I had a lunchtime booking for a talk today, to a ladies' lunch club that meets bi-monthly. They wanted an introduction to beekeeping, and the bookings secretary who rang last week to check that I was coming was very keen that I should bring honey for sale. I don't have much honey left, none of it bottled, and so the Aga has had two tubs of last year's crop gently liquifying on it for the past couple of days, one of dark honey and one of light.
Honey is best stored in bulk, in an airtight container. You don't want to expose it to air, because being a very strong sugar solution it will tend to absorb moisture from the atmosphere (deliquescent is the term, if you want to be technical about it), and you don't want it to do that, because if it becomes too dilute it may ferment (or at least the top layer), in which case the flavour is spoilt and it is no good for anything. A big snap top plastic bucket of honey has a lower surface to volume ratio than a little jar, and a better seal than a screw top lid. However, if the honey has solidified in the bucket you have to reliquify it to get it into jars, or at least soften it, being very careful not to overheat it as that spoils it as well. Standing the plastic buckets on the Aga warming plate balanced on Aga saucepan lids (which are made with flat tops for stacking so do very well as trivets) gives a suitably gentle heat source. The honey takes ages to melt completely by this method, and when I went to jar it up last night I found that it was still granular, so the buckets had to stay in situ overnight, and I filled the jars this morning. The remaining bit of the pale honey that I collected last May was still not entirely clear, which was a pity, since it was a beautiful pale straw colour when fresh.
Lunch clubs are funny gigs. You get lunch, which is nice, but means they take up quite a large portion of the day, by the time you've done your talk after the meal. I agreed to do this one ages ago, and as the date drew nearer and today turned out to be a dry one I could usefully have spent in the garden, I slightly wished I hadn't. Still, too late to complain now. If it had been bucketing down I'd have felt very smug that I had a productive alternative lined up for the day. They were a pleasant group of ladies, who seemed to enjoy the talk for the most part, with only one or two showing signs of taking a post-lunch snooze. They asked a lot of questions, which is a sign of audience engagement, though several did go on quizzing me in detail about Manuka honey even after I'd explained that most UK beekeepers, including me, didn't produce it and I didn't honestly know a great deal about it.
They only bought four or five jars of honey, which was a pity after my efforts bottling the stuff, but didn't come as a great surprise. Still, I did need to jar up some more, as it always comes in useful for presents when visiting people, and I have another talk next week where I might sell another four or five jars. Plus I kept two jars back for home consumption. One of the committee members at the beekeepers' meeting on Monday, who helps field questions from the general public, told us how she'd had to be diplomatic replying to somebody asking how many beehives he would need to make a living from beekeeping as a commercial business, starting from scratch with no experience of keeping bees. I don't bother keeping records of my income and expenditure as a beekeeper (though I do record the lot numbers of honey sold as required by law) but I know that I don't make any sort of profit. The cost of frames and foundation for the bees to build their comb on, sugar to feed them in the autumn and fondant in the late winter, treatments for the varroa mite, my Beekeepers Association subscription and the ticket for the annual conference, when I go, cost far more than I ever get from selling a bit of honey and doing a couple of talks. With the weather this year, one of the two commercial beekeepers I know has been looking pretty grim faced, the last couple of times I've seen him, and the Systems Administrator told me that even The World at One ran a story today about colony losses this spring.
Addendum Today was dustbin day, and we have hit a new low for food thrown away which could have been eaten, the council food recycling bin containing nothing at all except the rind off a piece of cheddar, and the fat from two slices of cooked ham. Just as long as the council appreciate that it isn't that we've mistakenly put the cooked food waste in the main bin, but rather have managed not to have any.
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