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This Month's Special Priced Items
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Special
pricing through September & October
Complimentary
votive's with orders over $25
Monthly
Drawing
All
subscribers to our newsletter are
eligible to receive a pair of free
9.5 inch beeswax candles. We hold
a drawing and then print the person's
name in every issue.
Watch
for your name - You may have already
won!
If
you are on our picking updates list
you may also win a bushel of grapes.
Four bushels are given away each
season.
SUBSCRIBE
NOW |
Candle
Dipping
at
Honeyflow Farm
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Wicks
for 6 pairs of candles are on
a frame and dipped into hot wax.
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6
pairs of candles half finished.
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The
frame is split in half & only
3 pairs are now dipped.
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The
candles are hanging in a rack
to cool between dips.
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few notes about our format:
Although
our newsletter has a "overview"
of every article in
the issue, a survey has
shown us that we have two distinct
and separate interest groups, a
grape and winemaking group and a
honey and candle group.
Many
of the articles in this newsletter
have all the text included but sometimes,
due to the length, we need to continue
the article on a separate page on
our website.
We
have developed our
"Vineyard
Report"
and our
"Candle/Honeyfarm
Report"
to conform to the specific interests
of our readers.
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| Quote
of the Week:
Those who desire to give up freedom
in order to gain security, will
not have, nor do they deserve, either
one." -- Benjamin Franklin
The
Quotations Page |
Find
out more....
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Our Sponsors
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Greetings!
Our
Bi-Monthly newsletter will keep you
up to date on farm activities &
candles sales as they occur.
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| At
the Candle Shop |
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Pick
up your candle order at the vineyard.
We
do not stock every candle we make at our
small sales stand. You may want
to email us with an order and we will
have it ready when you arrive at the vineyard
on the weekends.
From
Flower to Flame
Or
How Beeswax Candles are made from Flowers
- A
pictorial explanation of how the honeybees
create wax.
Download
our 2005, 35 page
catalog with over 120 images.
It has every item sold on our site.
This pdf file can be saved on your computer.
You can print the catalog and order
through the US Mail if you wish, although
it is still much easier to do it on
line.
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Download
our new Candle Catalog! |
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| Monthly
Beeswax Candle FAQ |
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How
do you make your beeswax candles?
We
make all of our beeswax candles by hand.
No mass production at all. We
melt wax in a 55 gallon barrel and the
hand-dipped candles are dipped, and the
pillars, figurines, votives and tealites
are poured from this wax.
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More
Beeswax FAQ's |
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| At
the Vineyard |
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Click
here to go directly to our Harvest Vineyard
Report.
Harvest
season at the Vineyard, Grape Crusher
Available, Are you receiving our Picking
Updates? Make Red Wine the Easy Way! Prize
winning Wine!
If
you did not receive your emailed
picking update and would like
to receive them (there
is about 4 or 5 of them), click
on the "Update Your Profile"
link at the bottom of this newsletter.
Every week during
September we hold a drawing and
someone wins a bushel of grapes.
Check
the updates for your name.
Click
here for a copy of the "Tattler"
that we mail out each year with
prices.
The
past two very cold winters have
caused some trunk damage to some
of the vines. Some varieties
such as baco noir have no crop at
all and others have a smaller crop.
Most of the other types have from
a medium to a very large crop. Check
our picking updates for information.
Grape
crushing facilities are now available!
We have established an outside area
back by our barn where you may crush
and de-stem your own grapes. You
provide your own pails and buckets
and crush the grapes yourselves,
we provide the crusher-stemmer and
a hose for clean up. We are not
responsible for spilled grapes or
juice.
Cost .05/lb.
Make
Red Wine the Easy Way!
Grape pails are a plastic pail,
with a nylon strainer bag in it,
tied with a loose knot, filled with
crushed and de-stemmed grapes and
quickly frozen. These grape bags
may be added to grape juice to add
color and body resulting in a red
wine, or just used by themselves.
They are very handy when you do
not have a press - just squeeze
them by hand or let them drain -
And the strainer bags are re-useable!
More
juice & "Grape Pail"
info .....
See
our "Year
in the Vineyard" page to
see more details of grape growing!
Prize
winning Grapes!
I
just received this note from Paul Sbraccia:
"I
wanted to let you know that last October
I picked 30 lbs of Concord, 15 lbs
of Buffalo and 15 lbs of Steubin grapes
and made a 'Concord Blanc" which
won a blue ribbon in the Michigan
State Fair.
I will be seeing you each week you
are open this fall.
