water, the off- shore honey, or the artificial sparkle in the glass!

The Warkworth Long Lunch is one of our favourite local events. This unique celebration is done in support of town beautification. It takes many volunteers all giving their time and energy to make this unusual festival happen.

As we came into the town, we found the main street closed to vehicular traffic and a long row of tables and chairs, stretching  way down the center of the street, past the shops, the town hall, the bank, and even past  some houses. The parking lot beside the Royal Bank contained the big BBQs and other well stocked food tents. The side walks were filled with hungry people who were lining up to get their plates of hot food.

While we waited we enjoyed the music, and songs of the Dudes, who were playing and singing Old Time songs and Golden Oldies.

This year over 1200 people dined at the event, and that's a huge amount of BBQ beef,and pork, to say nothing of the baked beans and delicious (picked fresh that morning) corn on the cob.

After we had eaten everything on our plates, we went to the dessert tent to secure a piece of delectable homemade pie.

Then,  before going home, we took time to tour the cookie factory and step inside the many boutiques along main street where we saw some wonderful pieces of art, exciting articles of furniture and clothing, and many other interesting artifacts.

It was a perfect way, to spend a day!

A question often asked by our  customers at Campbell's Honey is, "How do you make creamed honey?"

We  appreciate our customer's interest, and take pride in their high esteem of our natural food products.

Honey Creaming begins with 600 lbs. of freshly extracted honey, which is pumped into a stainless mixing tank and allowed to settle overnight. Next morning the mixer is started, and 60 lb of seed honey is gradually added into the mixer, until the batch is completely blended.

Seed honey is simply creamed honey from a previous batch, that was saved especially for this purpose.  All honey granulates naturally, but often in a coarse granulation that is not taster friendly. This is why the seed  honey is has been selected because its fine crystals insure a smooth, delicious taste on the tongue.

An interesting note, the seed we use to make our creamed honey was selected by a beekeeper for its fine quality, and smooth taste, over seventy years ago.  Each succeeding batch of Creamed Honey over the years has been made utilizing this specially selected seed. Sometimes we wonder if there are still a few of the original crystals left in the mix from the very first batch?

The seed honey is gradually added to the mixer and slowly blended into the new honey,  which is still a warm liquid in the stainless steel mixing tank. The machine  slowly stirs the combination for twenty minutes, after which the blend is poured into plastic tubs and placed in a nearby freezer where it cools overnight.  The honey must be cooled quickly to keep it from melting the seed crystals.

Next day the tubs of honey are moved again, out of the freezer, and into a  refrigerator set at 59 degrees F. ( the ambient earth temperature) so that the seed crystals induce other crystals to grow around them. The  honey mixture then begins a controlled granulation lasting about14 days, at which time those fine crystals will have turned the liquid into a solid, and our delicious spreadable, 'Creamed Honey' is ready for the table.

It is interesting to know that the same batch of honey, whether liquid or creamed will always taste differently. This taste difference is caused by your taste buds playing a trick on your brain.  For some reason the tiny honey crystals send a different signal to the brain than does liquid honey. 

Lorene enjoys creamed honey at breakfast every morning, while I prefer the liquid. She likes to put it on thick and pile it up high, secure in the knowledge that it won't drip through the holes in her toast.

Of all the food we eat, there is nothing quite so genuine, as close to nature , or as wildly delicious, as honey in the comb.

To pass around a piece of honeycomb, and watch a wide-eyed, wondering child taste the sweetest most delectable food  known to man,  is a joy beyond  description.

There are many ways and methods of producing comb honey, and all beekeepers have their own favourites. An interesting fact about comb honey, is that the bees are never happy with the process, and usually have to be tricked into doing it.

Comb honey can be made in 2 designs. Ross Rounds are circular combs in a plastic holder. These come in a special plastic super in a circular design, and the bees will not work in them unless they are forced into it by cutting down on their available storage space.

The other method, and my preference, is 'cut comb,' or wax foundation in a  deep frame that  can be cut to size.

I use a regular full super frame (5 5/8" by 16 3/4") with a single wire across the center to hold the sheet of wax foundation firmly in the frame. Each frame thus prepared,  will yield  a possible 8 pieces of comb. The ideal time to  place these frames in the hive (in this area) is the first week of July.

By early July,  many colonies will have at least one super with 5 or 6 frames of honey. When I find one of these, I pull  the 2 side frames out, and move 2 full center frames to the edges, and replace  these full frames with two 'cut comb' frames, leaving a full frame of honey between the two empty 'cut comb' frames.  The bees like to fill the center of the super first, and as there are already full frames surrounding the 'cut comb' frames in the center, the bees will go ahead, draw out the comb foundation and cap it quickly.

