Taste Local Honey and Learn How To Keep Bees with Honey Hive Farms

Early on Saturday mornings, beekeeper Tim Moore sets up a little white tent by an apple tree in front of Arrowhead Montessori school, his coolers whole of golden and dim amber honey from his family’s bees.

He and his spouse, grasp beekeeper Connie Moore, have retained bees for the previous 12 several years and jointly they have Honey Hive Farms, a selection of 800 hives held at numerous farms all over the Valley.

Due to the fact bees pollinate and develop honey from their nearby flowers and cactus vegetation, the Moores property their bees at pesticide-free of charge farms to create the greenest honey attainable. But don’t be expecting to see bees at the honey tasting tent on Saturdays.

“Bees have a solid sense of scent and even if our bees are in their glass circumstances on display for our tastings, other community bees will odor them and want to come to say hi there,” Moore describes.

So while Connie functions on various honey-linked tasks and cares for the bees and her recently acquired chickens, Moore mans the honey tent.

In spite of the depressing warmth, he has a major helpful smile fastened on his confront from beneath his outsized sunlight hat. He fortunately explains the nuances among the different honey he bottles and sells.

The honey, packaged in plastic bear-formed bottles with lovable hand-drawn-hunting stickers, is lined up from Wildflower, Orange Blossom, Cactus, Mesquite, Suicide, and Cat’s Claw flavors. The Suicide Honey sticks out with its darker shade and major concern mark symbol. Moore explains that it’s a blend of a number of various types of honey.

The typical Saturday will deliver a group in the vary of about 50 people today, and website visitors have a tendency to stay for 15 to 20 minutes in advance of heading dwelling with some contemporary honey, Moore says. As I attempt samples and check with issues, numerous locals end by and buy “the normal” buy.

Initially up, I experimented with the Wildflower honey. It was clean and sweet. In the Suicide Honey, mesquite is the overwhelming taste. My beloved was by considerably the Orange Blossom, which Moore states is the rarest, as bees can only create it after a yr. The other flavors are bottled in all 4 seasons.

The Moore relatives and their customers’ preferred is the Wildflower Honey. For the Moores, this flavor is sentimental due to the fact it was the very first honey they have ever bottled. It truly is their bestseller with customers simply because it is believed to be a natural remedy for seasonal allergic reactions.

The concept of seasonal allergy sufferers using uncooked area honey as a supply of aid is controversial and continue to debated in the healthcare neighborhood. But believers say this: exposing the overall body to nearby pollen often in the variety of honey helps generate immunity and protection in opposition to allergy symptoms. In accordance to Moore, clients swear by the Wildflower Honey as an allergy assist and he has a lot of repeat buyers who praise it. Moore claims even part-time people or “snowbirds,” will normally go to or purchase gallons of honey from the farm to acquire with them to the East Coastline.

In the same way to maple syrup, honey is classified by distinct grades. Baking and cooking grade honey is lower grade than quality A honey from Honey Hive Farms. According to Tim Moore, baking grade honey is normally graded B or C, and is often a blend of diverse sorts of honey this sort of as wildflower and clover. Honey Hive’s internet site gives ideas and ideas for baking or cooking with their honey at residence and for producing enjoyment honey-infused cocktails, mocktails, coffees, and warm sweets.

For the Moores, honey is a family members affair. Connie has beekeeping in her blood as her mom and dad were also beekeepers. Tim jokes that their eleven-calendar year-previous son Alex is “genuinely the boss of the operation.”

His relatives has been performing totally free tastings each Saturday for the past six a long time since they opened a farm in Peoria in addition to their authentic locale in Missouri.

The Moores are proud to have the bees to back again up the honey. Moore warns us to be cautious of farmers market place honey and supposedly local raw honey at supermarkets due to the fact it is as well hard to know exactly where it will come from and “exactly where are the bees?” he asks. Acquiring from Honey Hive Farms usually means finding the honey specifically from the source.

Individuals curious about beekeeping can set up visits to meet up with the bees forward of time with the entrepreneurs and bring the entire family. Connie prospects a sequence of rookie beekeeping lessons with 10 college students at a time. For $65 for little ones age 5 to 12 or $100 for grown ups, college students don a bee fi
t and discover the fundamentals of beekeeping. Courses operate from September by way of May on distinct Arizona farms where the bees are kept.

If the farm is way too significantly of a trek, those seeking nearby hive-to-desk honey can buy any mixture of products and solutions from the web site with cost-free transport on all orders about $50. One 12 ounce bottle of artisan honey costs $10, with 3 kilos of honey ranging from $30 to $35. Uncooked honey “hardly ever expires,” Moore states, even though he endorses maintaining it in a pantry or storage area that won’t exceed 80 levels.

Local pollen, comb honey, and spun honey is also for sale. Spun honey is the very same as whipped honey and is a item they are phasing out so now is the time to grab some right before it truly is absent. Spun honey provides seed honey to liquid honey to build a lighter-colored distribute nearly like butter consistency.

Some compact firms that Honey Hive Farms will work with incorporate Blue Sky Farms, Properly Coffee, Fruta, Valley Espresso, Passport Espresso, and Alaskan Satisfaction.

Satisfy Moore at his tent, taste some honey, probably choose a beekeeping course, test some new recipes that incorporate honey, and share it with another person struggling with allergies. The a person point Moore states not to do: You should not request how a lot of occasions they have ever been stung.

“Bees sting, that’s section of the daily life, but you can find constantly honey, a good deal of honey to go all over,” he states, “and we enjoy what we do.”

Honey Hive Farms

14611 North 83rd Avenue, Peoria

602-330-8468
Totally free honey tastings every Saturday 10 a.m. – 1 p.m.