Brookhaven Honey Co.

Come out and support your local Brookhaven Farmers Market we have vegetables, honey, beef, pork, canned, and baked goods today from what I see.

I will be at tomorrows Brookhaven Farmers Market

I am here today at your local Brookhaven Farmers Market come out and support your local farmers/bakers/canners/beekeepers. Brookhaven Honey Co. We are here till 12

I am here and setup! Come out and support your local Brookhaven Farmers Market!

Come see Craig Smith at the Brookhaven Farmers Market today he has my honey and some beautiful tomatoes!

Yall come see Craig Smith tomorrow at the Brookhaven Farmers Market He will have tons of tomatoes and Brookhaven Brookhaven Honey Co. Honey, I cant be there but he is graciously gonna have my honey. Come grab some honey and some fresh veggies!

The first batch of honey for the year has been extracted. I will bottle it tomorrow and Craig Smith from Smith's farm fresh vegetables will have my honey along with his fantastic veggies at fridays Brookhaven Farmers Market.

Last check before I leave for philmont. Hope the bees fill all the boxes while I’m gone.

I am running way behind I won’t be at the first few market this year. I will post when I have honey ready.

Looks like they are starting 20 out of 30 so not too bad for the first round this year. 9 on this bar and 11 on another bar.

Here is our opening date for the farmers market. I hope to have honey ready for this market!

First round of grafts done. Will see how they turn out in 3 days or so. The queen lays an egg which is attached to the bottom of the cell. It hatches on after day 3 and is then a larva that gets feed royal jelly. The third picture shows hatched larvae right next to eggs. I have to transfer that tiny 2mm long larvae into a queen cup and place it in a queenless colony for them to start raising a new round of queens.

This is exactly what we want to see this time of year. This is a full frame of baby bees. Each frame has about 7500 cells total from both sides. In about 10 days this will all emerge and strengthen this colony.

I saw bees flying today from all my hives. Looks like everyone survived the cold snap. Hopefully friday when its warm enough I can peek in and see how everyone is doing. Now till march is the time that hives can starve. So we have to check and possibly add sugar bricks for the bees to consume until spring.

Did a quick inspection while the temp was above 60. Added a shim with sugar to help out a small colony that was low on food. 2 days ago they were bringing in yellow pollen from something so thats a plus. Now the goal is to keep them from starving between now and early march.

Than you to everyone that came to the Brookhaven Farmers Market today. The weather was great and y’all cleaned me out. I am out of honey till probably may 2024. I will still have lip balms and will make another batch of whipped honey in the spring.

I’m down to whipped honey, lip balms, and a few hard lotion bars. Y’all are awesome!

Come out and support your Brookhaven Farmers Market

I will be at our Christmas Brookhaven Farmers Market this Friday December 22. I will have honey, whipped honey, hard lotion bars, lip balms, and beeswax.

Selling out quickly!

We are excited to see those who can come on out to the market TODAY! Stock up on some locally farmed honey, the freshest broccoli and collard greens you can get outside your own garden, local beef and delicious sauces to go with it! Jams, bread, cookies too!

Get a head start on some Christmas gifts with Pell Farms. They will have goat milk soap. Perfect stocking stuffer or great hostess gifts for anyone you are having dinner with tomorrow.

Come see us! 2pm - 6pm at Railroad Park. Hope to see you there!

Today I will have honey, lip balms, and a small amount of beeswax

I will have honey, lip balms, and beeswax today.

We are excited to see those who can come on out to the market TODAY! Stock up on some locally farmed honey, the freshest broccoli and collard greens you can get outside your own garden, local beef and delicious sauces to go with it! Jams, bread, cookies too!

Get a head start on some Christmas gifts with Pell Farms. They will have goat milk soap. Perfect stocking stuffer or great hostess gifts for anyone you are having dinner with tomorrow.

Come see us! 2pm - 6pm at Railroad Park. Hope to see you there!

NOTE FARMERS MARKET DATE AND TIME CHANGE.
New date: Wednesday Nov 22, 2pm - 6pm
Location: Railroad Park

Due to the pending weather we have made the difficult decision to shift the market to Wednesday at 2pm - 6pm. We have vendors that have products that cannot get wet and our farmer will not be able to harvest veggies in a storm, we want to keep him safe! So we are shifting to Wednesday in hopes we have skipped all the bad weather and to give Craig time to harvest. We hope you will understand.

We hope you can still join us, Wednesday November 22, 2pm - 6pm.

This is honeycomb that contains "bee bread". We all know that bees gather pollen but the bees do not consume their pollen fresh. Instead, they take it into the hive and pack the granules into empty comb cells, mixing them with nectar and digestive fluids and sealing the cell with a drop of honey. Once processed in this way, the pollen remains stable indefinitely. Beekeepers call this form of pollen ‘perga’ or ‘bee bread’.

Fresh pollen is high in moisture and protein and, especially when brought into the hive—which stays around an internal temperature of 37˚C—becomes an ideal environment for mould growth. The bees’ digestive fluids, however, are rich with lactic acid bacteria (LAB), which come to dominate the pollen substrate when it is packed together and sealed from the air with honey. The bacteria metabolise sugars in the pollen, producing lactic acid and lowering the pH from 4.8 to around 4.1 well below the generally recognised threshold for pathogenic microbial growth of 4.6.

These LAB come predominantly from the bees themselves, rather than, for example, the plants from which they forage and the difference in microbial ecology of fresh pollen vs. stored is great Furthermore, many of the genera which come to dominate fermented pollen are also some of those most common in fermented food products made by humans: Oenococcus, Paralactobacillus, and particularly Bifidobacterium, a known probiotic genus whose activity in bee hives has also been correlated with lower counts of pathogenic microbes Beneficial yeasts and fungi have also been documented in bee bread . Many of these beneficial fungi are susceptible to fungicides in the environment often applied to plant crops. Greater microbial diversity of beneficial microbes in bee colonies has also been correlated with greater genetic diversity of the bees themselves, and this symbiosis between bees and their microbes, like in humans, is becoming increasingly studied as a likely fundamental part of overall hive health

In addition to preservation the fermentation process of the pollen also renders its nutrients more available. Some proteins are broken down into amino acids, starches are metabolised into simple sugars, and vitamins become more bio-available. In this sense, bee bread is even more health-giving than the more commonly available fresh bee pollen.

Yet the sensory transformation of the bee pollen into bee bread might be most remarkable. The floral and herbal notes of individual granules become enhanced; the powdery, sandy texture becomes firmer and moister; the acidity from the lactic acid brightens the flavour and tempers possible bitterness; and the fermentation also produces secondary aromas that generate new flavours of fruit—some, for example, gain the distinct taste of mango. The particularities of the fresh pollen, depending on the season and its plant sources, become enhanced, and new qualities that were not present before are revealed.

Just finished up the second month of pollen sampling for a study that Mississippi State is conducting. They have beekeepers from all over the state participating. I was sent a pollen trap that go on the front of a hive that scrapes the pollen off the bees legs and captures it. We put these traps on once a month for a week and freeze the sample until they can collect it.