Author Archives: Helen Rogers

January flowers for bees

The last few weeks have been rather gloomy, yet I’ve seen the odd bee out when the temperature is warm enough for them to fly. There aren’t many flowers out at this time of the year – here are a few that I’ve spotted locally that give pollen or nectar for bees…

Mahonia – this one is just coming into flower down the road from our hives. The blooms will give nectar on days when it is warm enough for the bees to be out.

Gorse – this was spotted on Hampstead Heath this week. There is a saying, “When gorse is out of bloom, kissing is out of season”. Luckily it seems to flower for most of the year! It’s a useful early pollen source for many types of bee.

Hellebore or Christmas Rose – This one is a bit battered, but will still be a great early source of nectar for many types of bee.

Hebe – The are dozens of different species of hebe and most of them tend to flower in the late spring and summer. However there are a few, such as ‘Autumn Glory’ that flower in the autumn and winter. They produce pollen and nectar and are foraged on by a variety of bees.

There are plenty of green shoots poking up everywhere in our garden from all the bulbs that we’ve planted – it won’t be long until spring now!

Netflix – Rotten

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We’ve recently watched the first episode of the new series called Rotten on Netflix. The episode concentrates on honey and pollination in the US. It reveals the rather shocking measures that people will go to in order to cut honey with various syrups in order to maximize their profits. It explains how huge quantities of Chinese honey is dumped on to the american market, often via an intermediary country to disguise its origin. Much of this honey is mixed with rice or corn syrup to make it go further. Some contains antibiotics that can be dangerous to humans. The program shows the elaborate testing that some imported honey goes through and explains that the tests are of limited value – they can only detect what they are testing for, other contaminants will remain undetected. The producers are always one step ahead – honey can even be filtered with incredibly fine filters in order to remove any pollen grains which would give an indication of the origin.

The episode also touches on the migratory beekeepers in the US – in February each year most bee farmers seem to take their hives to pollinate the vast almond orchards of California. They get paid well for this service, but at huge cost to the health of the honeybees.

It was all rather depressing viewing, but fascinating to see how large commercial honey companies operate. It is so far removed from how we treat our bees and honey.

If you have ever wondered about large scale beekeeping, or why supermarkets are able to sell honey so cheaply (product of EU and non EU countries) then I urge you to watch this.

Insect life book

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January is a quiet time for beekeepers – there are no hive inspections to be done and the honey has all been bottled. If you look at any month by month guide to beekeeping then they all suggest that the beekeeper should spend their time reading up on bees.

We’ve been making some plans for the coming season. We’ve also pulled out some of our favourite bee books. I’d like to share one that I love that has been in my world all my life.

This book was published in 1947 and was given to my mother when she was a child. It has a series of cartoons that follow the life cycles of various creatures, including honeybees, silkworms, flies, termites and spiders. It is surprisingly detailed and accurate.

It’s long out of print, but I’ve noticed that second hand copies are available from www.abebooks.co.uk

Reusing Highgate Honey jars

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I’m often asked if I’d like our empty jars back – and my answer is always “YES PLEASE!”
We deliberately use labels that can be easily removed, so that once the jars have been thoroughly washed they can be reused for honey again.

We have to use new lids, so if they have been lost then we’d still like the jars.

Gift ideas for honey lovers

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If I need a gift for a honey lover – and I know a few… then naturally I often give them some of our own honey. I try and pay attention to which type they prefer- dark or light, runny or set, chunk or cut-comb… sometimes honey just isn’t quite enough, so here are a few ideas that I love:

1. Alessi Honey pot – £76

I really like this honey pot – it is beautifully designed and made out of glass and stainless steel. My main gripe with most honey pots it that the lids have holes in them. Honey tends to absorb water from the air, which can eventually lead to it fermenting. Additionally in our house we need to be careful to keep any honey in sealed containers otherwise we end up attracting our own bees into the kitchen, this is particularly a problem in the summer if the windows are open! Bees have excellent noses for tracking down honey.

2. Tala Stainless Steel Honey Spoon – £4.08

If your budget is a little smaller, then I highly recommend this spoon. It’s cleverly designed to perfectly balance on the rim of a pot of honey, so any drips fall back into the jar. We’ve had one of these for several years and it’s perfect for when you have a jar on the table and everyone is helping themselves to honey – no more teaspoons slipping into the jar and ending up with hideously sticky handles!

3. Supoon Mini Spoon – £6.23

I hate wasting honey. The bees work so hard to produce it that I think that its criminal to waste even a single drop. That’s where these brilliant little spatulas come in. They are super flexible and somehow mange to scrape every tiny bit of honey out of the jar. They are particularly fantastic for getting into the corners of our hexagonal jars. We’ve had one for about 4 years and it looks as good as new. Ours was sent to us by a friend in Australia, but I’m pleased to see that they are now available over here.

