a life with honey in the kitchen

Growing up I spent my summers with my Grandparents in a small coastal town in Northumbria, set on the Eastern border of England and Scotland. During that time, my Grandfather taught me beekeeping- he had ten hives he tended, while my Grandmother would grow a vast variety of fruits and vegetables in the garden- leeks, tomatoes, raspberries, gooseberries, apples and a wide array of flowers. The cross pollination of the bees ensured this thriving garden, the food was plentiful and hand picked at its peak.

Graham Dodds and Todd Hardie with a load of "wet" supers
on the big bee truck, about to return to the field
to return them to the bees. The bees are in the air

The hives would naturally swarm in the spring- often times we would see a cloud of bees from the kitchen window so we would rush to follow the swarm, collect it and introduce it into a new hive. This promoted growth and prosperity of the colonies. I was given the clippers and sent up the tree to fetch the swarm as a rite of passage, most often only wearing a t-shirt and shorts- no veil, no gloves. This early fascination with honeybees combined with hands on experience has made me what I am today. My Grandfather's honey was truly unique in flavor and texture. It was unlike any honey I had tasted before and for many years after. It wasn't until I became aware the reason it was so amazing was because it was truly raw, "farm style" honey that hadn't been heated. It was honey straight from the hive. It changed flavors with the seasons, depending on what wildflowers were in bloom in the large field behind his house.

Many years later when I was a chef in the same town as the honey house, working at Shelburne Farms I became acquainted with Todd, at Honey Gardens, and he educated me on the importance of truly raw honey. As a chef, my first impression is the taste. Heated honey is muted, the delicate flavors are lost. More importantly, heating honey destroys the beneficial and medicinal elements it contains. As a chef, I am a cook. I use honey as a sweetener whenever possible. Some recipes are adaptable, some aren't. In the lemon honey cake, honey is used in the recipe and baked. I accent this by drizzling raw honey over the top and sometimes serving it with a hunk of comb honey for textural contrast. I utilize raw honey in many other ways, finishing vinaigrettes with them, drizzling them over crepes, cheesecakes and even over the whole bruschetta tasting platter, our signature appetizer at Bolsa. It works well with all the components of this dish, sweetening up the sliced proscuitto, the smoked salmon, the tomato and goat cheese and with the sliced apples. I even drizzle it over duck breast and lamb racks. Face it, everything is better with honey.

My plead is for the youth of today to gain an interest in beekeeping and an understanding of how honeybees play such an integral part of our ecosystem. Without them, life as we know it will disappear.

My restaurant Bolsa was just awarded 2009 Restaurant of the year by D Magazine, and my pork jowl dish made the cover. We are in Oak Cliff, just south of Dallas,Texas, across the Trinity River, and we have become one of the most popular restaurants in the area; people are driving an hour to come dine, wait 1 1/2 - 2 hours for a table for my cuisine. It's flattering and it feels like the public has an awareness of what is important and healthy. It's an honor to be a part of that.

Best New Restaurant in Dallas

Here's to many more years of sweetness and light,

Graham Dodds

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Honey Teriyaki Shrimp by Ann Kennedy

1/2 cup raw honey
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup pineapple juice
4 Tbsp. melted butter
dash hot pepper sauce
1 lb. jumbo shrimp, peeled and deveined, tails left on

Mix first 5 ingredients. Pour over raw shrimp and marinate 10 minutes. Drain and grill shrimp over hot coals, basting occasionally, or roast in 400 degree oven until done.

Honey Gardens December 2009 newsletter

petit train va loin/the little train goes far

what I learned from the bees (#2) - the tortoise and the hare

Most of the honey bees in a hive are workers that go through a series of jobs that support the family with every chore necessary for the continuity of the family. On some days, they will be gathering nectar, propolis and pollen, and then spend some time working in the nursery to take care of the babies. At other times they are on guard duty to keep the aggressive cousins from coming and taking honey. The average life of these female worker bees in the summer months is six weeks when there is a lot of work to do, and the hive works as a family to bring in the crop and store it away. The other extreme in this range is in the winter when an average worker bee will live around six months, when the hive goes into dormancy and slows down. With the colder temperatures of the north, the cluster of bees gets tighter as the temperature drops, and the bees stay in a fairly close area, making warmth and eating enough to continue living. Their wings and bodies get more rest in the winter, and the bees live longer.

