Southern Matters--Supplemental Images

In looking back over old photographs, I often long for the mundane, the everyday existence of those whose lives I have been interested in. In turn, from time-to-time, I am obligated to post images that I refer to as "Days of our Lives."

At present (October, 2010), we have only one hive in Tallahassee, where there is a nectar dearth from late spring until fall on most years. I don't really like having just one hive in a location, but that is the way it worked this year. On the farm, we have five hives, two being increases from this spring. One of these hives is just getting back on its feet, so prudently one might count four. Later, I will decide whether to combine this struggling farm hive perhaps with the one in Tallahassee.

I harvested honey in the spring, mainly because I wanted to make mead (lot 2010-06-12, taking 30 lbs of fine early spring honey from the farm). I tucked away the other part of the harvest and did not bottle. At present, this little farm apiary (left ) is just outside the farm yard per se, making it 50 feet from our back door. Except for Nedra, I would put the hives on the porches.

For some time, I had carefully watched the weather and found an extented period of remarkably low dewpoints. As a perspective, at 80F, the equilibrium position for sufficiently dry honey is only somewhat over 60% RH. I've never had honey that fermented in the hive or after extraction, but it does happen. On Oct 3d (left), mainly to empty some supers, I harvested again at the farm.

	In looking back over old photographs, I often long for the mundane, the everyday existence of those whose lives I have been interested in. In turn, from time-to-time, I am obligated to post images that I refer to as "Days of our Lives." At present (October, 2010), we have only one hive in Tallahassee, where there is a nectar dearth from late spring until fall on most years. I don't really like having just one hive in a location, but that is the way it worked this year. On the farm, we have five hives, two being increases from this spring. One of these hives is just getting back on its feet, so prudently one might count four. Later, I will decide whether to combine this struggling farm hive perhaps with the one in Tallahassee. I harvested honey in the spring, mainly because I wanted to make mead (lot 2010-06-12, taking 30 lbs of fine early spring honey from the farm). I tucked away the other part of the harvest and did not bottle. At present, this little farm apiary (left ) is just outside the farm yard per se, making it 50 feet from our back door. Except for Nedra, I would put the hives on the porches. For some time, I had carefully watched the weather and found an extented period of remarkably low dewpoints. As a perspective, at 80F, the equilibrium position for sufficiently dry honey is only somewhat over 60% RH. I've never had honey that fermented in the hive or after extraction, but it does happen. On Oct 3d (left), mainly to empty some supers, I harvested again at the farm.

Thanks to Nedra's persistance, I bought new bee suits this year. Really uptown! I had been wearing a 12-year-old thread-bare set of coveralls that offered little resistance to stingers. Worse, my old veil was pieced together with duct tape.	While just checking the stores, I find my bees are gentle enough to work around (above), but four of the hives have a high census . . .(continued)

and two (the one in the center and the one to the right, above) get "hot" if given too much attention. For this reason, I covered myself well before going down into the nest to check brood and so forth. As I learned a few years back, it can be dangerous to make a serious misstep (in that case, dropping a hive body) without protection. I use no pesticides within or around my hives. Still, I did not see a single small-hive beetle or a bee with a deformed wing (a proxy, if weak, of varroa, which carries the responsible virus). Good! This time of year, a "natural" beekeeper has to stay on top of these parasites, if only by hoping. Note, if you wish, in the near background, longleaf pines that were planted in 2008. (I can enthusiastically recommend the seedlings sold by Blantons' and planted by Derril Tomlinson.). In the far background are older planted pines that were thinned in September.	Now that I am retired, I am delighted to have time to make everything more work than necessary. Thus, I selected the supers--and even the frames within the supers--for moisture content and taste. That's right, using the refractometer in the foreground, I tested every frame. Next, I tasted samples from every frame. Actually, this sampling is redundant as I can get a sense of the moisture by violently shaking a comb with uncapped areas, and I know mostly when and where each frame was placed. Still, numbers are revealing: one completely uncapped frame had a low moisture content, whereas a fully capped frame had a water content of ~20% (replicated measurements). Before you notice, let me say that the variation in moisture from (capped) frame to frame within a super is surprising and argues against my concern for a low dewpoint before harvesting, but it still feels right. At least for a time I kept the different honeys (above) separated after extraction (not shown, using a manual 9-frame radial extractor) for reasons elaborated a little later.

First things, first. I set aside enough tupelo honey to make 5 gallons of citrus melomel. I am inspired by Don Dixon, who won--of more than 4500 entries--the 2010 Winemaker International competition with an orange/honey wine. That set-back took a large chunk out of my modest harvest. As usual, I will use 71B yeast, reflecting Ken Schramm's influence, and being impatient. (Plans are plans, but here is how it really happened.) From various 2010 honeys, I have several small batches of mead (with blackberries separated from snakes and chiggars at the farm; with elderberries, also from the farm; with blueberries, from Tallahassee) in bulk aging, complementing another 10 gallons of traditional mead likewise in bulk aging and more than a case of morat and traditional mead. Roger Morse (and who am I to argue with him?) felt that goldenrod and other robust honeys made the best mead. So, another 32 lbs of honey into two primary fermenters (upper left) and more for a friend who will make mead with it. Liking the recent results obtained with K1V (and having heard that it was found among Brother Adam's modest belongings), I will use it and compare it to D21 (the yeast probably used in later years by Brother Adam).	I hope the polysacchrides produced by D21 will contribute to mouthfeel. (I can get the acid right by titrating for total acidity and adjusting by calculation; I can get at the structure with grape tannin, but my meads are worrisomely thin.) Finally, I set aside an experimental batch for fermentation with D-47, which will be my first sweet mead and my very first sur lie aging. IMHO, making good mead is more difficult than making wine. Honestly, I've never had a glass of acceptable commercial mead. Still and all, after a couple of glasses, it is all "fine." Post Script. The D21 mead made with goldenrod turned out nicely, with enhanced body, as hoped for. This strong honey is excellent, IMHO, for mead. Now, to the minor uses (smile) of honey--as dessert and in culinary applications. I have dispensed honey in containers ranging from 4-oz Muth jars to 60-lb buckets. I've streamlined to a single container (1-lb plastic Queenline jars fitted with a flip-top cap). Using only one container allows me to buy in bulk, meaning--importantly--that the containers are packed in plastic at the factory and never touched by human hands. Without belaboring the point, I've always washed containers that were packed from bulk by retailers.

