the turning point

Our season and work with the honey bees starts when there is snow on the ground in March. Through the late winter, spring, and early summer for almost four months, we visit the bees and encourage them to grow into strong colonies to make honey and prepare for the next winter. We are never quite sure when the bees will start to make “surplus” honey it is much of a mystery and there are so factors that we have no control over (length and coldness of winter, rainfall and temperature in May when the bees are getting stronger, bears, the parasitic mite, the loss of bee yards and flowers to suburban sprawl)

For years I defined the " turning point" as that specific moment in the time when we realize that the bees have made a honey crop. This moment is a relief, after months of work in the field, it is truly memorable. I will never forget the turning point of 1997, on July 5 when I found honey for the first time at the Glake bee yard. The sound of horse’s hooves and metal wheels of the Amish buggy resounded in the air from one side of the field to the other.

As we are now in the midst of our harvest this season, I see that a larger turning point has taken place. Honey Gardens Apiaries' diversification from solely working with honey bees and offering honey to working with bees, herbs and plants to make plant medicine is well underway because of the efforts and love that two people have given us. It is time to give thanks.


Elderberry
is the first word that describes the beginning of the turning point with our work with bees.

Lewis and Todd in front of his home, Spring 2003
Lewis, his father and grandfather were born here.

We were guided to elderberry by our dear friend Lewis Hill in Greensboro, Vermont. For years he has studied elderberry, which are native to and older than Vermont, and bred plants with fruit that are larger than those in the wild. Elderberry is rich in Vitamin C and controls viruses that chemical medicines do not touch, as in the common cold and flu. Elderberry builds up the immunity system, and when it mixed with raw honey, bee gathered propolis and organic propolis, the result is potent plant medicine.

With Lewis' help, we have started the Vermont elderberry project. We are growing two of Lewis’ cultivars, " Berry Hill" and " Coomer" and have started an orchard of elderberry plants to supply berries for our extract and also make plants available each Spring to those who want to grow elderberry, a " Johnny Appleseed-type" project to help re-populate elderberry in the region.


Purple loosestrife
is one of the reasons that we are able to work with bees in the north. The bees gather abundant nectar from purple loosestrife each season, including the many years that there is a drought in the region. Growing in wet, swampy areas, the purple loosestrife yields abundant nectar, giving life to pollinating insects across this land. It is also pure plant medicine, and we now make a very effective throat spray & wound wash because of the help of Barbara Nardozzi. Her words about this new product describe how it works, but even more so, refer to her generous spirit and how she has helped Honey Gardens Apiaries so much in the last year.

Nieka harvesting purple loosestrife, Charlotte Vermont

"We never cease to be amazed in life when people and events come together synergistically, where their efforts and the resulting outcomes grow far beyond the potential accomplishments of a single individual. Our propolis, purple loosestrife, and Usnea wound wash, the newest product offered by the honey house, is not only the result of such synergistic human efforts, but its key ingredients are synergistic players as well. The herbs and propolis work beautifully together to promote tissue repair, heal fresh scar tissue, decrease inflammation and bleeding, stimulate local immune system functions, and act as an antibacterial, antifungal, anti-inflammatory, and antiviral agent. The astringent quality contributes its effectiveness as an antidiarrheal agent as well. In the language of wound healing, this is indeed broad spectrum coverage."


Lewis and Barbara, you have helped us to see what is all around us. Your love and ongoing support of the bees and people have truly been a blessing. You both continue to show us that the best crop in Vermont is our people.

Thank you so much.



how you may help the bees

This has been a challenging season. The honey crop came late and is a light one so far. Bears have destroyed many bee hives, and the loss of bees and honey to the bears is more than we could ever have imagined. All of this has forced us to look even deeper and more honestly at ourselves to see what we can do to be more sustainable with each other and our work at work at Honey Gardens. We have invested our energies into extending our plant medicine line, to be making products that heal and help people, using moderate amounts of our bees' Apitherapy raw honey and plants. We are letting go of distribution of honey to such a broad geographical region. The marketing of our Apitherapy raw honey will only continue with the support in the marketplace of our plant medicine products. We appreciate your ongoing support of these at your health food stores, food cooperatives, and via our website. If these stores do not have them yet, please let us know so that we may contact them and send samples. Thank you.

