General FAQ

I currently keep around 50 beehives in several locations around Perth County near the Ellice Swamp and a couple of hives at my sister's fruit tree nursery, Silver Creek Nursery, in Wellesley.

I have kept over 100 hives in previous years, but have chosen to downsize over the past several years so that I can better focus on both good hive health and personally on my own mental and physical health. You can read a bit about my downsize choice in this blog post.

Now, consider that each individual hive will range from 15,000 to 30,000 worker bees in early spring and up to 50,000 to 80,000 worker bees in mid-late summer. Just how many bees do I have?!

While I don't name them all, I do keep track of the queen in each hive as a part of keeping strong, healthy beehives.

Well, that all depends!! It's a given part of the job, and while I don't enjoy stings, I know how to mitigate the worst of a sting (blog post on bee venom and stings coming soon!).

I do my best to work with the hives during nice weather and at the best timing for them - because when they're in a good mood that means less defensive behaviour from them.

At my scale, I get one or two stings a week all summer long, but some days I get well over 10 or 20 stings because something needs to be done and the weather is poor or a hive is unsettled due to various circumstances. While I can also go through full days of beekeeping with no stings at all, a larger scale business caring for hundreds of hives might see the beekeeper(s) getting an average of 1 or more stings per day, although that is all dependent on so many factors!

Did you know that it is actually good for beekeepers to get regular exposure to bee stings? It reduces risk of developing a bee venom allergy.

Nope, its raw! I cold extract it and bottle it all up right away. Cold extraction does mean that the honey can crystallize faster than a heated extraction system. Learn more about what I mean by cold-extraction, crystallization and why it happens.

Honey will crystallize over time due to its chemistry. In short, the bees use stomach enzymes to break the long-chain sugars in flower nectar down into shorter chain sugars, mainly glucose and fructose.

The glucose molecules like to be solid and over time, they will form a crystal structure within the honey. Other particles in the honey (e.g. tiny grains of pollen or wax) can speed up crystallization by providing something for the crystals to base off of, so an unfiltered honey is more likely to crystallize sooner than a filtered honey. Cold-processed honey is also more likely to crystallize earlier - warming honey up causes the crystals to dissolve.

If your honey has crystallized and you need it to be liquid, the best method to gently bring it back to liquid state at home is the hot water method. Boil a kettle of water and place your jar into a pot or heat safe bowl. Add the boiled water and allow to cool back to room temp. If your jar of honey is really crystallized, you may need to repeat the process several times and stir the honey.

Personally, I find it much easier to scoop honey out after it's crystallized and find it easier to just scoop out the small amount I want and warm it in a separate smaller glass container if needed. When using in coffee, tea or other hot food dishes, the crystallized honey melts quickly and there's no need to separately liquefy it.

I personally love burning beeswax over other waxes because the golden glow of their light makes me happy and the light mild honey scent doesn't give me (or my mom) headaches. However, there are lots of benefits beyond those!

Some folks also question why beeswax candles are expensive. Honestly, beeswax is the 2nd form of gold that comes out of a beehive, and I don't think they are expensive after considering the characteristics of beeswax, the benefits of burning beeswax, and the labour and materials required to make a good beeswax candle.

That said, there are also some tricks and know-how that can really help you maximize the burn-economy of different types of candles (pillars in particular), and if it's not on the labels or product details anywhere, asking your chandler (that's the fancy term for candle-maker) about recommended minimum burn times can help you choose the right candle for your needs.