The bees essentially work themselves to death; when their wings wear out and they can no longer be useful to the family, the earth absorbs them and they become part of the great recycling of nature.

honey bee on New England Aster photo copyright Ann D. Watson, 2009

It is easy to get into this pattern in the life and seasons of a commercial beekeeper. One prepares for and then moves through the honey flowers with the bees. The honey flows can come with a powerful intensity that one wants to be ready for and efficiently utilize and not lose potential. In the years when we were working with 1,600 colonies of bees, the bees could make an average of 12 pounds of honey on a warm day when all the conditions were right, such as the soil being loaded with moisture and the fields of goldenrod not being mowed down. This translates into over 19,000 pounds of honey that they make in one day. The time to be prepared to work with nature can be intense.

I have always liked tortoises. It could be that there are not many turtles seen in Vermont, and the sightings a few times a year are special. When they are in the road, I stop and bring them to the side. They are special creatures, slowly moving along in their own shell of protection.

My path now is to learn more of the life of the tortoise. The French say that the "petit train va loin", or "the little train goes far". Our elderberry farmer Sylvain translates, "take your time and you will do more.....a little at a time adds up to a lot at the end".

The honey bees are magnificent; they help pollinate almost 40% of what we eat and help make the earth more productive and colorful; they bring healing to many with their gifts of raw honey, propolis, pollen, venom and beeswax. We can value their industriousness and hard work and respect the benefit in this, while understanding that they also come in later, like the hare, or do not finish the race, in their limited time of life on earth.

May your little train go far.

honey bee on goldenrod, fall 2009 photo copyright Ann D. Watson, 2009

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Recipes by Ann Kennedy

Honey Spiced Hot Cider
For each serving:
Combine in a saucepan, 1 cup unfiltered apple cider, 1/4 cup ginger ale, and 1/8cup orange juice.
Wrap 1 T whole cloves and 1 cinnamon stick in a small piece of cheesecloth and close tightly with kitchen twine.
Add to the cider mixture and bring slowly to a boil. Add 2 t of raw honey and stir until incorporated.
Reduce heat and simmer. Remove spices. Garnish with small strip of orange and lemon rind. Serve very hot with sliced, toasted French bread and blue cheese.

While this is delicious anytime, it also provides relief from sore throat discomfort.


Honey Fig Oatmeal Cookies

1 1/2 sticks butter, softened
1/2 cup raw honey
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup fig or apricot preserves
1 cup coconut
1 cup flour
1 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
1/4 t each cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg

Mix together the first 7 ingredients.
Sift dry ingredients and combine with the butter mixture.
Drop by rounded T on a parchment covered baking sheet, 2 inches apart.

Bake at 350 degrees for 12-14 minutes. This is a very moist and chewy cookie.

Honey Sweet Potato Souffle

Line a baking pan with foil, puncture and bake 4 large sweet potatoes in a 400 degree oven until done--about 1 hour.
Peel the potatoes and add 6 T butter, 1/2 t Chinese Five-Spice, 1/4 t nutmeg, and 1/4 t ginger.
Add 4 T raw honey, 1/2 cup brown sugar and puree all ingredients until light and fluffy.
Beat 2 eggs until creamy and pale yellow and beat thoroughly into sweet potato mixture.
Bake in a lightly greased casserole dish at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes.

Honey Glazed Cornish Game Hens with Brown Rice Apple Stuffing

4 Cornish game hens, rinsed and patted dry.
2 T olive oil
2 T raw honey
salt and pepper
Herbes de Provence
1-1/2 cups brown rice cooked in chicken stock
5 T butter
1/4 cup chopped celery
1/2 cup chopped apple
1/4 cup chopped pecans
2 T chopped onion
2 T golden raisins

Mix together the olive oil and honey and rub liberally over the game hens. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and herbs. Set aside.
Saute the celery, apple, pecans, onion and raisins in butter until onions are translucent.
Combine with the cooked brown rice.
Stuff each game hen.
Roast according to package directions, typically about 45-50 minutes until nicely brown and tender.

