Single-source, local honey is best, say beekeepers
The Pittsburgh Home & Garden Show, which runs March 7-16, will have a full lineup of featured speakers on its Farm to Table stage. Among them will be local beekeepers, who will answer your questions about bees, the benefits of local honey and the multitude of uses for bee products.
You can also get some tips on buying the best honey. Mark Kuhn, co-owner of I Got Hives Honey Farm in Canonsburg, Washington County, has suggestions on that topic.
More than 30% of honey from India and China has been shown to be fraudulent, with cheaper additives such as corn syrup or sugar syrup. Buyers won’t necessarily know the source of honey by looking at the label. Often only a U.S. distributor is listed.
“That’s why I say a local beekeeper is best,” Kuhn said. “That way you can pretty much be sure” of what’s in the jar.
Honey from large, commercial producers also tends to be generic-tasting, with larger producers sourcing from around the country and the world.
“You mix it together and it’s all the same product,” he said. “And then if you pasteurize it — you heat it above 140 degrees — that kills everything in the honey and it kills the flavor.”
Maurice Wofford, a beekeeper with Black Urban Gardeners and Farmers of Pittsburgh, agrees.
He harvests his hives only once a year from the group’s farm in Homewood. His honey, dark in color, has a smooth, peanut-butter consistency, since he doesn’t heat it and strains it only once. This is considered a wildflower honey because he doesn’t control where the bees forage, and they roam in a 3-mile radius.
Most honeys are blends; there are more than 300 varieties of honey, which are categorized by the flowers from which the bees draw nectar — including alfalfa, clover, orange blossom and tupelo. The color and taste of the honey comes from the nectar source.
“A lot of the honey you see on the store shelves has been filtered over and over to give it that clear look,” Wofford said.
Medicinal properties
Filtering honey multiple times is discarding the good stuff, Wofford maintains.
His honey still contains “a lot of the pollen and the medicinal properties of the honey coming out of the hive,” he said.
The honey from I Got Hives Honey Farm, which Kuhn co-owns with his wife, Janet, is also considered a wildflower honey. They harvest in spring, summer and fall, and it changes in color and taste with the seasons because of the different flowers in bloom in the surrounding areas.
The Kuhns strain their honey to remove pieces of wax and other detritus but leave the pollen. Then they warm it to make it more fluid, but not higher than 110 degrees — which is as high as the temperature in a hive can go.
Since honey has antibacterial properties, pasteurizing is unnecessary. Producers may heat honey to keep it from crystallizing but honey calling itself “pasteurized” is not safer than “raw” honey, according to a 2017 Mayo Clinic article.
“It’s more of a marketing gimmick,” Kuhn said.
Because it has antibacterial as well as anti-inflammatory properties, honey is used for wound dressing, and there are even honey bandages available.
Besides honey, Wofford has made several products from his hives, including beeswax candles. Some people also make soap or lip balm from beeswax.
Some more esoteric uses of bee products include using powdered, dried bee carcasses in a tincture, ointment or paste to reduce inflammation, enhance circulation and promote immune response. Bee venom has been studied as an alternative cancer treatment.
And then some folks are using bee venom for cosmetic purposes. “People are using it instead of Botox,” Kuhn noted.
“Make sure you’re not allergic, though,” he added drily.
Learning from the bees
Perhaps more than anything else, Wofford promotes the spiritual aspect of beekeeping.
Born to a “family of green thumbs,” he was drawn to beekeeping one day and “it became like a mission.” He credits beekeeping for nourishing his relationships, travels and connections.
“I’ve learned more from working with bees than I have working with humans.”
Wofford points to their long-term survival as a species — bees are thought to have been on Earth for 120 million years. He also admires “their housekeeping, their work ethic, their dedication to the queen and how they work in a true direct democracy,” selflessly putting the good of the hive over their own survival.
Wofford notes the “therapeutic” effect of beekeeping and the fact that it is used among veterans to address post-traumatic stress disorder.
Kuhn says he was drawn to beekeeping more from a sensory than spiritual experience. Growing up on a farm, as a kid he went with his father to an old hardware store. “I went up into this room and the smell of beeswax and fresh pine that the hives made just hit me in the face and I was sold,” he said.
Up until then, he didn’t even like honey. He got his first hive at age 13 or 14. “I wouldn’t say it’s a spiritual thing, but it has a calming effect on you.”
Want to start a hive?
If you’re interested in starting your own hive, both Kuhn and Wofford recommend it as a hobby — at least to start — rather than a moneymaking activity. Challenges include unpredictable weather, diseases and mites. Kuhn said he lost 60% of his bees to Varroa mites last year.
To begin your beekeeping adventure, Wofford suggests a “starter kit” of 10,000 bees (about $175), which you can buy from a supplier. He recommends Bedillion Honey Farm in Hickory, Washington County.
Kuhn sells bees and teaches novice beekeepers, even managing their hives for them.
In addition to bees, you’ll need the hive body, frames and tools.
“I would say if you put maybe $400-$500 into it, you can get started,” Wofford said.
The hive should be placed in an area where there is some sunlight, because that is what activates the insects’ foraging.
Once the hive is set up, it’s surprisingly low-maintenance — Wofford estimates a half hour to an hour per month. It’s best, he said, not to disturb the bees too much.
“The more you disturb them, the more you’re going to encourage them to vacate,” he said.
One hive might yield 35-50 pounds of honey. Wofford encourages budding beekeepers to come to the Black Urban Gardeners’ farm, where every other Saturday he holds informal classes in spring, summer and fall.
“The best way to learn is just to help out, and ask questions along the way,” he said.
If you go: I Got Hives Honey Farm’s home show presentation on “Honey: Local and Raw and What You Should Know” is slated for 5 p.m. March 10; Black Urban Gardeners and Farmers of Pittsburgh speak about urban beekeeping at 4 p.m. March 15, at 4 p.m.
At the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, Downtown, presentations are free with home show admission. Tickets are $10 in advance, $12 at the door, $4 for ages 6-12 and free for kids under 6. Hours are 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Sundays and 4-9 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays. Information and online tickets are available at pghhome.com.
댓글
댓글 쓰기