home-harvested honey, homemade jam, and cottage bouquets
We’ll be at the Hereford Farm Market tomorrow from 9:00 a.m. to noon. Two new jam batches this week: Blueberry & honey-sweetened strawberry. Either (or both) would make the perfect gift to bring to a neighbor’s backyard BBQ! Have a safe and happy holiday weekend, everyone! 🙂
On Friday, June 17th, from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., we’ll be down at the Ag Center’s farm market, which is located at 1114 Shawan Road in Cockeysville. It’s right across from the Oregon Grille. We’ll have our Windtree Bee table banner up, so please come find us!
We’ll also be at the Hereford Farm Market this Saturday, June 18th, from 9:00 a.m. to noon in our usual spot – the “Hats & Honey” table across from the Contented Rooster. Karen Dubs, a.k.a. the Flexible Warrior, is hosting drop-in, all-levels, family-friendly yoga. All proceeds support local rescue dogs. For more info, check out Karen’s Facebook page.
SMOKY BBQ APPLEAUCE: This is a savory applesauce that pairs well with meat dishes like pork chops or roasted chicken. Your kids can also use it as a dipping sauce for chicken nuggets or French fries.
BLACK COFFEE SPICE RUB: A new delicious steak rub! This one has a hint of cocoa powder in it. I’m offering this in small 4 oz jars, so each jar seasons approximately one steak (like a fillet or NY strip). If you want to season something bigger (like a flank steak or large porterhouse), use two jars.
Both the savory applesauce and/or the steak rub would make excellent Father’s Day gifts!
We’ll also have a few jars of strawberry preserves from last week and a nice selection of handcrafted one-of-a-kind artisan bee & honeycomb suncatchers. I think the sun will finally be shining, so hopefully I’ll be able to hang them from our tent!
We had a visitor the other day. This little guy showed up at the edge of our property. He is harmless, but no one likes a snake too near their house, garden, or apiary, so Craig relocated him to a safe spot near the Gunpowder River. Tugg went along for the ride. He was pretty chill about the snake, which I was surprised by.
Hope to see you this weekend! To all the dads and dad-like dudes, happy Father’s Day!
Have you ever noticed how much more sweet-smelling and flavorful local, hand-picked strawberries are? I often buy organic strawberries from the supermarkets and they are big and beautiful but, by far, my favorite strawberries are the ones I buy from local farmers. They are often smaller, but are so much richer in terms of taste and color.
For this week’s batch of jams, I bought a flat of strawberries from Foggy Bottom Farm in White Hall, Maryland. They were hand-picked by Krista that day and I made this week’s batches within 48 hours of buying them. My kitchen smelled awesome the entire time, reminding me constantly of why everyone calls strawberries “nature’s candy.”
Honey-sweetened strawberry jam: No sugar, just organic honey + the fresh Foggy Bottom Farm berries, a few sprigs of thyme leaves and a splash of lemon juice. I’m offering these in little 4 oz jars. They are as precious as caviar – but not nearly as expensive! This was a very small batch, so I’ll likely sell out fast. Don’t wait to stop by our table if you want to buy!
Strawberry Cocoa Jam: same delicious strawberries, combined with cocoa, coconut sugar, and a whiff of vanilla. This jam would be perfect on waffles, croissants, or brioche (Wegman’s has it in the bread aisle). And amazing on s’mores!!
Strawberry lemonade mixer: only three ingredients – gorgeous, ripe, hand-picked local strawberries + organic lemon juice and sugar. That’s it! Use this to make the best strawberry lemonade you’ve ever had, as a mixer for a summer cocktail, or as an addition to your morning smoothie. To reconstitute this juice concentrate, mix one part water, tonic water, or ginger ale. Adjust to taste. Vodka optional. 🙂
Craig and I are trying to grow our own strawberry patch. I ordered a bunch of live strawberry roots, which arrived in the mail a few months ago. They were adorable – little Baby Groots. I planted them in pots and stuck them under our grow lights in the basement. They thrived and were ready for planting sooner than we had anticipated. There was some mad scrambling on our end to get the raised beds ready, but we’re excited about this project and very hopeful we’ll have our own strawberries next summer.
We’ll be at the Hereford Farm Market, 17004 York Road, in Parkton, Maryland, from 9:00 a.m. until noon this Saturday. Look for us at the “Hats & Honey” table beside The Contented Rooster. (The farm market down at the Maryland Ag Center is not happening tomorrow. We’ll keep everyone posted about next week!)
Last year, I made a trio of small batch jams that I named after the horses. It was so much fun, I had to repeat for this year — especially since Preakness is actually tomorrow, on market day!!