Honey Roasted Green Beans (A Christmas dish with a twist)

1 lb. fresh green beans
2 slices thick-sliced bacon, chopped
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup diced tomato
1/4 cup raw honey
1/2 cup sliced almonds
2 T Balsamic vinegar

Blanch green beans in boiling water for about 1 minute. Reduce heat and continue to cook until crisp but tender. Drain and spread beans on a rimmed baking sheet. Combine chopped bacon, onion, and almonds in a small skillet. Cook and stir on high heat until bacon is slightly crisp. Sprinkle this mixture on the green beans along with the diced tomatoes. Drizzle with vinegar. Drop small bits of raw honey by teaspoon over the green beans. Roast at 400 for about 15-20 minutes until mixture looks slightly darkened. Recipe can be doubled. This recipe works for other vegetables as well--Brussel sprouts, root vegetables, mixtures, etc. Finely chopped vegetables prepared this way also make a great topping for bacon and brie pizza--great with shrimp and mushrooms added.

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Thank you for your support of the honey bees, plant medicine, and those that work in agriculture.




Todd

working at the honey house...

The flowers of five months of the cool, northern summer have passed and only a few yellow goldenrod and purple aster plants color the countryside. The work of the beekeepers is now to gather and extract the crop. For many beekeepers, the bees made a crop at the very end of the season. In the honey house we are bottling the goldenrod/fall crop and blueberry honey. The elderberry crop has been picked, and this fruit, new goldenrod honey, and fresh pollen have been appearing in bowls of oatmeal many mornings around the honey house.

working at the honey house.........

Susan & Bees
Susan holding her first frame of honey at the honey house, September 2009

For the last few years working for Honey Gardens I have proudly boasted about the health benefits of "our" raw honey and plant medicine. I live in the New York City area and serve as a demo rep and communicator, proudly known as the "Northeastern Sister". My work includes educating staff in natural foods stores, introducing Honey Gardens' products to new stores and, of course, performing lots of honey tastings! I do my best to represent the bees, in appreciation of their tremendous hard work and organization of which I am truly in awe. I also share information about the healing properties of the medicinal herbs and contents of plant medicine.

One way I strive to obtain this knowledge for myself is by visiting Honey Gardens in Vermont and being close to the source. Here I can visit with the bees and get "hands-on" experience by helping with bottling, labeling and anything else they will let me do! The folks up there are so very patient with me, allowing me into the honey house to get in their way. I feel like a complete tourist!

I was able to be a part of the production team for one day and we made Apitherapy Organic Elderberry Syrup (that had been a dream of mine for a while). I actually picked elderberries that were growing right outside of the honey house. They are amazing shades of red and purple and you must hold them up towards the sun to check that they are ripe. They must be nearly black before they are ready to pick.

As I was de-stemming elderberries for the kettles, I thought about how so many people across the country, and perhaps beyond, will be able to use this formula for healing. It was a very rewarding feeling and with these intentions in mind, I went forth throughout what could have been a demanding and difficult day with a big grin on my face and lots of positive energy. Together we managed to produce and bottle well over 1000 bottles of plant medicine, being sure to finish each packed box with a personal hand-written symbol of health and well-being. Talk about spirit......

Honeybee on jewelweed (aka touch-me-not)
c. Ann D. Watson, September 2009

Vermont is a verdant, flourishing land and Honey Gardens' garden is no exception. There are elderberry bushes, sunflowers, healing medicinal plants and herbs and a thriving veggie patch!! Andrew, our herbalist, gave me a tour of elecampane, nettles, thistle and much more. I have been raving about these plants and their healing powers as ingredients in Honey Gardens' products and here they were!

I saved the best for last......

Todd took me out to see the bees, it is so very inspiring, almost breathtaking to be this close to the source. We visited several hives including some wild bees that had moved into some old equipment. They had survived the summer with seeming abundance. Lots of honey was there as we chiseled through the propolis seal to check on them. We provided the bees with a few more boxes with which to build for the remaining three weeks or so of the bees' goldenrod season. I realized this assists them and it helped me to understand the relationship between us and the bees and how we do support each other.

It is important for me to try to give back, and I really hope to have hives someday. I would like to provide some bees a clean and safe place to live. Until then, I appreciate all that I can experience and learn from Todd and the community here. I can truly say I feel like a real part of a team, something so much larger and greater than myself. Honey Gardens is truly like a beehive with everyone working and cooperating together. I know I will be buzzing for a while!

