I hope you can join us between 12pm – 5pm on May 27th.  More information on the Pollinator Protection Program can be found on the website for The Land Conservancy of BC.

Our New Vintage Has a New Look!

We have a new look for this release.  This is our new label and you will be seeing this come out slowly as we release new vintages.  It was designed locally on Vancouver Island and we think it give our products the polish they deserve!

Our new look!

Start by taking care of the bees.  Bob has kept bees since the age of six and has achieved a Masters Degree in Entomology.  He loves his bees!  We are participating in several research initiatives to create healthy strong bees that can resist the environmental pressures that are causing their decline.  This is a tireless effort!  Bob also shares his knowledge of bees by teaching beekeeping at Royal Roads University and by taking apprentices every year on the farm.

We put our bees on wild forage.  This means that the bees get a variety of plants to collect nectar from and this gives them a varied and healthy diet.  The same way we need to eat a variety of foods to be healthy.  This has the added benefit of including the wild pollens from our area in our honey and mead.  This is a sweet and natural way to fight allergies by allowing your body to build immunity naturally.

Wild mountain honey leads to great mead.  Just as good grapes make good wine, good honey makes good mead!  We take great care in crafting small batches of mead from the highest quality honey.  We are able to control all aspects of our mead production from the honey to the berries and fruit that come right from our farm.  Add that to over 30 years of mead making experience and you have a winning combination!

We are passionate about creating high quality, award winning products by having an intimate knowledge of what goes into every ingredient.  We hope you enjoy our meads and honeys as much as we  enjoy making them!

Vintage Sac with suggested pairing...a chocolate cup!

Many people struggle with how to pair meads with foods.  In our case, this is easy.  Our meads are more wine like and tend to be on the dryer side.   Most popular with the holiday meal are either Melomel or Metheglin.

MELOMEL is a fruit meads and pair well with spicy foods, seafood, poultry, and cream pasta.  Our HARVEST MELOMEL is a berry fruit mead with a crisp acidity that makes it excellent with many foods.  It is difficult to pair most fruit meads with red meat and tomato but we have created our KICKASS CURRANT MELOMEL to go with these foods.  It gets paired with smoked meats and cheeses as well by many restaurants.

METHEGLIN is a straight honey mead with spice or herbs.  Ours is made with ginger and spice.  It pairs well with the whole festive turkey meal at holidays but is surprisingly versatile.  It is excellent with spicy foods because there is enough sweetness to hold up to the spice.  The ginger makes it a nice pairing for salmon and other seafoods.  It is one of the few beverages that is nice with either sweet or spicy curries.

SAC MEAD or sweet mead is very good with dessert .  Our VINTAGE SAC is a  sweet mead that pairs especially well with creamy desserts but is also excellent with fruit and chocolate based deserts. It is fortified and is therefore somewhat similar to a white port.

ACERGLYN We have produced a very small batch of 12 year old Acerglyn for christmas 2011.  This is only available at our tasting room but we should still cover pairing it!  This style of Acerglyn is to be enjoyed after a meal just as you might enjoy a scotch or cognac.  It is complex, sweet, and might make you contemplate its history!

Some thoughts to take away.  Here are 8 ways to help bees on a daily basis.

1              Stop using insecticides, especially for cosmetic gardening. Use biological controls.THIS IS PROBABLY THE MOST IMPORTANT THING WE CAN DO TO SAVE BEES

2              Avoid seeds coated with systemic pesticides, Clothianidin and other pesticides render the whole plant poisonous to bees

3              Read the label on garden compost, beware of hidden killers Imidacloprid (often reads on label as vine weevil protection) is deadly to bees.

4              Have a wild space in your garden (behind shed?) tidy gardens are not too wild friendly

5              Plant bee friendly flowers-buy wildflower seeds and scatter in bare areas

6              Make a wild bee house –see www.friendsofthebees.org

7              Support your local beekeeper-buy local honey

8              Become a beekeeper, or take a course and share what you’ve learned with friends and family.

Bee well!

Dana and Bob

Bees and Honeycomb

honeybeeawarenessday2011

Bees emerging from our hives in spring

Bees emerging in spring

Happy Spring!  As we see the bees emerging and hear that losses of bees on Vancouver Island are high we thought we would talk a bit about what we are doing to try to make a change in the fate of our bees.  We have been trying to find effective  alternatives  to using pesticide strips developed over 20 years ago to knock down Varoa mites in our beehives. While new chemicals have come out and are being used in many bee operations we feel that they may pose greater harm to the bees and don’t want to use them.  We are trying to get away from this cycle of having to use stronger and stronger pestisides to control mites as they seem adapt to these pesticides rapidly.  Along with trying to selectively breed queens that will groom the mites off of themselves (varoa resistant/hygenic stock) which is a very difficult task, we have switched to using Oxalic and Formic acid as well as Thymol.  Our  system is moving towards a more  integrated pest management strategy.  So far, mite loads are down and we are feeling hopeful about this working.  Ultimately we are trying to breed stronger bee stock.