Our bottling station consists of a second-hand stainless steel work bench, which I bought at a farm auction. I was not alone in wanting it and shuddered at the thought of such a nice table having a bloody deer draped across it. It became rather pricey. I made up for it though by obtaining the wall cabinet essentially by "dumpster diving." With elbow grease, Nedra's painting, and updated pulls (a gift from daughter Elizabeth), it serves to hold miscellaneous supplies, such as caps. (I can't buy the caps in bulk, but I inspect each, wipe out the inside, and store in ziploc bags.). The bottler (left bucket) is a standard item, and I made the final straining bucket (right) by replacing the bottom of a food-grade bucket with a stainless-steel sieve, which supports a nylon straining bag into which the honey is poured. The strainer sits on the bottler (upper, right) as I cut the center of a top out and slid the remnant up around the bottom of the strainer (best seen in the upper left). Usually, I let the honey sit in the bottler for several days and remove the bubbles and tiny bits of wax that rise to the top of the honey. With so many different small lots, that care wasn't practical, so some of the bottles, like those in the markets, have suface "debris."

From buckets to bottles! Given the right mood and no schedule, bottling--the culmination of a lot of hard work--is satisfying. Here, the bottles for the season sit on the top of a temporary work bench on top of the syrup kettle/furnace. (Today, this building is the honey house, on another day, the syrup shed . . . .)	Well managed hives at my Tallahassee location can store surplus even in March. The tupelo bloom begins about April 5th and runs for about three weeks. In some years, I put on fresh supers to make this varietal honey (above). Tupelo and sourwood honeys are considered by many to be the best of the nominal 300 varietal honeys produced in the U.S. It is mild, sweet (because of its relatively high content of fructose, a very sweet sugar) and resists crystalization (because of its fructose content). Of course, it commands a higher price and I've seen "tupelo honey" being sold that was clearly not real tupelo honey. (A drop of tupelo on a white background reveals its greenish cast.) This particular lot was taste-tested by Billy Langston ("my" bee inspector and tupelo beekeeper) and declared to be tupelo. Over several years, I have also had carbohydrate analyses conducted, which provided the predictable results. For reasons I can't explain, this year's production fell nearly 2% short of that required for certification (. . . that 50% of the included pollen be tupelo.)
	I do not sell honey (because of the litigious nature of our society). Still, I like to meet the goals of my "customers." Most commercial honey is heated (to facilitate handling, to inhibit crystalization, to reduce the risk of botulism). Most commercial honey is also filtered (to inhibit crystalization and to make a brilliantly clear product). The downside is that pollen is removed by filtration, and flavor is affected by heating. Heating (and prolonged storage) also markedly increase the HMF content. I will leave it at that. There are some very rude people with unsubstantiated opinions on both sides of the raw vs. processed honey argument. The opinions often seem to line up with pocketbook issues as much as anything. Anyway, I am on the "granola and Birkenstock" side, i.e. I prefer and only make raw honey and leave the next fellow to do as he pleases.
Several of our customers seek out raw honey. Many believe that the pollen in local honey will alleviate allergies. At least I can imagine a scientific basis for this hypothesis, but I am not weighing in on that issue either, yea or nay. We bottled five lots of honey that more-or-less span the seasons, the implication being that together these five lots would contain an assortment of the pollen (of flowers that bees visit, including some, like peanut and bahia, that are not nectar sources). The bottles are labled on the bottom, and are arranged by time of production, beginning at left, above, against the refinished Hoosier inherited from my grandmother Watson. Lot 4. Produced in Tallahassee during the tupelo bloom. Mild. Water content, 17.4%. Lot 6. Produced at farm during the tupelo bloom. (Yes, there's an abundance of tupelo along the Ten-Mile Creek, my eastern property line.) The color and taste indicate some tupelo, but a dusting of crystals on storage suggest other floral sources, probably including gallberry. Each to his own, I like this honey. Water content, 17.4%. Post Script. Eight months after bottling, this was the only lot that crystalized; tupelo pollen was not found in this honey & I now think the greenish hue came from clover, there being at least 30 acres within forage range. Lot 8. Produced in Tallahassee during the early-to-late spring. Early flowers as well as tupelo. About equal to No. 6. Water content, 18.5%. Lot 9. Produced at farm in midsummer. Moderately dark and robust. Collected from a variety of sources, including cultivated plants Water content, 18.5%. Lot 11. Produced at farm in late summer and fall. Golden cast and lingering bite (as opposed to twangy aftertaste of spring titi), suggestive of composites, notably goldenrod, which is in abundance. If as in years past, the bite will moderate in time. This honey will be appreciated by those who like a robust flavor; others may wish to use it in beverages or dishes. Water content, 18.7%. Postscript. The bees had to be moved to another location, further from the residence. See this link. Last edit: 2011-07-11. Honey is best stored long-term in a freezer. Honey should not be consumed by persons under two years of age.