Susan Blacklocke


Pumpkin Raw Honey Spice Cookies by Ann Kennedy

1 15 oz. can pumpkin or fresh pureed pumpkin, if you have it
1 stick butter, softenedPumpkin cookies
1 cup raw honey
2 eggs
1 cup light brown sugar, packed
2 ¾ cups flour
1 t baking powder
½ t baking soda
½ t salt
1 t each ginger and nutmeg
1 ½ t cinnamon
½ cup chopped pecans, if desired
½ cup golden raisins, if desired

Mix together first 5 ingredients and beat until smooth and creamy.
Sift together dry ingredients.
Combine moist and dry ingredients and mix well.
Drop by rounded soup spoon onto parchment covered baking sheet, about 2 inches apart.
Sprinkle lightly with a mixture of cinnamon and sugar.
Bake at 350 degrees for 13-14 minutes.

These are great served right out the oven with French vanilla ice cream and home made caramel sauce.

What I learned from the bees (# 1 in a series)

The new crops of northern honey are in ! We are now sharing Apitherapy raw honey from this region and blueberry honey from Maine. After almost three months of rain, the First Fruits of the new crops are in the honey house, and we are grateful to be able to send this delicious honey to you.

What I learned from the bees (# 1 in a series)

patience

Working with the honey bees helps to stretch and fortify one's patience. While we do all we can to help the bees make a crop, such as give them mite resistant queens that have been selected over the years, make sure they have enough room to raise brood and make honey, give them equipment that has light wax or foundation to help them keep their home clean, follow other organic support procedures that encourage them to be stronger in the midst of mites and other environmental challenges, wrapping them well for the northern winters, etc. , the ultimate control of a honey crop is not in our hands.

In Northern Vermont, we are blessed by five months of sunny summer weather, often cool and seldom hot. This is the weather that allows for the good crops, and encourages flowers to make nectar. Where the summer temperatures are hotter, this production of nectar may be shut down. This year it has been raining for much of the last six weeks. While this has been a challenge and hardship to a vegetable farmer, for those that are growing strawberries or tomatoes, or those who plant fields of corn, things are different in the world of honey bees. The rains have allowed the plants to grow larger and stronger, producing many flowers that will offer nectar. The soil is loaded with water. When we get sun now, and if it is in the time when there are flowers on the clovers, milkweed, knapweed, goldenrod, or other flowers, the bees could make a good crop.

In many years of working with the bees, I often found that the crops were made in the last week of the five month season. As a young commercial beekeeper, there were weeks of great anxiety and worry in the years when the bees did not make a crop for the first 95% of the season. Imagine a profession where there was not a weekly paycheck, but the whole year's income was primarily made on a few days at the very end of the season. This has happened over and over again, and has helped me grow in patience and faith in this work, and also in life itself. I feel grateful to have experienced a string of miracles where there is no surplus honey on the bees one day, and ten days later when you come back to inspect, three or four boxes of honey are found on the upper areas of the hive.

Over the years, I have become very sensitive to the moment in time, when, after all the waiting, watching, and prayers, I first saw that a crop was made. I call this the "turning point", always so thankful for the day. I will never forget the minute in a particularly dry year - I walked up to the bees in the "Glake bee yard" in the St. Lawrence River Valley of Northern New York. Upon opening the first three colonies, I saw that all had made an average of 60+ lb. of honey where there had been no honey two weeks earlier. Each hive in this yard was the same. Then I heard the "click clack" of the horses as they drove by, pulling a cart with an Amish family, the men all dressed in blue shirts and their straw summer hats. This was a very special moment I will never forget.

As beekeepers, we do all that we can to help the bees; we give them room, keep them in areas where we believe they will be able to gather nectar and pollen, be protected from the bears and the winter winds, and help them with their queens. Then, we have to let go, and let them do their work.

A life of beekeeping has given me a great peace about the things that I cannot control. Every season we are given daily opportunities to understand the prayer of serenity more fully:

"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things that I cannot change.
Courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference. "

Ancient and Present Super Foods

Ancient and Present Super Foods

Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. With this thought, many people are discovering super-foods. Super foods contain highly concentrated nutritional and healing compounds. Many feel these potent foods are our best immune and emotional shield, in a rapidly changing world, that finds us far from a natural balance. Around the world people are on the path of discovering the very best super foods our planet has to offer.

