Craig’s been hard at work getting the bees ready for winter. The three biggest things that need to be done before winter are treating for varroa, making sure the bees have enough honey to last until spring, and making sure the hive is prepared for lower temps, freezing rain, and snow. Moisture in a hive during the winter will kill them.
Back in 2019, I posted about our process for winterizing the hives. The biggest difference between then and now is that we’ve upped the varroa treatment and this year, for the first time, Craig decided to insulate the hives. After losing all our hives in 2020, we’ve been wondering what else we can do to help our bees overwinter. After much hand-wringing, soul-searching, bellyaching, and griping to anyone who would listen about the plight of bees over the winter, we stumbled on the Honey Bee Obscura Podcast with Kim and Jim. They convinced us to insulate. We’ll keep everyone posted, but prayers for our bees might also help!!
Did anyone else see last night’s lunar eclipse?
It was amazing! Our whole family got up at 3:45 a.m. to watch. I wasn’t sure if it would be worth it, but it was. Even though it wasn’t a full lunar eclipse, the long period of time the moon was nearly fully eclipsed gave us time to look through our little telescope and take pictures. My younger daughter took these with her iPhone. Neat, huh? If you missed it, the next lunar eclipse will be in the spring.
Last Saturday for the Hereford Farm Market!
Tomorrow is the LAST DAY OF THE SEASON for selling at the Hereford Farm Market. Wow!! It has been a terrific season!!! When I started selling jam back in May, my only goal was to simply sit at the “Hats & Honey” table so that I could chat with people in my community again. I had no idea if I would be able to sell enough jam to justify being at the market every week as a vendor. I figured, if my jam didn’t sell, I’d just be a guest vendor when our honey was finally harvested. But that didn’t happen. The jam sold, I went nearly every week, and it’s all because of YOU!!!
If you’re one of the people who bought jam, honey, or other items from us this season — THANK YOU FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART!!!!! It was truly a pleasure coming to the market every week. It was fun finding new recipes and making new batches, but even better was being able to talk about bees, honey, jam, farm markets, Hereford, kids, dogs — you name it! — with anyone and everyone who stopped by our table.
Special Shout Out to Mandi!
Mandi, owner of Rosie Posie Design Co., is my table partner and the other half of “Hats & Honey.” She was a HUGE part of the success of this season. She and her husband, Rob, are super laid back, fun, and easy going. Selling was never stressful with them. Although Windtree Bee’s season is winding down, Rosie Posie’s is in high gear. Her hats and knit accessories are the perfect handmade gift for friends and family this winter. If you haven’t already, check out her website. She has all sorts of winter goodies still available: hats, beanies, cowls, mittens, and the most adorable miniature hats that double as ornaments or wine toppers. She offers knitting kits and her own designs for knitters too.
What am I bringing to the market?
Because it’s the last day, I went a little overboard this week and made double what I usually make. I really wanted to make some things with fresh cranberries, which can be hard to find sometimes, and also pie filling, which is more time consuming than basic jam or jelly, but worth it. Here’s what I’ll have:
Honey Maple Cranberry Sauce: Made with fresh cranberries, organic apple cider, honey and maple syrup, this isn’t your typical store-bought canned cranberry sauce.
Spiced Cranberries: Made with organic cranberries, orange juice, sugar, and a trio of autumn spices, this is another great choice if you want something different than tin can cranberry sauce.
Caramel Apple Coffee Jam: I made this at the very beginning of the season and reprised it because it’s so darn good. The perfect jam for coffee lovers!
Spiced Apple Pie Filling: This is available in one pint jars. Most traditional pie tins take two pints to fill. One jar is perfect for a personal pie pan or for filling apple tarts. This stuff makes pies easy! Just buy premade pie crust, roll it out, and add this. Or make your own crust, pour this in, and still have a 100% homemade pie.
CranApple Jelly: Made with Pomona’s Pectin, so there is a much lower sugar content than traditional jellies have. Plus, no high fructose corn sweetener. This jelly has only three ingredients — fruit juice, sugar, and pectin. Super simple but not super sweet.
“Black & Blue” Jelly: Black currant, blueberry, and apple jelly. Also made with Pomona’s Pectin, so a lower sugar alternative to store-bought jellies.
Special order over the winter!
If you want to buy jam, jelly, marmalade, preserves, or conserves this winter (or dog treats! 🙂 ) click HERE for my new special orders page.
After this weekend, I won’t be blogging as frequently as I did during the market season, but I will post from time to time. I have several winter projects I’ll be working on and I’m looking forward to sharing them.
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.
Windtree Bee 