What flavor of honey should I try?

Honey is made from the nectar of plants.  Plants produce nectar to incentivise insects like bees and butterflies to  visit and help pollinate.

There are SO many plants that produce nectar and since honey is made from nectar there are many varieties of honey.

Each nectar makes a different tasting honey.  Most honey is labeled with a name like clover or alfalfa or orange blossom.  However this name just means that they honey is PRIMARILY made from these plants.

Bees do what they want…

Bees go wherever they want and will not be commanded!  They very rarely just collect from one place so beekeepers do the best they can by the taste and color of the honey as well as the time of year and what is blooming to describe the honey.

This means that the honey might even taste different from year to year based on the mixture of plants that were in bloom producing nectar at the time.

Nature is always in motion so no 2 bottles of honey are exactly the same!

Honey is an interesting substance and is each one a special experience.  So try a variety and see how you like the taste!

How Bees Deter Elephants: Beehive Trials with Forest Elephants

How Bees Deter Elephants: Beehive Trials with Forest Elephants

In Africa, crops are often sources of conflict between humans and wildlife.  Wildlife damage to crops can drastically reduce income, impoverishing the already impoverished.

In this context, crop-raiding animals like elephants quickly become “problem animals”.  To deter elephants from raiding crops beehives have been successfully employed in Africa and in Sri Lanka.

The Elephants and Bees Project is an innovative study using an in-depth understanding of elephant behavior to reduce damage from crop-raiding elephants using their instinctive avoidance of African honey bees.

The project explores the use of novel Beehive Fences as a natural elephant deterrent creating a social and economic boost to poverty-stricken rural communities through pollination services and the sustainable harvesting of “Elephant-Friendly Honey”.

I wish society would look for more solutions like this that are truely a benefit for all parties involved! Read More Here

Bee Swarm in Your Space!

Have you ever seen a wild bee swarm in the city?

We’ve had a lot of people ask us about swarms so here’s how a bee swarm works:

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When a bee hive gets too large, the queen and workers decide it’s time to split.
They create a new queen who will stay in their current location and the more experienced queen will look for a new home with half the worker bees.
One thing a lot of people don’t realize is that when bees are traveling in a swarm like this they are really not looking for a fight. They are usually quite docile in a swarm as long as they don’t feel threatened. Learn more about queens here!
It is also really tiring for the bees so as they are looking for a new home they frequently rest while they send scouting bees out to find an enclosed place to start a new hive. Most of the time if bees are resting in your tree or a bush they aren’t planning to stay. They should move on in a few hours.
So what should you do if you find a swarm on your property?
The bees chow down on honey for their big journey and take off! They don’t know where they are going but they hope to find a safe home in a tree or somewhere.
Unfortunately sometimes they land were people see them and get a little nervous.
A Queen Bee

Check out this short video we did for a local news station to find out! Click on this bee!

 

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Now most of the time that shouldn’t be us at H&H Honey.
We catch them when we can but we don’t always have a hive to put them in and we are dedicated to keeping good care of our bees.
That means we can’t take care of every swarm but there are lots of beekeepers in the valley and a lot of them will re-home your bees for a small fee.

In a nut shell

  1. Don’t bug them
  2. Be patient. They’ll move on most likely
  3. If they stick around for more than 3 days. Call a beekeeper to remove them.
Anyway I hope this helps. Bees are so cool and especially in this desert we live in we need them to pollinate the plants around us!
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We’re getting to the later part of the season so get some while you can!
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Hey also follow me on Instagram if you like looking at bee stuff! That way you can see the hives our honey comes from! Always good to know where you food comes from!

BTW We have lots of delicious desert blossom honey if you want some!