Sincerely, Paul Sbraccia"
Interesting
WineMaking Sites:
Van
couver Amateur Winemaker's Association
is a club of wine lovers and home winemakers
who strive to create wines they can be
proud of. The purpose of the club is to
bring together in a friendly atmosphere
people interested in the art of amateur
winemaking to engage in related discussions,
lectures, demonstrations and social events.
**********************
Wi
ne, Wine & More! A
very good wine & beer making supply
site. They even have home coffee roasting
equipment!
Harvest
Grape Recipe - Oatmeal Grape Jam
Squares
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Click
here for the recipe |
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| Monthly
Vineyard FAQ |
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Do
grapes need a frost to ripen?
Absolutely not. There are early and late
season varieties, an early season grape
left on the vine until frost will be mushy
and overripe. Once a frost hits the vine
and all the leaves are burned off, any
further photosynthesis or ripening will
cease. Due to the high sugar level in
the grape it may not be damaged by the
frost but will soon start to decay, just
like any other fruit not refrigerated.
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More
Vineyard FAQ's |
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| At
the Honey Farm |
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The
Fall honey harvest, Bulk Honey
Tank is Now Available, Raw & Unprocessed
Honey? Unfiltered Honey? Pasteurized Honey?
What's the difference?
Harvest
Honey Recipe
Click
here to go directly to our Harvest Honey
Farm Report.
Farm
opens Friday, September 2
The
clovers and thistles have been growing
rapidly. Bring your pails and
jars & we will fill them.
Honey
prices have varied widely the last few
years. Things have stabilized
and our price have gone down to $1.50/lb.
Observation
Hive Tells Secrets …
The magical world of the honeybee is now
yours to see through our observation hive.
Let your children find the queen, and
see what’s happening in the honeybees
unique home.
Click
here for our on line newsletter .....
 September is the month that we begin to take our honey
crop off. Most of what is harvested
now goes directly to our sales stand or
to road side markets. In October and November
the rest of the crop is harvested and
stored in barrels. The picture shows frames
of honey going into our extractor.
Click here for more extracting pictures.
Raw
& Unprocessed Honey? Unfiltered Honey?
Pasteurized Honey?
What's the difference?
These
questions were from a really good email
that was sent to us last year from Barbara
in Michigan.
Q.
Your label just states honey yet you claim
to have raw and unprocessed honey. How
come you do not label it raw?
A.
Raw & unprocessed honey is available
at our sales stand in the fall when
we fill your own containers from our
bulk tank. We fill this barrel with
honey directly from our extracting barn
and it is raw & unprocessed.
The
wildflower/clover mix table grade honey
that has been put in containers for
wholesale or retail sales is not filtered
or pasteurized! We warm our honey only
to 130 to 135 degrees, cooler than most
residential hot water tanks. This will
retard granulation, a natural condition
of honey for a short period of time.
This low temperature warming allows
us to lightly “strain” the
honey through cheesecloth and pack it
into containers. Any occasional honey
crystals that may appear due to this
more natural treatment may be melted
by putting the jar of honey into hot
water.
This
unfiltered honey is not completely
"raw" because
it has been warmed slightly and therefore
should not be labeled as such.
Click
here for the rest of the questions .....
Harvest
Honey Recipe
SWEET
& SPICY DIP - A quick and easy recipe
suitable for corn chips or potato chips
and is a delightful change from the usual
cheese dips.
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Click
here for the recipe |
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| Monthly
Honeyfarm FAQ |
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How
much honey does a honeybee produce in
a year?
Although
a colony of honeybees (40,000 or more
in the summer) can easily produce over
a hundred pounds of honey, a single honeybee
produces only about a teaspoon full in
her life.
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More
Honeyfarm FAQ's |
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| From
our readers |
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This
is a section for comments/questions/recipes
from our readers.
Please
read the comments & feel free to
put your 2 cents worth in.
Visit
the Readers
Comments page to view all the content
of these messages. Here are samples
of this months e-mails:
Bee
Pollen? ••
Pectin in bulk, ••
Vignoles juice, ••
Best grapes for wine, ••
Grapes in Chicago, ••
Newsletter - Freezer jam, ••
Opening earlier this year? ••
Won a medal in State Fair with
his wine, ••
What to do with beeswax, ••
Raw honey, ••
When to pick grapes, ••
Wicks for votives, ••
Bulk honey price, ••
Frontenac grapes, ••
Nuisance bees, ••
Jelly Bags, ••
Nice website, ••
Tours? ••
Africanized bees, ••
More nuisance bees, ••
White beeswax.
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The
"From our Readers" Page |
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