Kim Flottum - The Backyard Beekeepers Honey Handbook: A Guide to Creating, Harvesting, and Cooking with Natural Honeys

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Table of Contents

2009 by Quarry Books

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission of the copyright owners. All images in this book have been reproduced with the knowledge and prior consent of the artists concerned, and no responsibility is accepted by the producer, publisher, or printer for any infringement of copyright or otherwise, arising from the contents of this publication. Every effort has been made to ensure that credits accurately comply with information supplied. We apologize for any inaccuracies that may have occurred and will resolve inaccurate or missing information in a subsequent reprinting of the book.

First published in the United States of America by

Quarry Books, a member of

Quayside Publishing Group 100 Cummings Center

Suite 406-L

Beverly, Massachusetts 01915-6101

Telephone: (978) 282-9590

Fax: (978) 283-2742

www.quarrybooks.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Flottum, Kim.

The backyard beekeepers honey handbook : a guide to creating, harvesting, and cooking with natural honeys.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN-13: 978-1-59253-474-6

ISBN-10: 1-59253-474-0

1. Honey. 2. Bee culture. 3. Cookery (Honey) I. Title.

SF539.F56 2009

638.16--dc22

2008030924

CIP

ISBN-13: 978-1-59253-474-6

ISBN-10: 1-59253-474-0

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Design: Yee Design

Cover Images: (main image) Courtesy of the National Honey Board; all other photographs by Kim Flottum with the exception of front, bottom middle, www.istockphoto.com. Illustrations: Robert Leanna II

Recipe Photos: Glenn Scott Photography Food Styling: Catherine Kelty

Printed in Singapore

To Kathy - For patience, For help, For love

Preface

ONE OF THE BEST THINGS about being a backyard beekeeper is harvesting what your bees and you have produced. You and your bees worked hand in hand to grow strong, forage great distances, and finally put away that most perfect gift from the beeshoney. Harvesting and using your honey is the last stage of this exciting task.

You can, like the industrial beekeepers, harvest a seasons blend just once a year, and you can use harsh chemicals to chase the bees away, followed by heating and filtering your honey crop to death . Or you can follow a simpler path, an easier way, and finish with a product that people will never, ever forget.

The Backyard Beekeepers Honey Handbook is the first book of its kind, focusing on the best ways to produce, harvest, and use what you and your bees have created.

Your bees produce not just pure honey , but an even more delectable, more desirable, rare and select delicacyartisan honey, sometimes called varietal honey, but always, always premium honey.

We are going to create something new. Think of this for a moment do vintners create and sell just pure wine ? Do high-end coffee shops sell only pure coffee ? Or do luxury creameries make and sell simply pure ice cream ? Heavens no! And beekeepers dont produce just pure honey ! Beekeepers and their bees produce honeys with millions of flavors and colors and aromas. Each honey is as unique as the flowers it came from, as different as the geographies the bees roam and forage, and as complicated as a blend of a thousand perfumes. Every unmixed-by-man honey is different. Every hive produces its own secret blend. With your help, honeys day is here.

Lets see how this works.

When your bees have completed finding, gathering, curing, and storing this premium crop, their job is donebut your task has just begun. Now this fragile, delicate, delicious combination of sugars, flavors, aromas, and sweet delight needs to be collected as gently (and as often) as possible, then handled with care without bruising or burning, without harming it at all.

First, the protective beeswax cappings must be removed (without heat, without damage), and the perfectly ripened contents of these honey bee-built hexagonal chambers are for the first time exposed to the cold, cruel world. The responsibility for nurturing that innocence, that natural purity from flower to feast, now lies with you and you alone.

Next, you must urge this syrupy sweetness from these beeswax chambersstill in gentle mode and only barely, barely warmed. Extracting is such a harsh term, but thats what its called. Extracting honey from the honey comb is much like spinning water from lettuce and collecting the water; the mechanics are identical, only the equipment is larger. The intricate honey comb, now empty and barely used, is returned to the bees so they can fill it again with yet a different mix of this premium product.

When the honey leaves the confines of the extractor, it is strained (and never, ever filtered) to remove the remnants of beeswax and fragments of frames that sometimes come through.

Next, it settles quietly, undisturbed in a warm and dark place, and in a week or so the surface is cleared and cleaned of any air bubbles that lurk within. What remains is bright and clear and ready.

Some then warm this mix, but to no more than the warmth of a lovers touch, and quickly decant into bottles and jars to sell or share, while others wait and store their treasure until needed later.

While waiting to be used, this mix may relax, reducing itself to its simplest statethe crystal. All honeys do this in timesome soon after harvesting, some months or even years later. It has to do with the sweet sugar chemistry inside. Honey is sugars and water, aromas and flavors, colors and minerals, and all stay together when honey crystallizes. Some beekeepers guide their honey to that natural state intentionally, and well carefully examine that process. Natural crystal honey is smooth and creamy like apple butter and doesnt run or drip or pour. It is unique and too-seldom made.

And then comes the very best partusing these unique and one-of-a-kind honeys to lend their special qualities to breads and drinks, to sauces and desserts, to main meals and simple snacks, and to-die-for things you can make to eat and savor and share.

The Backyard Beekeepers Honey Handbook takes you through the process of moving honey from beehive to honey house, revealing and extracting it so that none of the finer aromas, tastes, or colors are bruised, burned, or broken. Then we look at careful, considerate storing, and finally, we use all the kinds of honey you can make or find in a whole cookbook-full of tasty and healthful recipes.

What, I ask, could be better?

Introduction

No Longer a Beginner

THE PREMISE OF THIS BOOK is that you have attained a degree of success in raising honey bees: keeping them healthy, replacing and increasing your colonies, perhaps raising your own queens, making splits or divides successfully, and doing all these things with a minimum of expense and effort. Once youve arrived at this pointand you know whether you are there or notits time to refine the operation. This book looks at a fundamental of beekeepingproducing a honey crop that is not simply the accumulation of an entire seasons efforts from your bees, but rather producing specific and defined crops of artisan and varietal honeys.

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