🐝 Getting bees out of the snow

Andrew getting our hives out of the snow, and stacking them up for the trip out west.

What's new on the farm:

Happy December! I can't believe I'm saying that and we are just about ready to move the bees out to Vancouver Island.

You might be wondering how the bees are doing here in the chilly weather.

By November, the winter population is set.

There are usually only 10,000-20,000 bees, down from the 80,000-100,000 honeybees that are around for the peak summer season.

These are the ones that cluster and keep the queen warm. They keep the population alive until they can get to late winter.

Once the days get longer and we get more daylight, the queen starts to lay eggs again to create the next generation.

So our job right now is to protect that small winter cluster so that it can get to that stage.

In the summer, you may have seen beehives out in farmers' fields, stacked up five, six, even ten boxes tall.

Those boxes on top are the honey boxes that get filled with all the delicious honey that we can harvest.

But the bottom box is where the queen and the baby bees live year-round.

This box also gets filled with honey and pollen that we don't touch, so the hive has enough food to eat over the winter.

This same box is where the winter cluster lives, and it's the box that we have to move to Vancouver Island.

In a normal year, we would have already moved to Vancouver Island by now!

Late October or early November is the latest we have ever loaded the bees.

But this has been an unusual year for us, delayed by many truck failures.

So it's December, we have a Christmas tree put up, and we are finally moving the hives.

We also have snow now.

We love snow, which means that there is moisture that will replenish the soil.

This moisture will help the crops and flowers grow in the spring and summer.

But it also makes our work a bit tougher!

That means Andrew has had to sweep snow off all the hives and plow around the hives to get access to them.

We stack the hives ahead of time, making it faster to load them onto the truck.

The snowy ground is a challenge for our regular warehouse forklift, which is the fastest for stacking.

So we have to use our tractor to move the hives, which is trickier.

Last Sunday morning, Andrew went outside to do the last 1/4 of the stacking work. He finished around noon before he decided to check the weather forecast.

It was going to be -29°C/-20°F overnight!

That is way too cold for our hives to be left unprotected.

So he turned on hustle mode and worked like a madman for the next 6 hours.

He moved all the hives so they were all pushed up together. Each hive generates a lot of heat from the bees trying to keep the whole cluster warm.

By putting all the stacked hives right against each other, each colony can keep each other warm as well.

Like people huddling together in the cold!

Then he pulled out all our old winter wraps. These are insulating blankets that get wrapped around the hive. We used to use these when we kept hives in Saskatchewan over the winter.

He blanketed all the hives in the wraps, used pallets to hold them in place.

All while trying to beat the sun before it went down.

The result looks pretty crazy but very effective. The bees are all snug as a bug now. And now we don't have to stress about them getting too cold before they get loaded onto the truck!

Our cozy hives, all stacked up and wrapped up together.

In the Kitchen

We've just packaged our last batch of honey in our old kitchen, and moved into our new space this week!

Now we have a "big kitchen" and "small kitchen."

The small kitchen is where we still make and package all our caramels.

Then they get taken over to our big kitchen, where we package our honey and pack all our orders.

Our small kitchen (where we did EVERYTHING! Made caramels, pack honey, package orders, store our inventory and supplies) is 700 square feet.

And our big kitchen is just over 2000!

Having the extra room is a big boost and now makes our jobs easier to get your honey to you as soon as possible.

We are so grateful for your patience as we have been getting a heavy volume of orders out!

Now our packers can pack more quickly, and we have room to get more help during this busy season.

Christmas Delivery Deadlines and Holiday Closure

If you're thinking of gifting our honey or stocking up for holiday hosting, here are the order-by dates to ensure arrival before Christmas:

Canada: Order by December 12

USA: Order by December 10

These dates are based on our current production schedule and carrier transit times. While we always do our best to ship quickly, please note that unexpected delays by shipping carriers are outside our control.

If you place an order after these deadlines, we will still fulfill it as fast as possible. We just can't guarantee delivery before December 24.

We will be closed from December 25 to January 1, so any orders placed during that week will begin shipping on Monday, January 5.

Thank you so much for including us in your holiday celebrations!

Honey Cake with Caramelized Apples

Now that we're in full swing of the holiday season, I'm always looking for new honey baking recipes to try out.

This is a perfect cake to serve with tea or enjoy after a family meal.

I love apples in baking, and the caramelized apple topping is a really nice touch (you could swap out the brown sugar for honey there, too).

The author also suggests that this cake freezes well, so you can bake it ahead and have it ready for visiting company during this busy season!

Get the recipe from Busy in Brooklyn.