Tomorrow’s jams are inspired by past Preakness winners and our underdog pick for this year. We’ll have Big Brown’s Caramel Apple Coffee Jam, I’ll Have Another Mimosa Jam, and Happy Jack’s Hoppy Jam (a.k.a. berry ale jam). Stop by and tell us your pick for this year’s race!
We’ll be at the Hereford Farm Market, 17004 York Road, in Parkton, Maryland, from 9:00 a.m. until noon tomorrow. Look for us at the “Hats & Honey” table beside The Contented Rooster.
Spring rains bring summer flowers, right? They better!! Because the weather has not been very cooperative lately! Despite possible rain, we’ll be at two places this weekend – Hereford Farm Market on Saturday for Opening Day and Oak Spring Farm on Sunday for its Spring Festival. PLEASE COME SEE US AS WE KICK OFF OUR 2022 SEASON!! 😊
Breakfast Berry Jam: this is a returning favorite, one of our most popular products. This batch was made with strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries. It’s homemade jam at its best – only fruit, sugar, and pectin. Use this jam for anything and everything you would use jam for!!
Sunshine Citrus Preserves: these 8 oz jars are chock full of little clementine wedges and a sweet & spicy syrup. Each 8 oz jar contains double the amount of citrus wedges you get in the commercial snack-sized plastic cups – but ours are homemade, lightly flavored with honey, ginger, and cinnamon, and their packaging is reusable! Use these for snacking, drizzling over ice cream, adding to yogurt, or as a smoothie ingredient.
Honey Rhubarb Ginger Compote: I was so happy I was able to find fresh rhubarb this spring to make this small, seasonal batch. If you haven’t yet tried a rhubarb preserve, now’s your chance! This batch is a compote, which means a “dessert of fruit cooked in syrup.” I use the term here so that everyone knows this spread doesn’t have the consistency of jam. It has a looser set that is like applesauce. Combined with honey, rhubarb has a delicious, sweet tart taste. Pair this compote with custard or clotted cream & scones or serve solo in a cocktail glass. Bursting with flavor and originality!
Everything Bagel Spice Mix: another returning favorite. Each 8 oz jar contains a little over one cup of this handcrafted spice mix. It can be used on practically everything – sprinkle over cream cheese, mix into mashed potatoes or sour cream, shake onto your chicken, eggs, salad, French fries, popcorn, mac and cheese, guacamole, or Bloody Mary’s…
Brand-new, beautiful, one-of-a-kind stained-glass bee and honeycomb suncatchers: I have a whole new selection, each one is handmade by Mary Nolan, my niece and nephew’s grandmother, who is a glazier. She makes these specially for Windtree Bee. No two are alike. You can buy one with bees and honeycomb or one of St. Gobnait, the Patron Saint of Bees and Beekeepers. They make perfect gifts for anyone who loves bees, nature, and/or beautiful, whimsical pieces of art!
We’ll have two tables! Craig will be over by the beehives doing beekeeping demos. He is bringing equipment and an observation hive. His friend and mentor, Chuck Elrich, might also be there. If anyone is interested in bees or beekeeping, this is an excellent opportunity to ask questions and see the little ladies close up! I’ll have another table with the food vendors. We’ll be offering everything listed above, plus our Windtree Bee chai tea blend. I’ll post brewing instructions in the comments soon!
If you like keeping in touch via insta, follow us there! Our daughters, Ellie and Haley, are helping us with posts, etc. this summer. We hope to share more pics and behind-the-scenes videos. Stay tuned and connect with @windtree.bee on Instagram for additional content and future updates!
Saturday, we’ll be at the Hereford Farm Market, 17004 York Road, in Parkton, Maryland, from 9:00 a.m. until noon tomorrow. Look for us at the “Hats & Honey” table beside The Contented Rooster. Sunday, we’ll be at Oak Spring Farm, 20633 Mt Zion Rd, Freeland, Maryland, from noon until 4:00 p.m. Look for Craig by the beehives and Jill with the food vendors. See you there!
2021 Maryland State Fair
We entered our honey in the Small Beekeeper Class, Amber Category — and we won fifth place! This was our first time entering honey to be judged and I wasn’t sure how it would go.