Its important to watch these comb frames carefully, and take them off as soon as they are capped, because thousands of tiny feet walking over them day and night, will soon darken the bright new wax cappings.

As soon as the full comb frames are taken from the bees, we place them in a freezer over night, to kill any wax-moth eggs that  could be waiting to hatch.  The comb is then cut to size, and placed in clear plastic containers for sale

.-comments welcomed-

Its been a busy week at Campbell's Honey, as we begin to harvest the  early honey crop, and fill the shelves in the Honeyhouse store  for our annual August - September honey sales.

Every beekeeper has a different  technique for honey harvesting. The problem, of course, is to get the honey on the truck, minus the bees.

This can be accomplished by many different means. Years ago, "bee escapes" (devices which allowed the bees to pass one way only) were popular, but the downfall was in lifting the heavy honey boxs, to install the device next to the brood chamber.

Later, "Beego,"an acid, was brushed on a fume board, and placed on the top of the hive. The heat of the sun on the metal board caused the acid to fume, and the bees were chased down.This was effective, and widely used, until evidence of the acid was found in the honey.

This season, our approach is quite different.

First we checked each colony for full honey supers, which we  pried off  and set on their ends, on  a hive top (see picture). When the beeyard was completely checked, and all the full boxes were sitting on the hive tops, we went along and smoked each super. This moved the bees out of the honey frames, and onto the outside of the super, where they be could easily blown off with the bee-blower.

Then, before the bees found it again, we quickly carried the honey to the truck, where we stacked the supers on pallets.

Back at the honeyhouse,  the heavy supers are easily wheeled from the truck to the cooling room.

~ Comments are welcomed ~

Our honey business, like an small child, never seems to stand still, but keeps continually growing and gets a little bigger every season.

Storage space for our empty honey supers has been at a premium for some time. When we were getting established in the business, we stacked our honey boxes in the honey house, but  the heat of the processing equipment encouraged wax moths, and we had to find a different storage facility, so we purchased a used transport trailer.

We parked the 48 foot trailer at the north end of the honey house. It's capacity is about 1800 empty honey supers. We have been using this for about five years, but it is no longer large enough.

At Campbell's Honey, we're fortunate enough have our own wood shop where we manufacture most of our own beekeeping equipment. Each spring, before we unpack the bees from their winter wraps, we spend some time constructing hive lids, inner covers, bottom boards, and honey boxes (which can also be used as brood chambers). In the spring of 2008 we purchased five thousand "one piece" plastic frames which came complete with plastic foundation, and we built enough supers to hold all of these new frames. This is one of the reasons we were so short of storage space.

Honey supers are only on the hives for a few months in the hottest part of the summer. Then they are taken back to the honey house and the honey is extracted from the wax comb and the boxes are put into storage until next year.

Recently we purchased a 53 foot trailer, and just this last week, we built a new cement dock for access. Now, when we're extracting honey, we can wheel the empty supers directly into this new space.

Another benefit will be added protection for the empty supers from the invasive wax moth. These destructive insects lay their eggs in the wet comb (after the honey is extracted) and the developing larva destroy the wax and fill the supers with cocoon and web. The wooden frames, and beeswax comb is rendered useless, and we lose all the infested equipment. As of now our additional trailer will be tightly closed, air tight, water tight, and insect proof, and by using a very small amount of insecticide in the storage trailer, our honey supers will be safe.

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Campbell's Honeyhouse store is open for honey sales from Aug 1st, to September 30th each season. We have a special offer that our customers appreciate during that time. When they bring their own containers, we fill them directly out of the honey  tank. This is economical for them, as they have no need to buy plastic honey containers, plus, it's good for the environment. We are open for bulk honey sales (by the drum), most of the year, and we have just recently sold the last of the 2008 honey crop.

In years past, the bulk of our product was exported by Truck  to the much larger American market. Large 'Product of USA' Honey Packers quite openly desire Canadian honey which, because of its light color and gentle flavor, mixes well with cheaper off-shore honey varieties. At the present time there is a world-wide shortage of honey, due to CCD ( colony collapse disease),several years of unfavourable weather, plus the fact that many beekeepers, both in Canada, and the US, have been unable to cope with low honey prices, and huge honeybee losses due to CCD.

Eating locally is becoming vogue in rural Ontario, and we are already noticing a rise in local demand as the trend grows. The '100 mile diet' is fast becoming fashionable, as people choose to consume food produced within one hundred miles of their homes.

Locally grown food including Honey is being promoted by the  Local Fall Fairs as a food product of the '100 mile diet,' and this is encouraging the rise in consumption.

