Honey

Honey and Honey Bees

Honey is a nutritious, delightful, all-natural sweetener without any added ingredients. We have our own honey bees at Just Piddlin Farm that produce delicious honey and help pollinate our pumpkins and gourds.  We invite you to observe the bees in our observation hive or from a distance in the bee yard.

So how do bees make honey? Honeybees use nectar to make honey. They get nectar from pumpkin blooms, dandelions, clover and trees visiting anywhere from 100 to over 1000 flowers before returning to the hive. At the hive house bees chew the nectar with enzymes breaking down the complex sugars into simple sugars. The bees put the honey into honeycomb cells where water evaporates thickening the honey. Once the honey is at the proper moisture level the bees seal off the cell with a plug of wax.

Honey is good for you. It has minerals, trace enzymes, vitamins, and amino acids. A tablespoon provides 17 grams of carbohydrates and 64 calories.  It also contains a variety of phenolic acids and flavonoids, which are antioxidants. The darker the honey, the more antioxidants.

Some of the hives in our bee yard where we produce our honey.

Local Honey bee yard

Picture of Chip explaining to a group of elementary students the different components of a bee hive and a task of honey straight from the hive.

Local Honey

Often in the heat of the summer you will see bees hanging on the outside of the hive box.

Honey bees on outside of hive

This is what a frame of honey looks like prior to being put in the extractor.

Local Honey Extraction

This extractor spins the honey out of the honey comb.

Local Honey Extractor