Raw honey and other bee products are showing up on several Top Ten Super Foods lists. According to David Wolfe in his new book "Superfoods" The Food and Medicine of the Future, the only other food that comes close to richness in history and legend is chocolate (cacao). From cave drawings in Spain,13,000 BCE to Google searches in 2009, bees have been associated with health, healing, legend, myth and magic.

Raw Food

Many people are discovering the benefits of a raw diet. Eating raw is an amazing lifestyle movement that includes such dishes as raw Red Beet Ravioli with cashew cheese filling and raw lime tart with macadamia crust. These foods are healthy, delicious and full of beneficial enzymes.

Our health increases when we rely on the foods we eat to provide enzymes. Raw foods have enzymes. Foods cooked at 113 degrees for 3 minutes, will kill all enzymes present in the food. The lack of enzymes in our foods will cause the liver, pancreas, and intestines to work harder to produce the enzymes required to catalyze functions that break down food and help to assimilate nutrients. Enzyme rich foods can slow the aging process, increase longevity, and aid healthy digestion.

milkweed in bloom Photo by Ann Watson 2009 copyright

Healthy Honey

Raw honey is filled with minerals, enzymes, antioxidants and probiotics. Research indicates that raw, unprocessed honey is the richest source of live healing enzymes found in nature, and can promote reflexes, and mental alertness.

Honey is very soothing to our digestion and increases absorption of minerals. It elevates our blood sugar levels slowly. As our blood sugar elevates, a rise of insulin causes the amino acid tryptophan (found in raw honey) to create an increase in the serotonin levels in our brain, a hormone that promotes relaxation. It also increases our melatonin levels. Melatonin, secreted by the pineal gland in response to darkness, has long been used to cure sleeping disorders. Recently, the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration, the equivalent of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, approved raw honey as a" therapeutic medicinal food". Much research is being done on the anti-fungal, anti-microbial and anti-viral compounds found in raw honey. For researchers the list of benefits is long and growing.

We trust that science will continue to reveal the nutritional wonders that raw honey has to offer, proving empirically what our early ancestors intuitively responded to, honey is great tasting and good for us in ways we can hardly imagine.

Dana Matthews Honey Gardens Winery and Caledonia Spirits

Recipes by Dana Matthews

Honey Mustard Dressing Yields 1 1/8 cups of dressing ¼ c raw honey ¼ c Dijon mustard ¼ c raw apple cider vinegar ¼ c cold pressed olive oil 1 clove crushed garlic 1 tsp Celtic sea salt

Place honey, mustard, garlic, vinegar, & salt in blender or food processor, pulse for 10 seconds, Set to medium/high setting and gradually add oil so that it incorporates and thickens slightly (about 15 seconds). Store in refrigerator until served.

Enzyme Shake Serves 2 to 4 2 c diced pineapple 2 c diced papaya 1 ½ c coconut water 3 tbs raw honey 2 tsp vanilla extract squeeze of lime juice pinch of Celtic sea salt

Blend ingredients in blender until smooth.

raw honey in healing and the treatment of wounded marine mammals

An adult female sea lion that was admitted with a wound on her back. It is a contaminated wound and is quite deep involving several muscle groups along the spine. The honey seems to be very effective in lifting debris out of contaminated wounds. The animals tolerate bandage changes well and I am under the impression the bandage changes with raw honey are not very painful to them. The honey dressing doesn't adhere to the injured tissue. With wounds like this bacteria can be transmitted to other parts of the body via the blood stream or lymphatics and oral antibiotics should be used in addition to all topical treatments.

The use of honey as a remedy has been recorded in several historical references. As a wound treatment honey has received renewed attention in the medical community for several reasons; honey does not appear to induce bacterial resistance, many species of bacteria appear susceptible to honey, and wound healing is often more rapid than with standard treatments. Honey has several properties that accounts for its antibacterial properties including low pH, high osmolarity, and production of low levels of hydrogen peroxide that do not induce damage of healthy tissue. In addition, honey has been demonstrated to stimulate tissue repair by increasing the cellular response to a wound site. There are numerous testimonials as well as an increasing number of clinical trials that support the use of un-pasteurized honey as an effective wound treatment in both humans and animals.

When I started to use honey on the wounds I took a lot of jokes .... do you need any peanut butter with that bandage, doc? or " too bad you don't have two slices of bread to go with that..." but after everyone saw the results, the jokes have pretty much subsided. Now mostly people are just amazed at the results. I use raw honey almost exclusively now to treat surface wounds of this nature.