The only things we care about are whether our bees, us, and our friends, family, and customers think our honey is ready for harvesting and at peak quality. The bees tell us when they think it’s ready by capping it (they seal the ends of the honeycomb when the moisture content is just right). Next, we bottle it in a clean kitchen using sterilized jars and cute packaging. Then, everyone else lets us know how tasty it is. 😉
Every batch of wildflower honey is unique and delicious. Similar to the way in which wine vintages are affected by the annual grape harvest, honey harvests are affected by the types of flowers the bees gather nectar and pollen from when they make that batch of honey. Neat, right? So, even if we wanted to, we could never again exactly produce the Windtree Bee Summer 2021 batch again. But what a batch!! We’ve been so happy with it! 🙂 🙂 🙂
The judges care about all the things I mentioned above, but they are meticulously exact about everything — as they should be. They judge each entrant’s honey on six criteria: containers, crystals, foam, accuracy of filling, density (water content), and flavor. We had top scores for nearly every criteria but so did the other beekeepers. The one area where we could improve is “accuracy of filling”. I didn’t even know that was a thing with honey! With my jellies, jams, and preserves, I’m insanely accurate about filling and I always measure the “headspace” of my jars. But we’ve never been quite that accurate with our honey because you don’t vacuum seal honey. We’ve always made sure it’s at least as full as a pound and if someone gets a little extra, no big deal.
So there you have it! Probably more than you ever wanted to know about how honey is judged! 😀
I wanted to go apple picking at Shaw’s last weekend but they’re closed on Sunday, so I drove down to Weber’s Cider Mill. I hadn’t been there since my kids were little. It wasn’t as busy as I remembered, but it could have been the weather (rainy) or the pandemic or… who knows? They have a nice little farm store where I was also able to pick up a gift for my neighbor.
For the market this week, I made a double batch of Apple Pie Jam with the apples from Weber’s. Craig said this jam is the best I’ve ever made. (While this makes me happy, he says this every time. Haha.) But it’s really delicious!
I also made two new batches of granola for tomorrow: Nutty Apple and Peanut Butter Banana. I’m selling these in 16 oz jam jars, which is about two cups. That’s a lot of granola, but if you love granola, you could eat it straight out of the jar. (BYOM — bring you’re own milk; I’ll have spoons!)
We’ll be at the Hereford Farm Market, 17004 York Road, in Parkton, Maryland, from 9:00 a.m. until noon tomorrow. Look for us at the “Hats & Honey” table beside The Contented Rooster.
Master Gardener Cara Bonner recently gave me a tour of Baltimore County’s Demo Garden. If you haven’t been yet, you should go! The demo garden is open to the public year-round and access is free. No dogs, shut the gate behind you, sign the guest book, and then stroll around for inspiration and ideas.
Inside the demo garden are different themed areas. My two favorites were the Pollinator Garden and the Monarch Waystation. Each area has its own mailbox with information and handouts inside.
The Pollinator Garden mailbox has information sheets about the plants that are in the garden, common Maryland pollinators, and tips for planting your own pollinator garden at home. Popular flower choices are zinnias, black-eyed Susans, and sunflowers. You can also plant milkweed for the monarchs, salvia for honeybees and hummingbirds, and phlox for butterflies and hummingbirds. Remember, no pesticides!! A lawn that looks like AstroTurf is not only unnatural, it’s a desert wasteland to pollinators. But a lawn full of clover looks charming and is wonderful for the bees!
After visiting the pollinator garden down at the Ag Center, I was inspired to plant my own. Here’s what’s in it:
They’re all perennials, so hopefully they’ll come back next year.
Baltimore County’s Master Gardener Demo Garden is in Cockeysville — 1114 Shawan Road
For more information on pollinator gardens and invertebrate conservation, visit the Xerces Society
Central Maryland Beekeepers Association had a journeyman beekeeper from Georgia as its guest speaker this month. Jimmy Gatt talked about why trees are among the best things you can plant for honeybees. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to make the meeting, but CMBA shared Jimmy’s list of trees, shrubs and forbs with me. I’m sharing it below with their permission. (What’s a forb? Forbs are generally broad-leafed flowering plants that are not grasses or woody plants like trees and shrubs.)
Trees: Basswood (Tilia Americana) Buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentalis) Devil’s walking stick (Aralia spins) Franklin’s tree (Franklinia alatamaha) Smooth sumac (Rhus glabra) Winged sumac (Rhus copallinum) — highly recommended Staghorn sumac (Rhus typhina) Shrubs: Summersweet (Clethra alnifolia) Coralberry (Symphoricarpos orbiculatus) Shrubby St. John’s wort (Hypericum prolificum) New Jersey Tea (Ceoanthus americanus) Bottlebrush buckeye (Aesculus parviflora) Meadowswet (Spirea alba) Forbs: Anise hyssop (Agastache foeniculum) Common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) Butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa) Swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) Clustered mountain mint (Pycnanthemum muticum)
CMBA’s next membership meeting is at the Ag Center — August 3rd from 5:00-9:00 p.m. Join the club and then tour the Demo Garden! 🙂
BCPL is hosting its fifth annual “A Toast Among Ghosts” fundraiser at the Reisterstown Branch on Saturday, September 28th from 7:00-10:00 p.m.
