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The Tattler "Tales from the Farm"
April, 2002 Vol. 2, No. 4
Greetings Honey, Candles
& Grape Enthusiasts!
Direct from the farm!
That is the theme at Honeyflow Farm. In September, if you visit our farm
roadside market, you can pick from more than 20 varieties of grapes!
You can fill your containers with honey from a 55 gallon barrel! You can purchase candles made from pure beeswax! If you come to our
farm & happen to see some guy standing around with a camera talking about
bees, grapes, winemaking & candles - this would be
me. If you purchase candles or honey from our website you will know that this is not like
doing business with an impersonal major retailer.
This is not Walmart - This is a family farm!
This is the April 2002
issue of our monthly newsletter.
Through our web site you can purchase candles and honey products
throughout the year.
To view past issues of our newsletter, please visit our Newsletter Archive.
If you do not wish to receive our monthly newsletter please visit the "edit subscription link" at the bottom of the page to be removed from our mailing list.
We need
your advice & input!
We are constantly making changes to our newsletter and our website and very much want any comment you have to improve it, any thing new you would like, anything you do not like, etc. Please click here with any comments.
A friend of mine mentioned that he would like to see some "printer friendly pages." So we are going to try have a link to pages printed with very few pictures or advertisements.
Please
Send In Recipes or Comments!
We publish lots of grape or honey recipes that our readers send in.
If you have a unique grape recipe, winemaking recipe, honey recipe or any beekeeping
or winemaking story or comments you would like to say regarding beekeeping,
honey or candles, PLEASE CLICK HERE AND SEND THEM TO ME!
I would like to hear from you & reprint them in our newsletter.
This is our pruning time. As this is newsletter is being published we are (during the daytime) in the vineyard pruning & tying the vines. I have 21 people working this year, most of them are local jr.high & high school youths out on spring break. Click here for pictures.
The Cayuga Vine in row
34 was just pruned! It has had its spring haircut. See the details ......
The continuous story of Cayuga Row 34 and how it behaves during this growing season.
Meet Cayuga Row 34 (or really the first vine in this row). This will be one of the vines that we will focus on this year, taking pictures of it all during the growing season. You will see it shortly after it is pruned (around Easter), when the buds are swelling and bursting in May, when it blooms in June, when the berries dramatically increase in size in July, when the berries color (although Cayuga is a white grape) in August, and you may be the one to harvest it in September!
In (February) we were able to get a very nice picture of our cayuga vine covered with snow. Near the end of march we will start pruning this vine. We will add to this page during the season as the vine grows.
One the
left are two pictures of the first vine in row 34, taken in January 2002
Watch it grow during the season.
On the right is a picture of the same vine after being pruned and tied in late March 2002
Two more vines have also joined our "2002 Grape Project". Click here to go to our more in-depth study of 3 growing vines, a Cayuga, Delaware & a DeChaunac
Grape Recipe for April!
Grape Gumdrops - This is really different
April with the honeybees
- Breeder Queen Ordered!
We just completed completed our late winter check of our bees and found
very low winter loss due to the mild winter and the fact that many mite infected
colonies died off the previous winter. (2000/2001 winter loss was 60% &
2001/2002 was 8%).
In early april 2 mite resistant queens will arrive that I will use as queen mothers for breeding. (each little bug cost 50 bucks) I will start raising new queens that I will use to replace older queens (if they get old the hive does not produce as much honey) or make splits (new hives).
These breeder queens, called SMR (or smart queens) have just been developed and many people hope that the gene form these bees will start to spread accross the country to help control the devastating loss form the varroa mite. Click here for more information about "smart" queens.
April Honey Recipes -
Orange-Honey Bread
Cream shortening and honey together thoroughly. Add egg and orange rind. Sift flour and baking powder, soda and salt. Add to creamed mixture alternately with orange juice. Add nuts. Bake in greased loaf pan in moderate oven (325 degrees) for 70 minutes. Makes 1 loaf. Submitted by Vicki Cresson
Super Quick Honey
Tips - I have heard people say "I don't eat honey" - click here
for a few ideas for them to try!
Sweeten
coffee and tea with honey.
Stir a spoonful of honey into fruit juice or nonfat yogurt.
Drizzle warm honey over pancakes, cornbread and ice cream.
Dip apple slices or other fresh fruit in honey.
Dress up a snack of crackers and cheese with a dab of honey.
Perk up bottled Italian dressing by adding a splash of honey.
Mix 2 Tbsp. honey into prepared barbecue sauce - add more to suit your taste.
I barbecue chicken with a concoction of about 1/2 Open Pit barbecue sauce
& 1/2 honey - its great!
Drizzle honey on your cereal of oatmeal instead of white sugar.
Congratulations! April candle winner is = abcd4ever96@hotmail.com
WIN
A FREE PAIR OF 9 INCH HAND DIPPED BEESWAX CANDLES!
Every month we have a drawing from our e-mail list and then mail out a free
pair of candles to the lucky winner.
ABSOLUTELY FREE!!
Click here for the full list of winners!
Spring Concert Coming
Up Soon.
I put this at the bottom because only local readers may be interested - NEW
THIS YEAR - you can now download mp3 music files and also purchase tickets
on-line - click for details ................
