Spring is finally in the air!
We’ve had a great month getting back to normal. We’ve been busy jarring lots of honey as well as checking on our bees.
We even had our first Live stream on TIKTOK after Katie joined our small team to help with marketing. The live stream was really successful with lots of people joining to see us cutting comb and making chunk honey. We are planning to do lots more so if you have TIKTOK do give us a follow!
If there’s anything you’d like to know or learn about honey or beekeeping just message us or email us and we will make sure it gets answered.
One of the big developments this month was the arrival of our new bulk tank. When honey comes to us in barrels for our packing customers we need to warm it up. Up until now we have warmed it in the barrels and then pumped it through a strainer and in to the jarring machine. The problem is you need to try and mix the honey to get it to clear well enough.
Now with this new tank we warm the barrels slightly just enough to get it to be able to pump and then pump it in to the tank which has a water tank around it (Called a double jacket) which heats up. A stirrer mixes the 800kg of honey once an hour for 5 minutes for about 24 hours which then means the honey is clear enough to be strained and jarred with much less warming which is better for the honey.
We can jar about 1 ton of honey a day so this tank is going to be a big leap forward for us. Although at the moment our own brand isn’t actually big enough to make full use of this tank our packing customers are and it means when our brand grows we will have the equipment set up ready to go.
We have lots more plans moving forward including a new processing room so keep an eye out on our social media for all the updates!
Out with the bees we’ve been busy making sure they have enough food. So far we’ve been happy with how the bees are doing. The warmer than normal winter has meant the queens have continued laying and the bees are eating a lot of food. I have heard reports higher than normal losses around the UK which will be due to the bees running out of food. Every two weeks we go around and add fondant, which is bakers fondant often used in cakes, to any hives that need it.
Over the next few weeks we will do a little video showing the process and how we decide which ones need food.
As always thank you so much for taking the time to read our short blog, your support means a lot to our small business
Matthew Ingram
Holt Hall Apiary