Honey Questions
If you can't find the answer to your question, please email us and we will answer as soon as possible.
- About honey
- What is honey?
What are 'clear' and 'set' honey?
Is your honey organic?
If you take the honey from the bees, what do they do in winter?
Where are your bees kept?
Is your honey processed?
Is honey suitable for infants? - About beeswax
- What is beeswax?
What can I do with beeswax? - About our packaging
- What packaging do you use?
About honey
- What is honey?
- Honeybees collect nectar from flowers, as it is a rich source of energy, and they instinctively build up stores of nectar within their beehive to last them through the winter. Since nectar is very thin and watery, it is difficult to store for any length of time - not only does it need to be contained, but it will easily ferment and spoil. Honeybees have devised a clever means of coping with nectar - they store it in open honeycomb in a partially digested form, then fan air over the comb with their wings so that the excess water is evaporated, before finally sealing the comb with a capping of wax. The resulting thick, sweet liquid is honey.
- What are 'clear' and 'set' honey?
- When stored in the hive, honey is kept warm enough by the bees that it is always liquid, and this is what we refer to as clear honey. Once removed from the beehive, clear honey will naturally crystallise over time, changing to a solid (set) state. Our set honey is in fact a soft set - we stir it by hand once crystallisation has started, creating a firm but spreadable texture that's half way between liquid and solid. If you warm a jar of set honey gently - for instance in a pan of water over a low heat - it will slowly change back to clear honey.
- Is your honey organic?
- For honey to be classed as organic, honeybees must be able to forage only on organic crops. Given that honeybees are truly free range - they will fly up to 3 miles or more in any direction to find good sources of nectar - it is very difficult to find a location in the UK where all of the plants in this range are organic. This would have to include all farmed crops, hedgerows, verges, woodland, parks, and of course gardens within range of the hives. Our honeybees are carefully and sympathetically managed, and our honey is extracted by hand using traditional methods involving the absolute minimum of processing. Whilst we cannot claim that it is organic, we are honestly proud of the quality and integrity of our honey as a wholesome and natural product.
- If you take the honey from the bees, what do they do in winter?
- Over winter, honeybees cluster within their hive, conserving warmth and energy and slowly consuming the stores they collected during the warmer months. A hive of bees will generally need around 40lbs of honey to survive a British winter. If it has been a good year, that hive may have collected up to 200lbs of honey - we therefore take the surplus honey, ensuring that the bees have enough left to see them through to spring.
- Where are your bees kept?
- We have a small nursery apiary at our home in Ottery St. Mary, Devon, where we breed our bees and build up the young colonies to working strength. We have a number of permanent out-apiaries where our mature colonies are kept, and during the spring and summer months we migrate these colonies between specific crops of plants. This migration allows us to strengthen our colonies, provides an abundance of honey, and increases the yield of farm crops through improved pollination. We work closely with local farmers to understand which crops are being grown, and how they are being managed.
- Is your honey processed?
- Our honey is only processed only as much as the traditional methods require for it to be extracted from the honeycomb. The process of extraction is very straightforward:
- Cut the wax capping layer off the honeycombs to expose the honey;
- Spin the honeycombs at speed to throw the liquid honey from the combs;
- Filter any debris from the honey;
- Allow the honey to settle to remove air bubbles;
- Pour the honey into jars ready for sale.
- Is honey suitable for infants?
- Honey is not considered suitable for feeding to infants.
About beeswax
- What is beeswax?
- Beeswax is secreted by glands on the honeybee's abdomen. It is a very expensive product for the bees to make - it is estimated that ten pounds of honey must be consumed by honeybees in order to make one pound of beeswax. Beeswax is used for all of the structure of the honeycombs that the bees live in and store their honey in.
- What can I do with beeswax?
- Beeswax is predominantly used in candlemaking and in polishes, but it has many other uses. For candlemaking, it has a renowned colour and aroma, and burns very cleanly. Many polishes, for both leather and wood, use a significant amount of beeswax, and a block of beeswax is always to be found in a woodturner's tool box. Around the house, beeswax can be used to lubricate sticking drawer runners or curtain poles, simply by rubbing a thin coating of the wax onto the wood. One of the less common uses was mentioned to us by a gentleman with a very ornate moustache, who used a mixture of beeswax and oil to shape and hold the 'handlebars'!
About our packaging
- What packaging do you use?
- We spent a significant amount of effort finding the right mix of responsible yet functional packaging for our products. For postage, we use jars made from recyclable plastic. These are one fifth of the weight of glass jars, and substantially more resilient than glass when posted, yet retain a pleasantly glass-like appearance and feel. We pack these jars into recycled cardboard boxes, filling any odd spaces with biodegradable packing chips to ensure that your order is securely held in place.