Single meadow origin means one thing: the honey in each meadow collected by the bees that forage there is kept separate throughout its journey from hive to jar.
Similar to wine, each meadow has its own Terroir. The different flora grow around each meadow all contribute different tasting nectars that the bees collect. Combined together this creates a honey recipe unique to each meadow. Meadows just a few kilometres apart can create completely different tasting honey.
The other key defining difference is that we do targeted honey harvests after each main nectar flow. Some meadows create great spring and summer honey, and others are better for summer and fall honey. Each meadow has its own unique nectar flow that the bees capture for us.
It was a concept that seemed so simple at the time, little did I know it would come to be one of the defining characteristics of naked bee honey.
Raw honey contains flavour notes that cannot be found in pasteurized honey. These flavours are destroyed when the honey is heated over 104 degrees Fahrenheit. The pasteurizing process also kills all of the small microbes, enzymes and heath benefits honey has to offer. Raw is the best way to consume honey. Not only is our honey raw, it is also unfiltered. This allows small amounts of pollen and propolis to be present in the honey. This helps in reducing allergies and also adds to the antibacterial and health benefits within the honey.
The wild part, well that’s something a little different. Honey is a direct reflection of the flowers that the bees forage from, but also, the air, water and general purity of the area around the hive. We strive to find the wildest places, avoiding as many people, cars, agriculture, pollution and anything else that could possibly comprise the purity of the nectar by the bees. We want the bees to eat the purest honey, which results in you eating the purest honey as well.
We take great care when pulling frames of fresh honey from our hives. We either gently brush each frame of bees off with a bee brush or, we use an abandonment method. In both ways, we do not use any chemicals to drive the bees from the frames, or blowers to blow them off. If done right, honey harvesting can be a very simple, non-intrusive event for the honey bee hive.
Honey is often uncapped using a hot knife. The honey sizzles and boils off the knife. The first few times using a hot knife didn't feel right, it seemed to be cooking whatever honey it contacted. This lead us to use a cold knife when un-capping. It slices through the honey without sizzling or burning.
We also don't heat our honey before jarring, or use band heaters to re-liquify crystallized honey. Most of our honey goes from hive to jar in five days or less. If we need to store honey, we store it in our warm room, which keeps the honey at 94 degrees Fahrenheit. This temperature provides a safe temperature for the honey, while reducing the chance of it crystallizing before jarring.
Natural honey comb has no wax sheet in the middle of it, placed there by the beekeeper for the bees to build on. Natural comb is built naturally by the bees. The middle of the comb is much thinner than conventional cut comb. The edible wax in our honey comb is not processed, and the consumer can be assured that the wax comes from the same honey that’s in the comb.