The Bee Village at Windermere Manor

Nestled up amongst the trees on the hill at Windermere Manor there now resides a large village, a village of bees that is. When Neil Kellock, General Manager of Windermere Manor wanted to get some bees for the property and restaurant, he turned to Rick Huismann who runs Huismann Apiaries, located just outside London. Rick came and installed eight bee hives which they are now calling a ”Bee Village”. Each one of these hives contains roughly 10,000 bees and one very important queen. Windermere Manor expects to collect their first harvest of honey in the fall of this year. Neil seemed pretty excited about this new project and I can see why. It is so cool! Take a look at the hives themselves – aside from the now famous hives at the White House Kitchen Garden, these are some of the nicest looking bee apartments I have ever seen. Each one is marked with the Manor logo just below the roof line, so the bees know when they are home. The roof of each hive appears to be made of copper, which I am sure must have been chosen to help in heating the hives through the winter, but it sure looks nice at the same time. Photo: Windermere Manor A few restaurants are now keeping bees to collect honey for use in the kitchens of the restaurant (Garlics in London, The Royal York in Toronto), but these hives are generally placed way up on the roof,out of sight from customers and also out of reach. At Windermere Manor, Neil wanted customers to see the bees, he wanted it to be part of the whole experience. A sitting bench has been placed just out of reach of the hives where you are invited to sit and watch the bees hard at work. I have not been up to the hives in person yet. But I will probably walk up there at lunch tomorrow and check it out. The Windermere Manor is open 7 days a week and has for some time highlighted quite a few local items on their menu. It is a really nice spot to grab lunch or dinner and even breakfast, of course I may be a bit biased as it is also where Sean and I tied the knot almost five years ago. This is a wonderful project right now for Windermere, but also for London. With declines being reported all the time in the North American bee industry, the honey bees are in need of our help right now. So go see them, learn about them, feel like royalty as you sit among not one, but eight royal queens.  Read More

Honey.. Simply Bee-licious

Honey | Photo: Kelly Hunt Organic Honey! When I began visiting one of my local farms, I started chatting with organic wizard, Harold Saunders of Saunders Organics. He casually dropped into our conversation that he would be collecting the honey soon from his very own honey bee hives. This got me very excited. You could say that I need more hobbies, but I really don”t find much time for anything but food and food related events these days. It is worth mentioning that this photo did not turn out exactly as hoped, but please understand that I was trying to capture for you, the one-of-a-kind, beautiful amber color of this 100% organic beauty, and it even came in it”s own beautiful reusable old-school mason jar. So you may ask, what is an organic farmer doing making honey, or what is the importance of organic honey? Well, it turns out he needs the honey bees around to pollinate his crops. So, like many smart,sustainable farmers,he is thinking about the circle of the farm and the life of the vegetable as a whole. Just why it is important to have the bees around the farm may seem obvious to some, but I believe overall, the vast majority of us who grew up in the city do not understand the complexity of just what goes into making a farm work. Bees and pollination are just one major part of a huge puzzle. Basically, you will find it very difficult to get a flower, a vegetable, or for that matter, just about anything without the help of the major player in the pollination game, the honey bee. The bee pollinates the crop as it jumps from plant to plant collecting pollen. It basically makes the magic happen in the vegetable world. So think carefully before taking out that next poor worker bee at your family picnic! What makes it organic, and why is that even important? Well, it is very complicated and I am no expert, but I will try and explain what I took away from the conversation that day without messing up the science behind it. What makes organic honey different than regular honey is that the organic apiaries do not use antibiotics. Yup! That”s right, you may be surprised as I was to find out that most honey is produced using antibiotics. I pictured someone stabbing hundred of bees with the smallest of needles, but don”t worry, that is in fact, not what really happens. What really happens, is that the bees are treated with the antibiotic by simply feeding it to them. Organic agriculture is a safe, sustainable farming system, producing healthy crops and livestock without damage to the environment, so that is why I think it to be important. Oh why why why do bees need antibiotics you ask? The antibiotics are basically administered to help the survival rate of the hives stay up. The practice of feeding the bees antibiotics is now common place at most apiaries. Honey bees are susceptible to disease (mites are largely responsible for passing a disease from bee to bee). So if organic farmers do not use antibiotics, then how do they get their hives to survive? Well, I cannot speak for all, but Harold uses a device which essentially shakes the mites off the bees little legs as they enter the hive and this simple gesture improves the life and health of his colonies overall. Sometimes as part of nature, the colonies do actually collapse, and it is very hard to pinpoint what exactly may be the cause of the collapse, when it does happens. So why does Harold bother to go organic? Well, you really need to ask Harold that question directly, but I will tell you this, when I opened that honey for the first time, I actually felt the nurturing and the importance of all the work of those bees. It was a buzz, and I think it”s important to support your local bees! Harold may still have some honey available from last summer, but it is generally harvested in mid-summer. SAUNDERS FAMILY FARM R.R. #2 DENFIELD ONTARIO N0M 1P0 (519) 666-0705 www.saundersorganics.com  Read More