Apitherapy propolis throat spray & wound wash with purple loosestrife & Usnea

We never cease to be amazed in life when people and events come together synergistically, where their efforts and the resulting outcomes grow far beyond the potential accomplishments of a single individual. Our propolis, purple loosestrife, and Usnea wound wash, the newest product offered by the honey house, is not only the result of such synergistic human efforts, but its key ingredients are synergistic players as well. The herbs and propolis work beautifully together to promote tissue repair, heal fresh scar tissue, decrease inflammation and bleeding, stimulate local immune system functions, and act as an antibacterial, antifungal, anti-inflammatory, and antiviral agent. The astringent quality contributes its effectiveness as an antidiarrheal agent as well. In the language of wound healing, this is indeed broad spectrum coverage.

The arrival of our throat spray & wound wash to the marketplace at this time is indeed fortuitous. In this age of antibiotic resistance there needs to be a natural product that acts as a broad spectrum antibiotic and antiseptic (similar in nature to iodine and Betadine™). Propolis, raw honey, and Usnea are known individually to have strong antibiotic activity against gram-positive bacteria such as Streptococcus, Staphylococcus, and Pneumonococcus organisms. Combined in the same formula, propolis, raw honey, and Usnea with added purple loosestrife act synergistically to provide a unique natural coverage as a broad spectrum antibiotic and antiseptic. For people who cannot or choose not to take pharmaceutical antibiotics, throat spray & wound wash is a welcome solution.

Purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria), the much-maligned-of-late, magenta flowered, aggressively growing wetlands perennial, is a key contributor to wound wash effectiveness. Originally introduced to the North American cut flower trade from Japan in the 1880s, perennial flower enthusiasts more recently have included it in their gardens because of its lovely spikes of purply-pink flowers. No one foresaw that purple loosestrife was a beauty who didn’t respect boundaries and as a result, she began replacing native plant wetland species. Our intention at the honey house is to take full advantage of the local abundance of purple loosestrife. We harvest it in a way that not only discourages its invasive spread into our wetland ecosystems, but also optimizes its contributions to the wound wash formula. Its wound healing properties as an antibacterial, astringent, emollient, anti-inflammatory, and antihemorrhagic (styptic) agent combine nicely with those of the propolis and Usnea. In using purple loosestrife we are removing it from ecosystems where it doesn’t belong and at the same time creating a very effective wound wash, because of its synergistic effect with propolis and Usnea.

Though loosestrife threatens native aquatic vegetation, it provides an important pollen source for pollinators, particularly in times of drought, and is ranked close to goldenrod as a leading nectar producing plant. In an effort to constructively utilize this overabundant perennial, valued by many herbalists for its medicinal properties, we have formulated an Apitherapy propolis (a natural antibiotic produced by the bees) purple loosestrife Usnea throat spray and wound wash that is now available.

For a few years we have been noticing that the bee yards closest to stands of loosestrife produced significantly more honey than did other hives. During times of drought, we saw that these plants helped to keep our bees alive and productive. Since nearly 40% of the food we eat depends on pollination by insects, of which honeybees play a major role, survival of pollinators because of loosestrife is an important service to food producers and consumers around the country.

Appreciative of the plant's contribution to the work of the bees, we sought a means of further synthesizing the two. Knowing the plant’s medicinal value, we obtained permission from the State of Vermont to harvest the otherwise quarantined plant. In August, 2002, our crew wildcrafted acres of loosestrife. Shortly afterwards, herbalists Barbara Raab Nardozzi and Tim McFarline formulated a wound wash using loosestrife and Usnea extracts and propolis. Usnea is a lichen that has been traditionally used throughout the world as an antiseptic, antibacterial, and antifungal agent. We harvest it from living and dead trees in Vermont and the north country.

Our new product joins the line of Honey Gardens Apitherapy natural products. We currently produce Apitherapy Farm-style Raw Honey containing beneficial traces of pollen, propolis and beeswax Apitherapy Honey Elderberry Extract, a traditional cold and flu fighter, made with organic elderberry, echinacea and natural vitamin C and cough calming Apitherapy Honey Wild Cherry Syrup, made with propolis, organic and wildcrafted herbs.

Thank you for your interest in and support of our bees and their work.

live foods, enzymes and raw honey

New England Aster aster
photo by Daniel Mushrush

It is not fresh news that the standard American diet (acronym is s.a.d.!) is not health supportive. For at least four decades, we have been listening to the medical community’s advice about the quality and quantity of fat and fiber in our diets, and the increased incidence of heart disease, diabetes (particularly Type II, adult onset), cancer, and obesity among our population. As a result, many people have shifted their dietary intakes toward a plant-based diet which is rich in vitamins, minerals, fiber, and antioxidants, just to name a few nutrients. We have improved our diets “in layers,” meaning that the initial shift for some people is toward a plant-based diet. Subsequent layers or shifts include incorporating more organic produce and free-range poultry and meats, and what we call “superfoods.” Superfoods are called such because they are foods that are naturally rich in vitamins, minerals, and trace minerals. Blue-green algaes (e.g., chlorella and spirulina), seaweeds (e.g., kelp and dulse), bee pollen, and raw honey are examples of superfoods because of their extraordinarily generous contents of beneficial nutrients.

The most recent layer of awareness that has resulted in a shift in dietary improvement is the knowledge that certain foods contain highly beneficial, therapeutic enzymes. Many of us are returning to a way of eating that incorporates the ways of traditional or native peoples. Not only are our food choices minimally processed (considered “whole foods”) and grown or raised organically, but equally importantly, many are vital, rich in, and alive with enzymes. In short, they are “live foods.” Even though a traditional society/culture might not know what an enzyme is and how it works, these people benefit from eating foods that are rich in enzymes. Their low incidence of modern diseases and their longevity are the result of eating health-supportive diets. Lower stress levels as compared to those of people living in the modern world are a factor we can’t ignore as well.

Before we go further, we need to talk about what enzymes are. Enzymes are necessary for our bodies to function optimally. They are substances (protein specifically) that are able to simplify complex elements into simple elements. There are three classes of enzymes: digestive, metabolic, and food enzymes (which are present in raw foods). Enzymes are catalysts for biochemical processes and reactions in the body. When we are talking about digestion, this means that enzymes are necessary for the digestion of or breakdown of foods (like fats, carbohydrates, and proteins) into their simplest form. Enzymes make it possible for proteins to be broken down into amino acids and for complex carbohydrates to be broken down into simple sugars, for example. In addition to supporting digestion and making it possible, enzymes are also metabolic. They are involved in hundreds of metabolic reactions within our bodies which enable our complex biochemistries to work in the miraculous ways that they do, converting foods that we eat into renewing building products and energy.

All humans have what is called “enzyme potential,” meaning that we are born with an enzyme-making potential to satisfy the metabolic and digestive needs of the body. Nutrients that we ingest in the form of mostly raw and uncooked foods are also used to manufacture enzymes because our bodies’ enzyme reserves can’t always meet the demands for enzymes. Our bodies have evolved the natural ability to conserve enzymes by manufacturing them only on demand. We can also arrange for digestive enzymes to come into the body by taking digestive enzymes in capsule form. The virtues of enzymes and their significance in today’s diets are exclaimed/appreciated by noted doctors such as the late Dr. Edward Howell. A number of books, most notably Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats (1999), by Sally Fallon with Mary Enig, Ph.D. and Patient Heal Thyself (2003), by Jordan Rubin, N.M.D, C.N.C., are also emphasizing the importance of enzymes in the diet.

What are some sources of these beneficial enzymes? Raw honey is a food noted for its exceptionally high enzyme content. Other enzyme-rich raw foods include bee (flower) pollen, vegetables and fruits (especially avocado, banana, papaya, and pineapple), extra virgin olive oil, raw dairy foods, lacto-fermented dairy products like yogurt and kefir and cultured or fermented foods such as miso and sauerkraut. (Grains, nuts, legumes, and seeds are rich in enzymes as well as other nutrients, but they also contain enzyme inhibitors like phytic acid. This is why traditional cultures soak and sprout these foods in order to deactivate the enzyme inhibitors.) It needs to be emphasized here that these foods must not be heated so that the enzymes are viable and available. Here at Honey Gardens Apiaries, our honey is strictly raw and unheated, thus retaining the maximum enzyme content.

As mentioned above, because our honey is raw and unheated, the maximum enzyme content and health benefits are present for the consumer. Honey contains more than 75 different compounds (Buhner, Herbal Antibiotics, pp. 47 – 48), among them: enzymes, minerals and trace minerals, vitamins, proteins, carbohydrates, organic acids, and hydrogen peroxide. The enzymes in raw honey help to initiate the process of digestion and reduce the body’s need to produce digestive enzymes. Because of its high enzyme content, raw honey spares the enzyme reserves of the pancreas and other digestive organs. They won’t be constantly stimulated to produce and secrete various digestive enzymes. Wonderful long-term benefits of this enzyme-sparing activity are good health, increased longevity and energy, fewer illnesses, and a healthy immune system. In this way, one can see the importance of including raw, unheated honey in the diet.

Thank you for your interest in and support of our bees and their work.

Wild Cherry - Botanical Treasure

Our northern woods, fields, and wetlands are rich in botanical treasures. Many of these plants are medicinal as well. In particular,Vermont transitional forests are home to one of our most valued medicinal trees, the wild cherry, or Prunus serotina. We value the wild cherry for its inner bark which is a main ingredient in our wild cherry cough syrup.

Unlike commercial cough medicines which are typically flavored, colored, and sweetened as if containing actual cherry fruits, our formula is made the way traditional wild cherry bark cough syrups have been made since the nineteenth century. It is the bark rather than the fruit that is more therapeutic and medicinal. Of specific influence and inspiration to our formula is Dr. D.C. Jarvis, a twentieth century Vermont folk medicine country doctor, whose use of both apple cider vinegar and raw honey in treating coughs is tried and true. Our Apitherapy wild cherry syrup contains a base of raw honey and organic apple cider vinegar to which we add organic and wild crafted herbs and propolis.

Contained within our vision is the intention of wildcrafting sustainably, never depleting natural populations of wild medicine plants. Todd’s brother-in-law is a forester and alerted him that some cherry trees had been cut down and bark would be available from sections of logs that were too small to be marketable. Tim and Carol of the honey house crew carefully removed first the outer bark which is not used, and then the prized inner bark for our syrup. This is a wonderful example of the choreography of sustainable practice: agriculture working in tandem with forestry.

There is a bit of irony surrounding the naming of our plant medicine, the wild cherry syrup. Although ingredients in our formula have been used traditionally to treat coughs at least since the early nineteenth century (and volumes of anecdotal evidence support their success rate), we cannot label our syrup a cough syrup because it does not contain one of the chemicals that the FDA deems necessary to include for such labeling.


Our wild cherry syrup is pure plant medicine. It acts as a respiratory relaxant, an anti-inflammatory and demulcent for inflamed respiratory tissues, and an antitussive for relieving irritating, relentless, and spasmodic coughs. The propolis and raw honey contribute antibiotic action, making this a very effective product.

to order Apitherapy honey wild cherry syrup, Apitherapy honey, and more, via credit card from our website click here

Apitherapy raw honey is important for maintaining health, too, because it is one of the eight or so foods that are very high in enzymes.

Welcome to Spring

The bees have overwintered well and are starting to fly on warm days.

picture of colonies wrapped in tarpaper
on our Amish friend Moses' land last week.

We have spent much of the winter making Apitherapy honey elderberry extract and Honey house propolis salve.

Andrew with the first

2 bottles of elderberry extract.

As I was walking away from a gathering recently, and someone asked me about the bees.

Wherever I go in northern Vermont, there is awareness and interest in honey bees. People are conscious of the bees and want to know how they are wintering, how the crop is going, or how they are surviving the attack of the parasitic mites.

As I started talking about the bees and how we are now combining honey with elderberry, a group of elder ladies gathered around around and started telling stories about what their parents did with elderberry when they were children. Jam was made, to be used through the winter when someone had a cold or flu, pie and wine were part of the yearly rhythm of the farm kitchen. The ladies were excited to remember a fruit that was important to the family in their youth and that they have not seen much of since then. The elderberry has skipped a generation.

Days after making elderberry, I am still find purple splotches on my clothing. It is a very tenacious berry. At the Vermont Food Venture Center in Fairfax, where we make the elderberry extract,we learned that elderberry is the only food product that stains the white coats we wear there that will not come clean in the wash. This reminded me of propolis that lingers in our bee suits after many washings.

It is now five months since these elderberries were harvested and 12 years since Lewis Hill told me about the elderberries and and encouraged me to get involved with them. The journey has been a long one I reflected on all of this last week at the end of one of Tim and my 11 hour days in the Venture Center making elderberry extract. Purple jars with different formulations were scattered all over the room and we were closing in on the fine tuning for the formula. We were on the edge of finding a way to keep our bees' Apitherapy raw honey from crystallizing and the elderberry from jellying up in the bottle and still keep the honey totally raw. Samples were delivered by messenger (me) up to a $7,000 computer analyzing each test batch as we tweaked the recipe.

