Hey honey lovers! As promised, I am back with Part Deux of my fun and enlightening experience at Harvest Place in Juneau, WI.
Adrenaline Rush Comedown After the nerve-racking collection at the buzzing hive, we head back to the farm for a much calmer extraction process. Beekeeper Lyle pulls out one of the frames we collected, and uses a special brush to scrape off the waxy-coating. The honey below is revealed like glistening, liquid gold, and the frame goes into the spinner for extraction. The spinner holds several combs at a time and the centrifugal force draws out the honey into the container below.
A Sweet Break As we wait for the spinner to do its spinning, Lyle shares some of his aged peach mead. I’m obsessed! Tree-Ripe Georgia peaches and his own raw honey form the perfect sweet and satisfying drink, – a perfect reward for braving the beehive
Taste Testing We get to sample the honey as it flows directly from the combs and it is amazing! Floral and complex, sweet and deep – 100% pure, raw honey. The honey at Harvest Place is not filtered, not pasteurized, there are no additives or dilutions. But what really makes this honey unique, even from other raw local honey you can find, is what the bees eat – they are not given the industry standard of sugar water or corn syrup. The bees are fed raw honey as they would be eating in the wild without human interaction. This makes for healthier bees and better quality honey. Even though I knew this before my visit, to personally see it go straight from the bees to the bottles is truly remarkable and made me appreciate how special and unique this honey is.
Thanks to Lyle, Heidi and the bees for all your care and hard work to bring us the best honey we can get!
Save the Bees!
XOXO, Laura 🐝
Check out the masters at work in our video interview with Lyle and Heidi Farrell.
PS: Winter citrus is now available to pre-order now! Head to our shop for all the deets.