At the present time we are suppliers to a Packer who has a contract to supply local supermarkets and other food stores. We also supply another local Producer / Packer who runs several hundred colonies of his own bees, but who always needs extra honey to fill his contract with a food manufacturing company. Several other smaller Packers, and or Honey Producers, often ask for one of more drums to fill their needs at Fall Fairs and  Farmer's Markets.  One 45 gal. drum of honey weighs 600 lb. net.

Canadian Agricultural Food Statistics equates a dairy cow with a colony of honeybees. This is because each entity must be tended and cared for by the farmer or beekeeper.  A dairy cow rewards the farmer by producing milk, and butterfat, while honeybees pay their way by producing honey, and beeswax.  These  creatures both need feed, medication, and constant care in order to to remain healthy and produce their distinctive commodities that are so valuable to humanity.

It is fascinating, that both these creatures,  so  different in size, shape, and bodily type, are  so alike in another way. In this case they both live on plant vegetation, The cattle eat the grass and legumes, while the bees gather the nectar and pollen.

Dairy cows and a honey bees are similar, in that they both have two stomachs. The cow uses her first stomach to collect her grazing's. After she has grazed for a period in the hot summer sun, she finds a  cool spot under a shady tree to lie down, and chew her cud.  To this end, she regurgitates the contents of her first stomach, masticates it by the mouthful, swallows,  and relocates it to her final stomach, where digestion begins.

The honey bee uses her first stomach to collect nectar from the blossoms. When this stomach is full, she makes the journey back to the hive. At this time, a process similar to digestion takes place and  the nectar that was just collected becomes a watery honey, which is then deposited in the honey comb. The worker bees fan the fresh honey with their wings, moving the air through the hive to assist evaporation. The moisture content of the honey must come down below 20% to preserve it against fermentation. When  the bees  are happy with the moisture content, they seal it over by placing beeswax cappings on the cells of the honeycomb.

The golden blossoms of the cultivated legume, "birds-foot trefoil," are large and prominent this season, and can be seen growing in luxurious blankets along the side roads and in the fields of the area. This birds-foot, is intended to be cut for hay, but in the meantime, is being 'grazed  by the honeybees.

Cattle graze on the legumes, and grasses, that grow naturally in the pastures and meadows of Southern Ontario. Honey bees graze on the flowers of these species, as well as the blossoms of numerous wild plants. Some of these invaders are termed, "noxious weeds" by the dairy farmer because his cattle will not eat these course plants. These weeds pervading his cultivated fields are pertinacious, and difficult to eradicate.

One of these noxious weeds, much hated by the dairy farmer,  and dearly loved by the beekeeper, is "Vipers Bugloss." ( The tall blue spiked flowering plant illustrated here,) The common name for this wild plant is, "Blue Devil Weed," and we are always very glad to see it growing in abandoned fields, and hillsides as it yields a water white honey, that mixes well with clover nectar, and  the honey of other early spring flowers.  It begins to flower in June, and continues to yield nectar until the fall frost.

Comments welcomed ~

Campbell's Honeyhouse was built in 1982 from lumber cut and milled right here on the farm.  There was a recession in the spring of that year, and we were able buy the steel for the roof and sides at a good price. The trusses are forty feet wide, and were purchased for $100 each.

We'd been renting a honeyhouse at Roseneath, and learning as we went. We were new beekeepers at that time, and we needed to know what was required in a modern honey extracting facility. After renting for five years we were ready to go ahead, so we drew up the plans and proceeded to build our own honey extracting plant.

My father was a retired carpenter from a local lumber company, and at  age78 he was only too happy to be the foreman on our construction site  It was a learning experience for me, and we had fun working together, building our own honeyhouse. Sons, Peter, Ian, Robert and Jeffery, also worked on the project at one time or another. Each of the boys remembers doing something different on the building, and they have all left their marks on the structure, from the names in the cement of the loading dock, to the signage in the workshops and sales room.

Good things evolve with time, and  although we didn't know it back in 1982 the honeyhouse was destined to be a work in progress. As time goes by, we are continually up-grading to newer and more modern equipment. Our first extracting machinery of galvanized steel, had been used before, and after a few years it was replaced with two stainless steel rotary extractors. Just recently these machines have been upgraded once again to a single automatic radial extractor that will spin out 6000 lbs of honey in 4 hours. Each time we upgrade there are a number of alterations that need to be made to the interior of the building.

Today, local electricians were busy installing some new lighting fixtures to brighten up the interior.

Extracting honey is such busy time! We try to to get all the jobs done, and everything up and running before the end of July. Its tradition at Campbells, to have fresh liquid honey in the tanks to be ready to pour into our customers containers on the first weekend in August, and this year, we hope, will be no exception.