Thanks again,

Lauren Palmer DVM
The Marine Mammal Care Center Fort MacArthur
3601 S Gaffey St.San Pedro, CA 90731, (310) 548-5677
www.marinemammalcare.org



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BVT ( Bee Venom Therapy ) APITHERAPY AND ME

BOB HARDY, VERGENNES, VT 05491-9070
My connection to BVT apitherapy began about 15 years ago when I came down with an inflammation in my hip joints. We were at some cocktail party and I was complaining to someone whom I cannot recall about my condition which at that time was at my age of about 65 years young. The condition really bothered me as I love to walk and to ski! Anyway, the person said, “see that lady over there, that is my wife and she had bad hip arthritis and now look at this photo of her hiking in the high mountains carrying a 65 lb. back pack.. She got rid of her arthritis by bee sting therapy”. “WHAT!” I said I went on a bit about being allergic to bees I thought. He said, I doubt it, get hold of Charlie Mraz whom I had not the slightest idea of who and where he was. So next day, I found that Charlie Mraz lived in Middlebury, the next town and I called him and explained my situation. He said, “come on over we’ll test you. I have some people coming this afternoon anyway.” So began my life continuing symbiotic relationship with honey bees. Bottom line, by working with Charlie, he proved to me I was not allergic to honey bees, only wasps. He started me off on applying bee sting therapy to my hips and then taught me how to gather the bees in a jar so they would live to help me. Karin and I applied bee stings on and off about 3 times a week to each hip. After about six weeks of this, the hips one day became very itchy, red, and hot. The next morning all of that reaction was gone, and the hip inflammation along with it. Since that moment I have never felt any recurrence of the hip inflammation. Unfortunately Charlie has left us but he left behind his legacy “Bees don’t get arthritis” and the Apitherapy Society.
To this day, I consult with the Todd Hardie who applies bee sting venom therapy with care and precision, and making us appreciate the sacrifice the bees are making to make us healthy. Some other benefit of bee sting therapy I have found to be helpful and ameliorating cover the subjects of the following.
• SAD - Seasonal affected disorder. Bee venom therapy applied once or twice monthly when the days are short in Vermont uplifts the body to be more positive.
• Immunity – The long winters compromise one’s immune system in Vermont. The use of bee venom therapy can help maintain a strong immune system.
• Wound Recovery: I have had a recurrence of a melanoma which we treated entirely with holistic powerful herbs as the establishment medical procedure was not reliable as I learned to my dismay. In order to assist in the healing process of the herbal destruction of the cancer cells, we applied bee venom therapy near the cancer site which helped the healthy skin tissue to be rejuvenated more rapidly. (Charlie Mraz said that bee keepers do not get cancer!)
Cause and effect. It is our anecdotal belief that the application of bee venom therapy catalyzes the natural defense systems of one’s body to bring enhanced natural cortisone which everyone has, to the site of the bee sting for enhanced healing. The bee venom also marshal the body’s natural defense systems to get to work.

Honey Gardens on the Food Network

Meriwether Hardie speaking to a group at the Fable Farm & CSA, Barnard, Vermont, August 2008, in the filming of the TV special

A feature from the series “My Life in Food” that includes Honey Gardens will be on national TV on Saturday April 11 @ 6:30 pm on the Food Network.

Last summer Meriwether spent time with the bees, in the bee yards, as she taught about bees in Vermont and around her college in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and this was filmed for this TV special on raw honey and another farm that produces raw milk.

"In August, the bees are working on the clover family plants and goldenrod. We are starting to see the first of the aster flowers. The vegetables on the farm that need to be pollinated have already been visited by the bees. At this time, it is important to think about whether the bees will have enough food to get through the winter. It has been a cool, wet summer, and I suspect that the bees have not made as much food here as in previous seasons."

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Raw Honey Fruit Kabobs by Ann Kennedy

Puree one large banana with 3/4 cup raw honey in a processor or blender.

On wood skewers, alternate chunks of fresh fruit. Good combinations are watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew, and bananas or pineapple, bananas, and strawberries.

Dip kabobs in honey mixture and roll in wheat germ. Put in freezer or refrigerator until firm. This is also good using only bananas, cut in 1" thick slices and threaded with a toothpick.

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We appreciate your interest in and support of the bees and their work.