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| Apitherapy Honey | Rejuvenation Tonic | Elderberry Syrup | Wild Cherry Bark Syrup | Propolis Salve | Propolis Spray | Candles | Mead Honey Wine |
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December 2002 Our
northern woods, fields, and wetlands are rich in botanical treasures.
Many of these plants are medicinal as well. In particular, Unlike
commercial cough medicines which are typically flavored, colored, and
sweetened as if containing actual cherry fruits, our formula is made
the way traditional wild cherry bark cough syrups have been made since
the nineteenth century. It is the bark rather than the fruit that is
more therapeutic and medicinal. Of specific influence and inspiration
to our formula is Dr. D.C. Jarvis, a twentieth century
There is a bit of irony surrounding the naming of our plant medicine, the wild cherry syrup. Although ingredients in our formula have been used traditionally to treat coughs at least since the early nineteenth century (and volumes of anecdotal evidence support their success rate), we cannot label our syrup a cough syrup because it does not contain one of the chemicals that the FDA deems necessary to include for such labeling.
to order Apitherapy honey wild cherry syrup, Apitherapy honey, and more, via credit card from our website click here Apitherapy raw honey is important for maintaining health, too, because it is one of the eight or so foods that are very high in enzymes.
P.O. Box 52, Ferrisburgh, Vermont 05456 |
Contained
within our vision is the intention of wildcrafting sustainably, never
depleting natural populations of wild medicine plants. Todd’s
brother-in-law is a forester and alerted him that some cherry trees
had been cut down and bark would be available from sections of logs
that were too small to be marketable. Tim and Carol of the honey house
crew carefully removed first the outer bark which is not used, and then
the prized inner bark for our syrup. This is a wonderful example
of the choreography
of sustainable practice: agriculture working in tandem with forestry.
Our
wild cherry syrup is pure plant medicine. It acts as a respiratory relaxant,
an anti-inflammatory and demulcent for inflamed respiratory tissues,
and an antitussive for relieving irritating, relentless, and spasmodic
coughs. The propolis and raw honey contribute antibiotic action, making
this a very effective product.
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March 2002 Welcome to Spring. The bees have overwintered well and are starting
to fly on warm days.
picture of colonies wrapped in tarpaper on our Amish friend Moses' land last week. We have spent much of the winter making Apitherapy honey elderberry extract and Honey house propolis salve.
As I was walking away from a gathering
recently, and someone asked me about the bees.
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This summer has given new meaning to the descriptive term " spotty" , used in beekeeping to describe the widely diverse yields of honey that may be found from yard to yard in some seasons.
A few weeks ago, we went to one yard to take honey off for the third time this season. Over half of the colonies yielded 200 or more pounds, most of which had come in during the previous 14 days. Some of these are colonies that had already had 200 pounds taken off in June and July, which meant that they have now made 400 pounds, with the goldenrod and aster honey still to be gathered.
I had never seen anything like this before. The power in nature is humbling, and I will always be in awe of what this yard made in 1998.
At the other end of the scale, there are yards nearby with colonies that have not made any honey this year, this is the " spotty" nature of the season. Where the bees did make honey, it came late and with the volume of a tidal wave. It is often hard to tell why there are differences in yards and with seasons. Ten basswood trees that are maturing near a bee yard could make a difference. Also, in some years their blossoms may be knocked off by a rain storm. A 60 acre field of alfalfa cut earlier one year because of good drying conditions may change a crop. In areas where dairy farming is fading, goldenrod fields are part of the succession of plants. We do know that it was cool and wet for much of the early season. So much of these things remains a mystery, but we are always grateful for the honey that the bees do make.
We appreciate your interest and support
of our bees and their work.
As beekeepers, we work through a rhythm of yearly cycles. These include helping the bees build up for and then gather a crop for around six months of the year, harvesting this crop (with hope that there is one, it doesn't always happen), packaging the crop, and working on marketing the honey and building equipment while the bees are dormant and resting up for the next season.
While this yearly cycle is constant, what is different each season and also on a day-to-day basis, are the constant changes of the flowers, amount of rainfall and snow, temperature in the location where the bees are (and on the other side of the world, which affect us), and also cultural changes of each location, such as alfalfa and clovers being cut earlier than 30 years ago in order to provide more protein for dairy cows, construction and development building in areas for flowers for the bees once grew, and farms becoming abandoned, which may allow for wildflowers such as berry bushes, goldenrod and asters to grow more profusely. 1997 will be remembered as an unusual year where patterns in nature were different, often unexplainable, which I think of as mysteries of the land.
- Because of a cool Spring, most of the colonies only had one day or so of flight to work on the dandelions in May. The bees traditionally get dandelion nectar and pollen for several weeks, and this enables them to build up for the main crops of the summer and fall. With only one day on the dandelions and a three+ week delay in other nectar and pollen, the bees were noticeably weaker most of the summer and many colonies had starved by June.
- This was a season where the bees made less honey from the " major honey plants" (alfalfa, clovers, goldenrod) and a greater percentage from the " minor" plants that provided nectar such as milkweed, chicory, purple loosestrife, sumac, thistle, leafy spurge, and aster. An early frost killed much of the goldenrod in September and later the warmest October in memory enabled the bees to work the aster plants for weeks on end and make honey.
- Several bee yards made zero honey up to early September and then made an 80 lb. per colony average during two weeks in mid-September. I saw this as a miracle it was very humbling to feel the power of nature
Asked most often in the honey house:
Why is this jar of Apitherapy honey liquid and not crystallized like the last jar I bought...you must have heated it
Our Apitherapy farm style raw honey
will always be extracted and then bottled, with zero heat and zero filtering.
Truly raw honey will always crystallize in time. What makes honey crystallize
at different speeds are the following:
- temperature - We start to extract honey in July and finish in November. Honey extracted in the warmer months of the year will stay liquid until the cooler time of the season comes in the fall.
- particulate matter left in Apitherapy raw honey - On the top of the honey and/or seen on the white cap, are flecks of propolis, beeswax and pollen. These act as seed and encourage the honey to crystallize. Each jar has a different amount of the particles this is what makes Apitherapy honey a food and a medicine, as well as a sweetener, to our bees.
- fluctuations in temperature - When the temperature goes up and then comes down, honey crystallizes sooner.
- Some floral sources for honey crystallize sooner than others. Dandelion and aster are notorious for crystallizing so quick that sometimes that honey can not be extracted from the comb. The black locust honey made in June by our colonies which over-wintered in Maryland crystallizes much slower than our northern honey.
We appreciate your interest and support
of our bees and their work.
click here newsletters 2002 and before