So this weekend Jo and I have been celebrating our 5th Wedding anniversary and what fun we have had. The highlight was last night visiting Winter Wonderland in London’s Hyde Park. If you want to know a little bit more about it you can see the website here but basically it is just a great collection of Christmas stalls and an amazing collection of rides. This go from tea cup rides to full on rollercoasters and giant wheels. It was really great fun.
Jo and I were going around high for two reasons. Firstly, we calculated this was only our 5th time away from the children in 14 months and though we love them with all our heart, it is sometimes nice to simply be the two of us. Secondly there was mulled wine stores everywhere and we simply couldn’t resist, especially as it was a little chilly out last night. The mulled wine certainly warmed the cockles!
Anyway, we found the most amazing stall. Now let me tell you, this “fair” had a distinctly German feel to it with almost all the rides with German text all over them but imagine my surprise as we walked through all the stalls selling toys, Christmas gifts and other random Christmasy things, to see a stall selling wax candles honey and…..mead. I nearly fainted and slightly tipsy on mulled wine Jo and I had to take a look.
It was fantastic. The candles were mostly Christmas themed, the variation of honey amazing (Lime Tree honey, Acacia honey, Heather honey and many more) and then there was the mead. Though there was ordinary mead there were countless other mixtures to try out. The owner (pretty obviously having had a few too many of his own samples!) was German and a lovely guy. It turns out that he was from a family run company in Germany who run over 500 hives (apparently there are about 10 families who run this many and there are two others that run more) who make everything to do with honey. It was great.
Anyway, we left slightly more tipsy than we arrived having sampled most of the mead. We ended up buying a bottle of the mead mixed with cherry (not sure if trying it again sober it will have the same appeal!) but we left happy bunnies and I hope our paths cross again with this gentleman as he was lovely. I hope you like the pictures below.
Today I felt really honoured. Some friends of ours came over to take away some logs I had kept for them and, as a
Honey cake recipes?
surprise, they had baked us all a cake; not just any cake, a honey cake made with my very own honey.
I never realised before how significant Honey Cake actually is. Despite being delicious it has also a big significance in the Jewish world with a lot of honey cake being consumed over the Jewish New Year celebrations otherwise known as “Rosh Hashanah” – they enjoy a lot of apple and honey to signify a “sweet new year”
It was delicious but it led me to wonder what is the best recipe for Honey Cake? I have to say that this cake was nice but I knew there must be plenty of variations in the online world and so I set about looking. Here is just a plain recipe for a honey cake followed by other great links I have found to make some great variations: Read the rest of this entry »
I was very fortunate this week to be a part of a wonderful event at The Lancaster Hotel in London; The London Honey
The London Honey Show at the Lancaster Hotel
Show. Famed for being the first hotel in London, if not the UK for keeping bees on the roof this seemed a very apt location and WOW, what a success.
The room from start to finish was filled with people and Jo and her team got it spot on with a healthy mix of exhibitors and excellent speakers - though sadly I missed every single one of them and so am going on 3rd party reviews all of which were excellent. Of particular note was that of Tim Baker, a Head Master who has encouraged his school to take up beekeeping with superb results; more on that later. Read the rest of this entry »
[google1] I read this fantastic guest blog by Amy Leigh, a newbie beekeeper from San Diego, and felt I needed to share it with everyone. Amy’s blog can be found on her Benefits of Honey blog
We’ve come up with a list of 15 beekeeping innovations throughout history that has developed the industry to what it is today.
Let us know what you think and please feel free to add some more onto the bottom of the list………..
[google1] I was once a boy scout, not a very good one but a boy scout none the less. However in my two weeks of being there (I was told not to come back for dissobeying my “sixer”….I know I know but he was punching my arm repeatedly as only older boys knew how) I did learn one thing; “always be prepared”, the universally accepted Scout motto.
It has been so hectic lately that I have simply not had time to put any blogs together to discuss my stings, my new suits, my battles with the inevitable swarms and the fantastic weather we have been having. Therefore I thought I would play a little bit of catch up with my latest challenges dealing with a Spring honey extraction.
There was such a strong honey flow that I have almost broken several vertebrae lifting various supers off my hives (though I have to say the Omlet hives split supers have been a joy to deal with). I total I would say I have about 3 supers to extract. Read the rest of this entry »
When I first stated beekeeping I didn’t have a clue. I thought you simply put a beehive at the bottom of the garden andthen simply drained the honey out of the side every so often from one of those beer tap type systems. I presumed beekeepers dressed up for a little bit of fun making out it was more serious than it was and felt it was more like a secret club of white boiler suited, bearded, morris men liking men over 50. How wrong could I be and especially when you consider you actually have to feed bees. Read the rest of this entry »
It had taken 9 months to come together and finally here I was. A jar of honey was looking up at me, a lovely and enticing golden yellow in a small jar. I had stuck my finger in previously and it was lovely but I hadn’t really shared it around.
Today was the trip to my local cafe where I spent the majority of my lunch times. It was where one of the other regulars gave me a well needed pick me up when I thought it was all out of reach and the owners (Jo and Gareth) were always interested in the stories of my honey……therefore I pledged to go back there once my jar was made. This was what happened today. Read the rest of this entry »
Hopefully you will enjoy some of these videos tracking my evening of generating my jar of honey. There is a video for each stage – hope you don’t fall asleep but they are worth it for the last video!
A rather apt day being my son’s 2nd birthday, I will forever remember it being the day I extracted my honey in the hope of making my one jar for this year. It was an eventful day not only because it was Sebastian’s birthday but also due to the events that unfolded while I extracted the honey.
It was the moment I had feared as I had heard horror stories of beekeepers chancing their luck removing honey from the bees late on in the season. Stories had been recounted of the general mood of the hive as a clumsy beekeeper strides up to the hive and slowly and rather caluculatingly removes all the product of their summers hard work. Read the rest of this entry »
have had. The highlight was last night visiting Winter Wonderland in London’s Hyde Park. If you want to know a little bit more about it you can see the website here but basically it is just a great collection of Christmas stalls and an amazing collection of rides. This go from tea cup rides to full on rollercoasters and giant wheels. It was really great fun.
