For the past five months the honey bees at Bela Farm have been working hard gathering pollen and nectar from the flowers of Hillsburgh, Ontario.
Making honey is an awesome and labour-intensive process that requires communication and team effort from the all members of the hive.
Honey bee gathering pollen and nectar from a native, common milkweed plant at Bela Farm. Photo credit: Bernie Feder
Here’s how it works: female forager worker bees head out to fields to gather nectar. They stick out their long probocis tongue and pull sweet, watery nectar from the flowers. The nectar is stored in their honey stomachs and transferred back to the hive where it gets transferred from the forager to other workers to become honey. Worker bees transfer the nectar from mouth to mouth until it reaches it’s final destination: a hexagonal honey comb. Once in the comb, bees will fan their wings to evaporate the moisture content of the nectar down to 18%. That’s when nectar becomes honey. To finish the process, the bees cap the honey off with wax and this preserves it indefinitely.
A true miracle of nature, honey bees teach us the importance of communication and collaboration to reach a common purpose that benefits all.
On Sunday September 11th, Shoresh will be harvesting honey and wax from our bees. We are honoured to bring these products to you so that you can weave the values of health and sustainability into your home and into the new year.
At this year’s Rosh Hashana Markets we will be selling Bela’s Bees Pure Honey, Shoresh holiday cards, local, organic garlic from The Cutting Veg and homegrown herbal tea from our amazing new project, The Pearl Project, with Jewish Family and Child Services.
For garlic: Pre-order your garlic here and use Promo Code Shoresh2016 and get 4 free bulbs.
For cases of honey: email sabrina@shoresh.ca to pre-order your Shoresh holiday cards and cases of 12 jars or more of honey.
And join us at one of our mini-markets across the GTA!
- Mid-town Toronto
- Date: Tuesday September 20, 2016
- Time: 12:00 PM-1:30 PM
- Location: Lipa Green Centre, 4588 Bathurst Street
- York Region
- Date: Wednesday September 21st and Wednesday September 28th
- Time: 3:30 PM-6:00 PM
- Location: Shoresh’s Kavanah Garden, located on Lebovic Campus Drive, just west of Ilan Ramon Blvd. Click here for a map to the garden.
- Downtown
- Date: Monday September 19,2016
- Time: 4:30 PM-7:00 PM
- Location: The Wolfond Centre, 36 Harbord Street