Blog Archives

Buzzing bees

8/26/2015

Our first hives
Starting bee keeping is one of the greatest things we did since we moved to Canada. The idea came up when visiting friends in Salmon Arm who had about 10 hives and were so excited about it! From that moment on we were infected by the bee virus. We took a very useful course at Bill Stagg’s apiary in Tappen, BC and then watched some other friends install their first hives (we’re not so brave, we rather learn from other peoples mistakes ...). The next year we bought our first 2 hives and put them on our flat roof. We weren’t sure whether that would work. Would the bees get enough sunlight? Would we still be able to sit in our backyard without getting stung by our bees? But most of all: did we have enough knowledge of beekeeping?

Learning, learning
The answer to that last question is "no"! Still sometimes when I open a hive I think by myself: "looks nice huh! But what's next?".

Fortunately both commercial and hobby beekeepers are nice and very helpful people. They’re always willing to help and give advice, but, as one beekeeper once said: “bees always read different books than the ones the beekeeper reads!”. This is also the thing about beekeeping that appeals to us most: every time we open a hive we learn something new. One day you think you understand bees, the other day they show you something really unexpected.

Bad tempered bees
Every colony also has a different temperament , just like your pets: some are very friendly and docile, others are more hot-tempered and sometimes even aggressive, but just like other animals (and humans!) they have their good and bad days.

I remember one time we did our bi weekly check on the bees. The moment we opened the hive they acted really aggressive. I was even stung which is very unusual. The frames also didn't look good: not much brood and not much honey. We decided to leave them alone and think about what may have happened. Maybe they were queen-less? Maybe they were starving? Maybe I was checking the hive at the wrong moment? (Usually we check the hive when they're busy doing other things: gathering nectar.) Only a few days later I checked the same hive again, planning to look for the queen. This time the hive looked totally different: the bees were much more relaxed and there was even more brood and honey on the frames.

Honey, honey
Please don't think that our lack of knowledge affects the quality of the honey we sell at the market! As you may have tasted the honey our bees produce is delicious. Before we harvest the honey we always, well, sometimes, ask for advice and by now we know when to harvest (next week!) and what to look for (frames with beautiful capped honey). ... and we also know we should leave enough honey for the bees themselves to survive the winter (like they did last year!). The bees also need to be fed extra, right before and after Winter.

Additional feeding
Most beekeepers feed their bees white, non-organic beet sugar. As cane sugar is more expensive than beet sugar we do understand, from a financial perspective, that bee keepers with many more hives than we have, choose to feed their bees white sugar.
We choose to feed our bees so-called bee tea, following the suggestions made by the founder of bio-dynamic agriculture, Rudolph Steiner. This tea is a thick, sweet tea made of cane sugar, thyme, chamomile and a little bit of sea salt (all organic). The bees seem to like it and not only does it prevent the bees from starvation, but it also helps the colony's immune system. It is also easier for the bees to digest.

Anybody who would like to see the bees at work when we open the hives (bi-weekly from April to October) is welcome. Not all at the same time, of course, we only have a few screened hats! All you need to do is send us an email, tell us at the market or respond to this blog!

See you at the market!

Marij & Arnold

0 Comments

Go organic!

8/18/2015

0 Comments

In this blog we’d like to tell you a little bit more about the origin of the ingredients we use for our products, and the choices we make with regard to these ingredients. In passing we'll also promote our suppliers. After all, without them there would be no organic, local products available!

A few weeks ago we started putting ingredients labels on our products. The label also tells you whether the ingredients are organic or not. As you may know most of the ingredients of our products are certified organic. If any of the products is not, the label will tell you. Unfortunately the prices of organic ingredients are significantly higher than non-organic ingredients, but that makes your gevulde koek, which does contain (organic cane) sugar, tasteful and at least a little bit healthy!

Certified organic
Our products themselves are not certified organic. In order to label our products 'certified organic' we'd need to go through a long and costly process. Until then, if we ever choose to spend money on certification, you'll have to take our word that we try our utmost to find organic, local, non-GMO ingredients. In case there's no organic or local version of the ingredient we need available, we'll make another choice that we can justify to our customers.

Some examples:

Non-GMO (non-Genetically Modified Organism)
Other than the other ingredients we use for our stroopwafels (syrup waffles) the sugar syrup is not organic, simply because it's not available (or: we haven't found it yet). Instead we choose to use Dutch syrup, because rules with regard to production and additives seem to be stricter in the European Union. The sugar syrup we use is not organic, but it's non-GMO, and most of all: it's very tasteful!

Fair Trade
The spices for the speculaas among others, are imported from a company called Frontiers. Some spices like cinnamon are imported by this company from tropical countries where human rights are not always taken seriously. In case the spices are produced in countries like these we also know that these spices are, next to organic, also ‘Fair Trade'. ‘Fair Trade’ is a trading partnership, based on dialogue, transparency and respect, that seeks greater equity in international trade. It contributes to sustainable development by offering better trading conditions to, and securing the rights of, marginalized producers and workers' (World Fair Trade Organization).

Other ingredients come from Organic Matters in Nelson, Rogers Foods and A skew's Foods in Armstrong.

Eggs
We have to admit that also the eggs that our our girls lay, are not organic (although the mash we feed them is certified organic). Since the food we eat ourselves is organic as much as possible, so are our leftovers that we feed them (vegetables, fruit). However much we wished they were vegetarian, they're not. Every now and then they like to pick a worm out of the soil and they also don't mind a few bugs from time to time!

We do think though they have a good life. They have lots of room to potter about in their coop and pretty much everyday we let them out of the coop were unfortunately they always try to ruin our garden! The fact that these 4 chickens give us 4 eggs pretty much every day, shows us that they're happy!

Honey
The honey we use comes from our own bees and officially is not organic. It would be very hard to check whether the nectar our bees collect comes from organic plants and crops since bees fly approximately 3 kilometers from their hive. The hives on our flat roof collect most of their honey in the mountains as you can see on the picture.

Another requirement for the honey to be labelled organic is that there shouldn't be any treated wood within reach of the bees. Unfortunately it's hard to avoid this since nowadays pretty much everyone has treated wood in their garden.

Next year we’ll also have honey from our bee yard in the West Side Road area. There are no farmers within reach of the bees from this bee yard. They get their nectar from sagebrush and other wild flowers. We're very curious about the taste of this honey!

In our next blog we’ll tell you a little bit more about our bees! Soon we’ll be harvesting our honey! Exciting!

Marij & Arnold

0 Comments