The production

From the nectar in the flower to the honey in your kitchen, several stages must be carried out to finally get the wonderful result that you recognize as honey.

During the winter, bees hibernate. We bring all but 300 of our beehives into a hibernation basement located in the honey house. We cover the remaining hives that stay outdoors with insulating material to protect them from the harsh winter climate. However, regardless of whether the bees are indoors or outdoors during the winter, they are hibernating. The bees keep the hive temperature close to the queen at an appropriate level of 36°C. The queen stops laying eggs during the cold season, and starts again at the beginning of March.

When the nice weather returns, at about the end of March, we bring the hives outside. We place them in specific locations, called “spring bee yards,” where the hives are protected from the wind, since the weather is still cool. At this time, we often inspect the amount of food in the hives, as well as how the queen is progressing with her egg laying. We also add pollen to the hives to stimulate the queen to lay as many eggs as possible. It is important to ensure that the bees are in the best possible environment to enable the quick development of the hive. Until the end of May, the honey produced by the bees is for their personal consumption. They do not produce a surplus, since there are very few flowers available in our region at that time of year.

By about mid-May, when the dandelions sprout, we move the hives again to other locations, called “summer bee yards,” where the bees spend the rest of the summer. These locations are carefully selected, and our 35 bee yards are situated in agricultural areas. We try to select locations that are as close as possible to fields where nectar plants grow. It is very important for these plants to be close so the bees can be productive. By about the end of June, we see a significant quantity of honey in the hives. If all goes well, it is at this time of year that we begin to collect honey from the hives. And voila – it’s harvesting time! If the temperature cooperates– in other words, if it is warm and not too dry – we will continue harvesting honey for the rest of the summer.

When the honey boxes are full of honey, we transport them to the honey house, where they are stored for several days to lower the humidity of the honey. Two days later, it is time to extract the honey from the frames. We use a special procedure, whereby the layer of wax holding the honey in the storage cell is removed, and the frames are placed in a honey extractor, where they spin at a very high speed. This enables us to obtain the honey from the frames. Then the honey is left to settle in a big tank before being stored in large barrels.

Once it is time to bottle the honey, we empty several barrels into a vat, where it becomes liquefied. It is important to note that our honey is unpasteurized. The honey is then filtered and placed into jars, which are transported to grocery stores through our distribution network. That is how our honey finds its way into your kitchen.