Honey Bees
We keep our honey bees in the most natural and organic way as possible. At Beaupre, we encourage the bees to build all of their own natural comb, as they do in nature. We never introduce chemicals, pesticides, herbicides, antibiotics or any other un- natural product to our bee hives. We do not feed our bees high fructose corn syrups or artificial pollen. All of our queens are raised naturally, upon swarming. We do occasionally re-hab packaged bees to give them a more naturalized life. At Beaupre, we work with Kenyan Top Bar Hives, Skeps, and traditional Langstroth/top bar hives. We never use foundation or any plastics in our hives. All of the harvests at Beaupre are sustainably planned and executed. We have a no kill ethic. This means we strive to protect each and every bee.
Honey Bee FAQ'S
How is your honey organic? Good question. We consider our honey "Oganic practice", we do not have an Organic certification. Most of out beehives are in suburban areas. Being exposed to so many different properties and management types, its imposssible to know exactly where the bees are collecting nectar. However, we do believe the bees prefer to choose the best and purist nectar sources. This being said, our "Organic practice" is as follows: Our bees build all their own comb, we do not use foundation, plastic or printed wax. We do not treat the hives with any miteacides or insecticides, We use chemicl free options. . We do not feed our bees high fructose corn syrups, or put antibiotics in feed. Our frames are all wood, no plastic. We allow queens to be raised by the colonies on their own time. We only feed bees honey or Biodynamic tea when rehabing a colony, like a package. We do not move our bees to nectar sources. All of our honey is raw, and contains pollen and propolis. We do not heat, or filter our honey. Our honey is pure nectar, it is not supplimented with sugar water. If you have any further questions regaurding our practices, please contact us.
Is Raw Oganic Honey better for you? We believe so, yes. Raw honey is more active, and by staying in its natural state, and not being heated, the honey will retain all of its beneficial properties. Plus, when honey is not filtered, you get all the nutritional benefits of the propolis and pollen that are often visible in your honey.
How long is the honey good for? In general, honey does not spoil, unless it gets water into it, and then it will ferment. The honey may crystalize, and even cream, but that does not mean the honey is bad. In fact, honey has been found in ancient tombs of Egypt, and many other burial places thousands of years old, and the honey was not spoiled. So your honey should last a long, long time.
Do you get stung a lot? No, not really, not while collecting honey. As long as you are not working in the brood chamber, bees are very docile in general. Its rare to be stung if you take your time, and mind the bees. Careful beekeepers kill less bees. When a honey bee stings, her life is lost. male honeybees(drones) can not sting!
Do all honey bees sting? No, they do not. Drones do not sting, and when a female honey bee does sting, it is usually as a last resort, knowing that she'll loose her life if she does choose to sting. Honey bees don't usually sting for "no reason". If you look closely, there is usually a reason why you got stung. Most likely, you were moving to fast.
Is your honey good?
Honestly, we believe it is like no other, the absolute best! We love our honey, and its unique and delicious flavors. One of the nice aspect about our honey, is that we keep it seperated yard to yard. This means we extract the honey in small batches, so different honey from different yards tastes vastly unique. Its always a surprise to find out what seasonal essence the honey will take on.
Below, a Kenyan Top bar Hive at Beaupre
hiving bees