About our Honey:
All of our honey is raw, unfiltered, unpasteurized and delicious. We extract it in small batches, keeping track of each location and harvest date. We are fascinated by how different the honey can be, year to year, and site to site. Each site produces subtly different honey, depending on what is in bloom, and when the honey is collected.
We have a small collection of "horizontal honey tastings" with different extractions from the same site. These are unique and premium collections. If you are interested in trying one of these, please contact us for more information. This is an unusual opportunity.
All pure raw honey will crystallize at different rates, depending on the sugars in the nectar gathered. This is a sign of natural, unadulterated, unprocessed honey. You may also find small pieces of wax in our honey, as it is strained, not filtered. The wax is edible, and adds to the honey's character. Our honey is unpredictable in how quickly it crystallizes -- in 2019 it stayed clear for months, in 2020 and 2021 it crystallized very quickly. Always delicious! If you want to de-crystallize it, set the jar in slightly warm water for a few hours, being careful not to get water into the jar. You can also slowly melt it in an in instant pot set on "yogurt" setting over several hours. If it is heated greater than about 40C, the enzymes begin to break down and you lose some of the benefits of "raw" honey.
It is impossible to predict how each year's honey will look and taste, that's up to the bees.
About our Bee-yards:
We have several bee-yards. The honey produced at each site reflects the 'terroir' of the different sites.
Our 2020 Lethbridge County bee-yard was at the western edge of Lethbridge County. The yard sits at the edge of an alfalfa field, protected by a Caragana windbreak. It is surrounded by agricultural cropland, with abundant wildflowers in the ditches and field-edges. It is on sabbatical for 2021. We did have a couple of hives in Lethbridge that gave us some interesting urban (Linden tree!) honey this year.
Our Anchor B bee-yards are both near Cowley, where the prairie meets the foothills in Pincher Creek County. The yard closest to Cowley is surrounded by native short-grass prairie, foothills range-land, and some hay production. Immediately adjacent to the Cowley bee-yard is a small wetland with red-wing blackbirds and other native species, including a very curious raven. The second yard is further up the Old Man river valley, where the river is a few metres away. There is range land and native cottonwood valley habitat all around.
Our Glencastle bee-yard is our newest, in the SW Calgary neighbourhood of Glendale, full of established trees, urban gardens and an extensive park system. We have 3 uber-urban hives here that yielded our Calgary urban wildflower honey. And finally, we have a few hives out near De Winton (Calgary semi-rural), on a beautiful acreage owned by friends, and in a new location in Springbank.
Our Lethbridge County honey is the mildest, with the late summer honey (the warmth and late season nectar of goldenrod) having an almost caramel flavour.
Our Anchor B honey is mild and floral; short grass prairie wildflower/foothills range-land wildflower.
Our Glencastle honey is our mid-summer Calgary Urban wildflower honey, the most floral of our honeys.
We have pure raw honey in 45g guest size, 150g, 300g, 500g, 1kg, and 2.8kg sizes.