The historic Reisterstown Branch was formerly the Franklin Academy, where in 1831, Edgar Allan Poe applied to be the headmaster. To honor his life and legacy, library supporters are remembering the anniversary of his death in a macabre way he’d truly appreciate…in a graveyard!
There will be live music, local food vendors, beer and wine, an Edgar Allan Poe impersonator, portrayals of historic Reisterstown residents, ghost stories around a fire pit, and guided tours through the moonlit historic Reisterstown Community Cemetery.
You can buy tickets at the door. (Note: A Toast Among Ghosts is a 21+ event.) For more info, click here.
Craig harvested about the same amount of honey as last year (roughly 120 pounds). I was hopeful for a bit more because we had one more hive this year, but… bees, ya know? Totally unpredictable – at least that’s been our experience with backyard beekeeping. (We don’t claim to know how the big commercial beekeepers/honey producers operate and, in fact, aren’t advocating for that type of practice. We both continue to think that beekeeping is best for bees if done on a small scale.)
So, we jarred up this year’s harvest and started selling. It’s been fun!
We’re selling at these places this year:
OAK SPRING FARM STORE: Tuesdays from 2:00-6:00
HEREFORD FARMERS MARKET: Saturday, September 21st from 9:00-12:00 (possibly additional Saturdays)
HEREFORD FALL FEST: October 19th (10-5) and October 20th (10-6)
Craig and his friend, Chuck, are also offering another free “Intro to Beekeeping” class at:
PERRY HALL LIBRARY: September 28th from 2:00-3:00
We decided to keep our little nuc instead of over-wintering it at a friend’s house, so now we’re up to four hives. I think that will be our max. As stated above, we’re not looking to go big. We’ll see how many make it through winter. For now, they’re looking good!
Here’s a neat thing about bees – they are super tidy. They like to keep their hive clean and will also clean any honey-covered equipment you leave in the yard for them.
After harvesting, we put the supers and buckets outside for a few days so the bees can clean them. Here are some other common things beekeepers do to prepare for winter:
HIVE CHECK UP: Basically, beekeepers want their hives as healthy as possible before heading into winter. This means assessing the strength of the queen, estimating how many bees are in the hive, seeing how much honey they have left, and checking for problems.
FEEDING: We try to leave lots of honey in the hives for our bees, but some beekeepers (us included) occasionally feed sugar water to their bees after the harvest to give them an extra calorie boost heading into winter.
TREAT FOR VARROA: Varroa mites are like vampires to bees. They suck a bee’s insides out while also probably infecting it with a virus. Lovely, huh? Varroa are pests whose full scientific name is varroa destructor for a reason. A varroa infestation can easily wipe out an entire hive and spread to another hive very quickly. But you don’t want to treat for varroa before the harvest, which means it’s usually a fall task.
ENTRANCE REDUCER: Once summer is over, there are less bees, making less trips. To help the bees keep their hives warm in the winter, and to keep out intruders like mice, beekeepers sometimes install “entrance reducers.” You have to be careful about using them though, because if the bees are still too active, the entrance can get clogged with bees and the whole hive will die. (Yep, that happened to us one year. Always heartbreaking when you lose a hive, no matter the cause. Doubly bad when you feel like it was something you did.)
VIVALDI BOARDS: These are specially built frames that help with winter moisture, ventilation, and feeding problems. We’ve never used them before, but this year Craig made them for all our hives. (Every year, our goal is to have ALL OF OUR HIVES SURVIVE. Will this be the year?) Click here for a link on how to make these yourself.
Craig has been beekeeping since 2015. Jill started selling honey in 2018. Currently, they have four winterized hives and a flower garden that needs to be put to bed. Their latest experiment: Vivaldi boards. Stay tuned…
Summer is winding down! Every week I wonder how many more blooms I’ll get this season. So far, I’ve made 26 bouquets (19 large; 7 small). Not a lot, but it’s my first summer growing cutting flowers. I’ve been experimenting and want to keep it fun. I probably could have produced more but:
Jill and Craig have hundreds of blooms and tens of thousands of bees on their one acre patch of land in north Baltimore County. Come see them at the Hereford Farmers Market (Sept 14), the Perry Hall library (Sept 28), and the Hereford Fall Fest (Oct 19/20).
Windtree Bee 