Queen bees from across the world

Buckfast queen bees from Italy waiting to be put into hives.

What's new on the farm:

This weekend, 300 queens from Italy arrived in Saskatoon.

Andrew worked all weekend to get the hives split up and ready to receive the new queens.

This week is more of the same, getting the queens off our kitchen counter and into the hives as soon as possible.

Luckily, some of our Saskatoon beekeeping crew started working this week, which helps a lot!

I made a short video about how we take care of the queens until they are installed into the hives. You can watch it by clicking here.

The queens from Italy are Buckfast bees. They come from a long line of bees that has been kept since 1919.

I wrote about these in a previous newsletter when we ordered these queens last year. If you are interested in their background, check out that issue by clicking here!

We are getting a bit pressed for time now. We want our splits to grow fast enough to reach peak population by early July, when most crops and wildflowers are opening and releasing nectar for the bees to forage.

It all depends on how fast the queens settle in and stay laying eggs efficiently. We want the hive to have lots of worker bees to forage that nectar and turn it all into honey!

More Creamers = More Honey

In the kitchen, I am waiting for two new creamers to arrive. Up until now, we’ve been doing all our production out of one 300kg creamer working nonstop.

The creaming process takes 5 days for the honey to reach its creamy, smooth texture. Packaging too early makes the honey too hard once it sets.

We’ve been limited to a few batches per week, but having new machines means we can stock up on jars and have some breathing room.

It also means I can finally launch a new flavored honey for the summer season!

The problem is that these creamers have been in customs for 2 weeks and I am still waiting!

Baking with Honey

We made some banana honey muffins the other day and swapped out the brown sugar in the recipe for honey.

The muffins turned out moist and airy, reminding us that baked goods like muffins and cakes are perfect for replacing sugar with honey. Cookies are trickier since they need a crisper texture.

I did a 1:1 swap of honey for brown sugar. Check out the recipe I used at Sally's Baking Addiction!

If you want a quick guide on how to swap out sugar with honey in your recipes, I have included it below!