Thank You

What’s that scent in the air? Why it’s Panic!

One of the downsides of a beautiful long fall is that hidden behind it, gobbling up the days, is imminent winter with Christmas barreling up behind. There is roughly a week left to finish the shopping, and just to make it really fun: a foot of snow and a sharp cold snap.

I want to thank our customers and clients for all of your support over this past year. Small family businesses are not an easy thing to keep growing but your patronage and appreciation of great local honey has helped us make some significant changes to serve you better. We expanded the shop size this fall, and the handy and talented Darren M. built us a store front to better display our wares.

The bees are wrapped, and waiting for the promise of spring, and half buried in the snow. (Don’t worry, they really really like that.) The thermal gun tells me that they are clustered up tight, and although it’s early in the season, all the colonies are strong and snuggled in for the winter.

The honey shop crew are working full tilt with Christmas orders, and fundraisers and all our customers who are coming down to check out the new storefront. I cannot be more blessed with this team of crack honey engineers.

Now it’s a race to the 20th to see if we can outlast the Christmas rush, and then enjoy the well-deserved break during our holiday shut down. Holidays are for family, and we are all about that. So we will be closed between the 21st and the 2nd of January.

All you procrastinators have about a week to get your selections ordered, as last orders are filled on the 19th. (After hours pick ups can still be arranged, and we do have a lot of retail partners with stocked shelves.) (link to retail partners)

A couple of interesting news articles in the honeyverse this month.

A decade old lawsuit against the federal government for closing the U.S. border to bee imports was dismissed. This is an incredibly polarizing topic in the beekeeping community, and a disappointing end for the beekeepers looking for recompense for government’s regulation. Whelp, they fought the law and the law won. I’m not particularly keep on an open border but I understand why some are.

Beekeeping is a risky endeavor, and crying because you don’t have all the tools available to fix your mistakes is one thing, but running your bees into the ground because the spreadsheets tell you it’s cheaper to replace than take care of them diligently is another.

All my sympathies for the good hardworking apiarists who suffer losses and hardship due to circumstances beyond anyone’s control. None whatsoever to the “box fillers” who factory farm for profit then refuse to change practices when your methods no longer work.

Honey production can be a challenging way to earn a living, and one needs to constantly adapt both farming and business models especially they way the seasonal weather patterns are changing. Kicking rocks over the government being vigilant on risk assessment won’t help.

Speaking of vigilant, a new method of detecting adulterated or fraudulent honey may soon go mainstream.

The development of a groundbreaking light analysis technique allows testing honey without opening the jar. This will help greatly in honey counterfeiting that has become incredibly pervasive all around the globe.

Even this year’s World Beekeeping Awards have dropped the honey category over concerns of fraudulent entries. In the past, many disqualifications of entries have shed a bad light on the industry, and further undermining of consumer confidence is apparently bad business. Remember to always know where the food on your table comes from! Money has a tendency to weaken the morals of the greedy.

I’m looking forward to the holidays, spending time with the kids and grandkids, eating too much, and counting my blessings. I wish you all the very best in the New Year, and again from the bottom of my heart, thank you for supporting the beekeepers of Manitoba!

John

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