“Tim, we have made elderberry-honey extract !” I proclaimed, feeling almost drunk in the spirit as I realized how we were at the conclusion of many years of work.

“We are not making elderberry, “ he wisely responded, “we are delivering elderberry."

Thank you for your support of our bees and their work.

The elderberry has long been used for healing in Native America and in the Vermont farm kitchen. Traditionally used for colds and the flu, it is rich in Vitamin C. Elderberry has been known to build up the immunity system and to fight some viruses that chemical medicines do not work on. At the honey house we mix organic elderberry with Apitherapy raw honey, propolis, and organic Echinacea. Propolis is a natural antibiotic gathered by the bees from the buds of poplar and pine trees.

Your food shall be your medicine and your medicine shall be your food. Hipprocrates (460 - 377 B.C.)

A Spotty Summer

This summer has given new meaning to the descriptive term "spotty", used in beekeeping to describe the widely diverse yields of honey that may be found from yard to yard in some seasons.

A few weeks ago, we went to one yard to take honey off for the third time this season. Over half of the colonies yielded 200 or more pounds, most of which had come in during the previous 14 days. Some of these are colonies that had already had 200 pounds taken off in June and July, which meant that they have now made 400 pounds, with the goldenrod and aster honey still to be gathered.

I had never seen anything like this before. The power in nature is humbling, and I will always be in awe of what this yard made in 1998.

At the other end of the scale, there are yards nearby with colonies that have not made any honey this year, this is the " spotty" nature of the season. Where the bees did make honey, it came late and with the volume of a tidal wave. It is often hard to tell why there are differences in yards and with seasons. Ten basswood trees that are maturing near a bee yard could make a difference. Also, in some years their blossoms may be knocked off by a rain storm. A 60 acre field of alfalfa cut earlier one year because of good drying conditions may change a crop. In areas where dairy farming is fading, goldenrod fields are part of the succession of plants. We do know that it was cool and wet for much of the early season. So much of these things remains a mystery, but we are always grateful for the honey that the bees do make.

We appreciate your interest and support of our bees and their work.

State of the Hive Annual Report - Winter 1997/1998

As beekeepers, we work through a rhythm of yearly cycles. These include helping the bees build up for and then gather a crop for around six months of the year, harvesting this crop (with hope that there is one, it doesn't always happen), packaging the crop, and working on marketing the honey and building equipment while the bees are dormant and resting up for the next season.

While this yearly cycle is constant, what is different each season and also on a day-to-day basis, are the constant changes of the flowers, amount of rainfall and snow, temperature in the location where the bees are (and on the other side of the world, which affect us), and also cultural changes of each location, such as alfalfa and clovers being cut earlier than 30 years ago in order to provide more protein for dairy cows, construction and development building in areas for flowers for the bees once grew, and farms becoming abandoned, which may allow for wildflowers such as berry bushes, goldenrod and asters to grow more profusely. 1997 will be remembered as an unusual year where patterns in nature were different, often unexplainable, which I think of as mysteries of the land.

• Because of a cool Spring, most of the colonies only had one day or so of flight to work on the dandelions in May. The bees traditionally get dandelion nectar and pollen for several weeks, and this enables them to build up for the main crops of the summer and fall. With only one day on the dandelions and a three+ week delay in other nectar and pollen, the bees were noticeably weaker most of the summer and many colonies had starved by June.
  
  
• This was a season where the bees made less honey from the " major honey plants" (alfalfa, clovers, goldenrod) and a greater percentage from the " minor" plants that provided nectar such as milkweed, chicory, purple loosestrife, sumac, thistle, leafy spurge, and aster. An early frost killed much of the goldenrod in September and later the warmest October in memory enabled the bees to work the aster plants for weeks on end and make honey.
  
  
• Several bee yards made zero honey up to early September and then made an 80 lb. per colony average during two weeks in mid-September. I saw this as a miracle it was very humbling to feel the power of nature.

These monumental forces that change the nature of each week for the honey bees are impressive and command a great deal of respect. We are not able to predict the changes that we face each season. While this is unusual for a business in America in the 1990's, these changes have always been a constant for beekeeping. We have faith that over the years, the bees will make crops of honey.