Local Honey

As bees gather nectar from the field and return back to the hive with their pollen baskets and honey crop (or honey stomach) full, they transfer their payload to house bees that are waiting on standby, so they can go back for more. Then depending on the needs in the nest area, the house bee either delivers the nectar to the nest for feeding young larvae, or she will store any extra in the honeycomb above the nest.

Over time, as more and more nectar keeps coming into the hive than the brood requires for daily consumption, the surplus gets processed and stored as honey for later use. During the good years, they can pack away more than they need stored for the winter months. One of the beekeepers jobs is to manage the stores properly so the colony has enough to last until the next Nectar Flow. The rest can be extracted and the empty frame stored and reused at a later date. Some call it "robbing the bees", but when they are managed properly, the surplus honey can be shared and serves as a reward to the beekeeper for assisting with the number one problem and a very devastating pest of the hives, the dreaded Varroa Mites.

We only take the surplus that is stored in the supers during a Nectar Flow from our Honey Production hives. All of which is over and above what the bees need for their own food reserves. Removing the extra honey supers makes working the hives easier for health inspections, applying any needed medications and supplements. This process also provides us the opportunity to keep the combs fresh. We like to rotate the older wax frames out of production replace them with new freshly waxed frames. This is so the bees always have a fresh start for the seasons.

Real Honey!

Avoid Honey Fraud, buy from a local beekeeper.

When we have a good year with ample rainfall patterns, we can produce hundreds of pounds of local honey with our bees. When we do, rather than compete with the local beekeepers, we sell it in bulk to our friend, a local beekeeper with a beautiful state of the art facility. Then he does all the heavy lifting and leg work to get it all extracted and bottled for retail, then along with honey from his own bees of course, delivered and made available to the consumers that want the real local honey.

We have been a small part of helping keep the shelves at most HEB stores in this region stocked for several years now, so when you see Holdman Honey, you know you are supporting us and another local beekeeper that is an honest family man running a "small" (actually really nice size) business with the Texas Pride we can all appreciate.

For small and personal size containers, please contact or visit 46 Farms (with honey in 3 Somerset area locations near our farm: Herd On The Street, Somerset Coffeehaus and the 46 Farms Stand on Somerset Rd) and Holdman Honey (Several Austin area and about 50 San Antonio area locations, including most HEB food stores and many more) for ordering real local honey, by county, or get a list of locations from the ever growing HoldmanHoney's Where to Find Us page for the best sources in your area to buy it retail or direct from the beekeepers at the farmers markets.
Follow them on social to catch great recipes and special events.

Wildflowers

The various blooms in a given region all contain their unique flavors and colors in the nectar they offer that ultimately produces the Honey we harvest. We have bees in more than one county, so we have "local honey" in bulk from multiple areas.

One of the local favorites, by some folks anyway, is the spring wildflower mix which is often spiced with a bit of Horsemint. Some love it while others not so much.

When we get rains early in the year, there is often an abundance of Horsemint growing along side our other wildflower blooms, like the Blue Bonnets, Indian Paintbrush, Mexican Hats, Wild Persimmons and more.

The interesting thing about Horsemint is that it contains the active ingredient thymol, which is responsible for its strong, minty fragrance and medicinal properties. Thymol is also an active ingredient in Apiguard, one of the organic medications used to treat Varroa Mites in the honey bee hives.

We have noticed that during seasons with a strong Horsemint bloom, the mite numbers have been lower. Is there a connection? More research is needed in this area, but there may be more to it than simply a coincidence.

These same years are when we notice a more dominate Horsemint flavor profile for the local spring "Wildflower" honey crops.

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse