The Old Folks Home

[ronott1]

Thanks Cynthia for sharing. I have never seen it done and would probably not have tackled that myself with out instructions from someone else that had done it.


Our local stores stock Ambrosia honey from a local that has bee hives all over. I tried it and did not like it at all! Thank goodness they started carrying a new brand that is organic.

Real Honey will taste very different based on what the bees collect. Color, thickness and taste actually. If you go into a store and buy a bottle of honey and it tastes exactly like the same brand as last year, it is not real honey.

Growing up on the Prune orchard, a local honey producer kept hives on our property. Each year he would give us 5 gallons of honey! It was amazing and was some prune blossom mixed with star thistle and wild flowers. Star Thistle honey is my favorite. It may be a California thing though.

 

[Kusanar]

Maple harvest one of my favorite videos

One of those tanks problably is about four hundred gallons give or take at about 9 pounds per gallon 3600 pounds those horses are pulling....

deb

Well, you do have almost 4,000 pounds of horse pulling it... My mini can pull almost twice his weight on pavement without appearing to be in distress (he can do all 3 gaits) only problem is going downhill, it slides him....

I wonder if you could make any sort of etable syrup out of elm, my farm has several big elms that when we were trimming them back would actually shoot water several feet when the branch was cut and one has an old scar that apparently never healed that just drips sap/water constantly, to the point it has killed all of the grass under it in about a 3 foot circle from drowing it... tapping them would be easy....

 

[superchemicalgirl]

Real Honey will taste very different based on what the bees collect. Color, thickness and taste actually. If you go into a store and buy a bottle of honey and it tastes exactly like the same brand as last year, it is not real honey.

Growing up on the Prune orchard, a local honey producer kept hives on our property. Each year he would give us 5 gallons of honey! It was amazing and was some prune blossom mixed with star thistle and wild flowers. Star Thistle honey is my favorite. It may be a California thing though.

My honey tastes different every year - because of what's in bloom and in what quantities (but it always tastes like sticky sweet heaven). They definitely prefer certain nectar and pollen over others. Honey that is harvested towards the end of the year is also darker and more pungent. And if you have goldenrod (we do) it smells like dirty sweaty socks in the beehive when that is flowing (but the honey is amazing). I've seen some studies that show there's no difference in allergies between people eating local honey and those not. The pollen that most people are allergic to are weeds and trees, not generally what bees pick up (they tend to stick to brightly colored flowers). However, bees do pick up propolis (sticky sap) and use it to bind their hive together. So it is possible that allergens are in the hive. I'm not ready to completely discount it, and I think honey isn't bad for you (in small amounts) so it's worth a shot.

I wonder if you could make any sort of etable syrup out of elm, my farm has several big elms that when we were trimming them back would actually shoot water several feet when the branch was cut and one has an old scar that apparently never healed that just drips sap/water constantly, to the point it has killed all of the grass under it in about a 3 foot circle from drowing it... tapping them would be easy....

I bought syrup a few years back from someone who tapped other trees than maple. I can't recall exactly what the tree was but it was a tart, peppery syrup that was decent tasting, but crystalized quickly.

 

[Alaskan]

Up here we tap birch.... It is meh ....


It is also much more year dependant... Some years they taste better than others....

Many people who tap don't even bother boiling it down, and just use it as birch "water"

Of course I am probably just jealous .... I have one birch tree on my property... ONE, and it is just now getting close enough to being big enough to tap... I have lots of Spruce (spruce tip tea anyone? -not yummy-), and alder... Lots of alder.

 

[perchie.girl]

Quote:
People dont realize how much work horses can do if given the right equipment... Brakes on four wheeled vehicles are a must. Some of those work vehicles weigh more than a thousand pounds all by themselves.

deb

 

[Beer can]

I'm sure you can get some spruce tip beer up there @Alaskan. Take the rum off the ship and only supply spruce beer, sailors no longer got scurvy. They didn't know why but spruce tips have vitamin C. They use them in replace of the hops. The fresh light green tips in the spring actually do smell/taste citrusy. I actually talked the DW into helping me pick a bunch one yr, Sitka spruce is supposed to be the best, Norway second, we don't have Sitka but the State Lands are planted with thousands of acres of Norway back during the depression. DW didn't think it was fun, not like picking blackberries Lol! :-D

 

[chickadoodles]

Quote: Thanks Ron. I am not sure why that Ambrosia honey is so awful but I never want any of it again.
A lady I know just started her first hive this year. I asked her to let me know when she has some for sale. She said she would.

 

[chickisoup]

Hi everyone,

first, thank you so much Cyn for taking the time to so clearly document everything with pictures. fortunately I have yet to deal with bumblefoot. I plan on bookmarking it and study it more closely because I am certain I will sooner or later.

To whomever said that real maple syrup is watery has never had REAL maple syrup. That stuff they pass off in the grocery store is either fake (if you read the fine print on the label) or it is commercially produced and has not been cooked down far enough so that they get more volume. Fortunately, we buy our year's supply every spring from the sugar shack of a farm family that has a pancake feed at the Knight's of Columbus hall on a Sunday after sugaring is done. You bring your bucket, jars or whatever and fill them up with fresh dark syrup (yes, I know dark is B grade but it has a much deeper richer flavor which is much better for my deer camp cookies and pumpkin bread and of course drizzled over bacon and warm biscuits on a crisp fall morning). Most of us "locals" leave the thin tasting grade A amber colored stuff for the city people.

I don't think I even know (or at least don't remember) what store bought honey tastes like. I've always gotten my honey from a farmer market, etc. and for years we've bought ours in huge jugs from the Amish. Oh wait, now that I think about it, I have had that nasty commercial stuff. That's what they serve in those little plastic packets in the restaurants. I forgot they call that "honey". All I've ever tasted in it was corn syrup.

 

[Latestarter]

Umm isn't the "B" grade "over cooked" hence thicker and darker? The "A" grade is "supposedly" cooked to perfection and sorry... it's "watery". It's thin, not thick, and not watered down at all... 100% pure maple syrup. Now the syrup I speak of is from the New England states, primarily NH and VT... I don't know about mid western states or anywhere else.

I just speak from personal experience.

 

[Beer can]

There actually isn't any difference in how the syrup is made, the grade A light is the first while it's still cold and supposedly the premium, later in the season it takes on a darker color and stonger maple flavor as the tree gets close to budding time in the warmer weather, then it's all over till next yr...
I think what Latestarter means by 'thin' is in comparison to maple flavored high fructose corn syrup pancake syrup which is gooey thick.
I'm with you chickisoup, I prefer the darker.