4. Bee Mix from Seed Balls – £6.99

If you love honey then you need to learn to love flowers too – without flowers there is no honey. These sweet tins contains a mixture of 1000 seeds specifically chosen because they’ll grow into plants that bees are attracted to. This would be an ideal gift for some one who loves honey and wants to do their bit for helping the bees along the way. It might be fun to combine this with one of these bee spotter’s charts from the RSPB (£3.99). Our children love referring to our copy when we are out in the garden.

Do you prefer Set Honey or Runny Honey?

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While I was sorting out our jars of honey to take to the Fortismere Christmas Fair on Sunday I noticed that some our honey has started to set. Some people seem to have very strong preferences about whether they like set or runny honey and many people ask me about why honey goes through this process.

Nearly all honey will naturally set eventually. The time that it takes to set depends on which flowers the bees have been foraging on. Lime tree honey sets extremely slowly, whereas ivy and oil-seed-rape honey can set in the comb before the beekeeper has a chance to extract it.

Simply put, honey is a mixture of glucose and fructose. Nectar from different flowers contains different proportions of the two sugars. Setting of honey is caused by the crystallization of the glucose, so honey with a low proportion of glucose will set more slowly than one with a higher proportion.

There are a couple of other factors that will influence the crystallization speed. Low temperatures will speed up the setting process. Honey with plenty of pollen grains tends to set more quickly too. The reason is that the microscopic grains act as starters for the crystals to grow around. Commercial honey is often fine filtered at high temperatures in order to remove the pollen in order to slow down the setting rate and increase the shelf life of their honey – set honey apparently doesn’t sell so well! I’d suggest that the opposite is true as we often have people asking if we have any set honey…

The good news is that set honey is perfectly edible, and is another delicious way to enjoy honey! If you really must have runny honey, then you can stand the jar in a bowl of warm water, or warm it extremely gently in the oven. I’d never recommend using the microwave as you’ll end up with hot spots.

If you’d like to try some of our set honey, Lot #34 is available in our website shop

I’ll make a note in the descriptions of the other lots if they set too.

Beeswax Wraps made in London

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We’ve been making these for a a few years for our own use and for gifting. After much prodding from a friend we finally took the plunge and made a huge batch of beeswax wraps to sell.

They are the sustainable alternative to using plastic food wrap or plastic bags. We make them with organic cotton, beeswax from our own hives, pine tree resin and jojoba oil. The brilliant thing about them is that they can be used again and again, and when they finally collapse (we have some that are two years old and still going strong) they can be chopped up and composted – they also make terrific fire starters.

We use ours mainly for wrapping up after school snacks and sandwiches in lunch boxes. You just fold the wrap around the food and use the warmth of your hands to set the shape.

They are also great for covering bowls.

We’ve even made some huge ones suitable for wrapping a large loaf of bread.

When you’ve finished using one, you just rinse it with cool water (hot water would melt the beeswax) and some washing up soap, leave to dry overnight then it is ready to go again the next morning.

We will be selling these on Sunday 3rd December at Fortesmere Christmas fair

We will also have our full range of honey, gift bags, cut comb, candles and beeswax decorations.

We hope to see you there!

Image result for fortismere school christmas fair

Pure Beeswax Advent Candles

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I really hate to mention the C word before December… I really do love Christmas, but hate that the season seems to be creeping ever earlier. There is a strict ban on any cards or decorations here until the 1st December with this one teeny exception!

As a child we often had an advent candle on the table at tea time – each day burning down a small section until the big day. Now I have children of my own I thought it’d be something fun to make part of our festive traditions. The problem was that I found it very difficult to find one made from pure beeswax. I’ve become dubious about health benefits of burning paraffin, soy and scented candles in our home and really wanted to have a beeswax version.

In the end, we decided to stop wasting time looking and make our own instead! We used our own gorgeous beeswax and a simple design for the number countdown – it was all quite a fiddle, but we are really pleased with the result.

I was so pleased with how they turned out that I thought we’d make a few more and offer them for sale in our website shop. There is a very limited supply, so please move quickly if you’d like one for this year.

London Beeswax Number Candles

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As well as making the most delicious honey our bees make beautiful wax.

Beeswax is a fascinating substance – it has been prized for centuries for numerous uses. In medieval times bees were kept by monasteries primarily for their wax – candles made from beeswax give a steady, consistent, bright light, far superior to the tallow alternative. Good illumination would have been essential for writing and studying manuscripts.

Nowadays beeswax candles are the most natural available. They burn very cleanly without any mucky petroleum soot. As beeswax is relatively expensive it is often mixed with other waxes to save money.

All of our candles are handmade from 100% pure beeswax which has been collected from our own hives. We never mix our beeswax with any other type of wax or with beeswax from other sources.

We have now stocked our website shop with the new candles below, we still have our usual candles too!

London Honey (N6 and NW9) Gift Bags

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I’m excited to introduce our latest items in our web site shop!

We try and keep all our packaging as sustainable as possible and I’m delighted to have found these lovely jute bags with bamboo handles. They make the perfect container for a jar or two of our delicious honey. For the two jars bags we will put a jar from two different batches of our honey so that you can have the chance to taste the differences between them and appreciate their golden colours. These will make a lovely gift for a honey lover!