NEWSLETTER #33 (English) from Urs & Izzy: 2025 Spring Honey!
- Izzy the busy bee....
- Jun 13
- 5 min read
June 2025 (Issue #33)
Dear honey lovers, Yes!!! finally! the spring honey is here! This year's harvest was good, despite the problems and stress that the two-legged bear posed to the bees. And, our bees, again have made a very rich and tasty spring honey! This year, it tastes of clover -- but, try it yourself! Read on, to learn some curiosities about what was called ' the food of the Gods' by the ancient Greeks
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News from the Beehives
We harvested honey early this year -- the 28th and 29th of May -- that is between 1 to 2 weeks ahead of our usual time. How do we choose when to harvest? It is a mix of art and science, and it start with weather forecast. But there is much more!. You can read more about the science down in the 'facts & figures' section.
Read on, about where your honey is, here down! Meanwhile, remember that on the last newsletters, we spoke about swarms and absconding? Well, we had both cases together last week. Our most peaceful queen decided to swarm. We checked the colonies, and noticed that there were too little bees on Urs' favorite hive; that meant, they swarmed. Izzy went around hunting the swarm, and found it. Aha! Got you! Still with the adrenaline running, went back to the beehouse to prepare the swarm-box, the swarm-cover, and the long pole with the bag, as they were about 5 m on the branch of a tree. It took about 4 minutes to come back to the tree... and they were gone. Literally. Not even one bee was there. They absconded on us. We were perplexed, astonished....and Izzy was very frustrated. Further search lead to no results We lost one of our best queens. Now we hope that her daughter is as nice and sweet as the mom!
Where is my Honey...?
Your honey is ready to be delivered (if you order, of course). Why so long from the harvest?. It takes about a week from collecting the honey frames (see photo), to having the finalized pots ready for you. The honey needs to be extracted from the frames, through spinning at low temperature, so it maintains all of its flavor. Then coarsely filtered to remove the wax (but not the pollen!), then it needs to stand for several days in a cool, dark place, to 'curate' it, before it can be weighted and filled in glass pots. The 'curation' is no more than a physical separation by differential density - the leftovers of clean wax will float, and can be scooped out. What is left is Pure raw honey....Ah, and then it needs to be potted -with the right weight, labelled, according to the law -- and, all, made by hand, like in the old good times! So...it takes some time -- but we are sure you agree it is worth the waiting.
This year's spring honey is runny, and tastes of clover! Wait, you prefer more solid honey? don't worry, we still have some solid honey from last year, you just have to tell us what you prefer!
Facts & Figures
How do beekeepers know when to harvest? Well, more art than science, to be honest. It is almost like a delivery -- during the last weeks, we monitor the nectar flows, and how fast the bees are covering the honey with wax. Why? that means that the honey has reached about 16% - 18% of humidity, and can be capped.
When bees collect nectar from the flowers, the mix that they carry contains about 80% of water, and 20% of nectar; it is very runny and very watery, and cannot be stored on the hive. So, there has to be a transformation -made by the bees- to eliminate most of that water. The bees, through enzymatic metabolism, lower the concentration of water to about 20% - 25%. Then, the thicker mix is deposited in the cell. It is still too humid to store, so the bees 'dry' the honey by increasing the temperature of the hive, and flapping their wings, to eliminate humidity. Once the humidity reaches 18%, the honey cell is capped with wax. Uncapped honey in the cell contains usually >20% of humidity, and shouldn't be harvested. As such, if harvested too early, honey can ferment, giving it a sharp and sour taste and smell. Don't worry, our bees check the humidity of the honey. And, of course, we do also - as quality control, we also check the concentration of water in the honey through a refractometer, like the one in the photo. This year, the honey contains 17% of water.
Did you know that...?
....There are wine sommeliers, olive-oil sommeliers, less-known water sommeliers, and now, also, honey sommeliers! A honey sommelier is a specialist in honey, comparable to a wine sommelier, experts in the tasting, aroma and texture of honey. There is even a school of honey sommeliers, associated to the "Italian Register of Experts in the Sensory Analyses of Honey"...in Italy! In the masters course, the sommeliers are trained to identify the nuances of different honey varieties, including their characteristics and sources; they can also help people choose the right honey for their needs, and help the pairing with different types of food, bread or cheese. Of course, it is more sensorial than scientific, and most of the customers are very ...sophisticated people! Well, we do it more in the amateur way. Yet, from a scientific perspective, more quantitative analyses, like gas chromatography and mass spectrometry, as well as pollen analyses are used.
Swiss Bees
Let's talk about Swiss honey types - and particularly, ours! Most of the spring honeys are, in a high percentage, varietal. Varietal means that a high percentage of the nectar comes from the same type of flower. Bees are heavy workers, but also very smart ones. They optimize every single flight that they make. In every single trip, bees will collect nectar from one unique type of flower. So, if it is poppies, it is poppies for the whole trip; if it is clovers, clovers all the way! And bees don't fly blindly, or randomly; they know very well where they go, because they follow the directions that the honey bee-scouts have given them, through the famous bee-dance. About 10% of the younger bees are scouts, they fly around, and when they have found a good source of nectar, they bring 'tasters' of it to the hive, and share the taster with the fellow bees, indicating where that particular field of flowers is located. In our case, we know that our bees enjoy (and find around) clover fields, as well as acacia trees. Of course, they find other nectar; mainly from wildflowers...and whatever is blossoming in the fields Witikon!
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