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From our winter 2009 Newsletter

Winter 2009 at the Honey Farm

Winter at the honey farm is usually quiet. We may bottle a little honey for our wholesale customers, but it is mainly a time of reviewing our colonies and making plans for the spring. Every beekeeper I know is hoping the massive winter losses we had last year do not repeat this year.

In February we will start checking colonies to see if they they running out of food. If they need something we feed them dry sugar. Click here for winter feeding pictures....

Our new 1 gallon pails are very popular. A gallon can easily shipped to your door is in the middle of winter.

It is very important to purchase locally produced honey. Recently someone sent me a very disturbing article.

Honey Laundering: A sticky trail of intrigue and crime
By ANDREW SCHNEIDER - seattlepi.com

• Big shipments of contaminated honey from China are frequently laundered in other countries -- an illegal practice called "transshipping" -- in order to avoid U.S.import fees, protective tariffs or taxes imposed on foreign products that intentionally undercut domestic prices. In a series of shipments in the past year, tons of honey produced in China passed through the ports of Tacoma and Long Beach, Calif., after being fraudulently marked as a tariff-free product of Russia.
  
  
• Tens of thousands of pounds of honey entering the U.S. each year come from countries that raise few bees and have no record of producing honey for export.
  
  
• The government promises intense scrutiny of honey crossing our borders but only a small fraction is inspected, and seizures and arrests remain rare.

Read the article at the SeattlePI.......

On a similar note, I just received an email from someone wanting to give us a good price on "Indian honey". We do occasionally purchase honey but usually from local Michigan beekeepers in surrounding counties.

Honey as a cough suppressant for children over 12 months old!
from the   honey.com website....

Honey has been used as a home remedy for centuries to help alleviate some of the symptoms associated with a common cold.

Researchers from Penn State College of Medicine have recently published a study comparing honey to over-the-counter medicines for relief of upper respiratory infection symptoms, such as cough. To read the full story, click here.......