Author:
Max , January 21st, 2012
About us: Crystal Waters Raw Honey is produced by Trudi and Max Lindegger (with the occasional help of family, friends and WWOOFers). We have kept bees since about 1976. We started off with one hive and have only expanded in recent years to keep up with demand. We keep up to 20 hives and also maintain a fairly large vegetable garden, some chickens, an orchard of Pecan Nuts and Kaffir Lime and a small herd of Lowline Angus cattle.
Our products:
Honey:
We have honey for sale most of the time. We generally sell in glass jars.
- 1kg costs $ 10.00
- 500g costs $ 6.00
- 350g plastic jars by request only
- We often have bulk honey (in your container) available for $ 7.00 per kg
In each case we pay $ 1.00 for our jars returned in a clean condition (no need to remove the labels)
Beeswax & Beeswax candles:
We render the cappings via a solar process and send them for cleaning and pressing into sheets. We make 100% pure beeswax candles from these sheets.
- Small candles – $ 5.00 per pair
- Large candles – $ 9.00 per pair
- Please enquire about costs for larger quantities
- Wax blocks: pre-cleaned 100% beeswax by request
Beekeeping workshops for beginners:
Please let us know if you are interested in such one day workshops and we will let you know when we hold the next one.
Location:
We live at Crystal Waters which is about 1 & 1/2 hrs (by car) form Brisbane in the state of Queensland, Australia. Our hives are kept right next to our home. This is a truly subtropical climate with summer rain and a couple of fairly humid months. Winters are generally dry and mild. You can find out much more about Crystal Waters here: http://crystalwaters.org.au/
Our Bees and Honey
We never move our bees. We don’t use any chemicals in the keeping of our bees or during the extraction process. Our honey is not heated and not blended. Each batch is separately labelled and reflects the flora of the time of the year when it is harvested. We screen the honey through a mesh which will take out the “bees knees” but not the pollen. We bottle into glass jars and we offer a refund for returned bottles. (We will provide honey in plastic containers by special request only) Our honey is sold at local markets and some selected local stores.
Why not blend the honey?
The flora our bees gather the nectar from is quite diverse: Eucalyptus, Waterhousia, orchard trees and ground flora. The mix will vary from season to season and each time it will be a new discovery. We find each flavour exiting and would not want to destroy this uniqueness by mixing batches. We hope you also appreciate the subtle differences.
Our site: We keep some of our hives in our chicken yard (we believe it helps with the Small Hive Beetle (SHB) and we don’t have to mow the grass.
Some of our hive boxes need a bit of fresh paint. We purchased a good number of second-hand boxes and are steadily restoring these.
Our bee house:
This where the action is! We store our bee gear here, fix and make up the wooden ware (Boxes, frames, lids, bottoms…), paint, and also extract and bottle the honey. It has been purpose built by Graeme Harpley. It is a hardwood framed structure with a Colourbond roof and hardwood shingle and corrugated iron walls (both second hand).
The concrete floor was polished a sealed by our neighbour Christopher Bradley and it is easy to keep clean.
The high windows allow sufficient light to see what we are doing and act as a bee escape as well.
From the hive to you: Harvesting honey is not complex. Here you see the steps from the hive to you!
If the bees have filled a frame and capped the honey we know that this precious food is ready to harvest.
Here we brush the bees of the frame. By doing the job gently we try not to harm any bees and avoid taking the little creatures back into the bee house.
We need to remove the wax capping to allow the honey to flow freely. We use a warm knife to do this.
We use a motorised extractor which throws the honey to the side of the container via centrifugal force
We let the honey flow through three screens to remove any dead bees and wax
Here you see the bottling line hard at work
Our label will tell you the date of harvest, the name of the batch and the weight of the honey
Ready for sale!
BeeKeeping basics;
This is not meant to be an introduction to beekeeping but simply a collection of basic info about bees and honey you may find interesting.
Bee pests
Australia is very lucky not to have the Varroa. Many experts believe that it simply a matter of time before we too will be hit by this pest.
In 2002 the Small Hive Beetle (SHB) arrived in Australia. The beetle affects our hives. We use a number of traps to keep the beetle numbers as low as possible. The traps are filled with Diatomatious earth – a natural product. In most years we do loose some hives. For more information about the SHB have a look here: http://www.dpi.qld.gov.au/4790_18157.htm
Bees and Pollination
We like our honey but the most important function of bees is pollination. Without adequate pollination Almonds, Apples, Pears, Strawberries and many other plants would be much more difficult to grow. Due to the SHB a lot of feral hives have died. Our agricultural enterprises are more and more dependent on bees to grow a successful crop.
All about honey
Most raw honey will eventually crystallize. It is a natural process. The process is speeded up if you keep honey in a cool (about 15 C) place. Should you wish to reverse the process simply place the jar in water about 40C temp.
- Cakes and bread baked with honey generally keep longer and will have a more moist texture.
- It is best to keep honey in a dry place – away from ants!
- Honey will keep indefinitely. It is the only food item without a use by date.
Confectionery News 12/05
New research from the US suggests that naturally occurring honey may ease coughs and respiratory illnesses in children more effectively than over the counter medicines. While honey has been used for thousands of years to treat wounds and ailments, scientists have only recently begun to explain the precise effects of the natural sweetener’s antiseptic and antibacterial qualities on human health.
During the trial, scientists from the Penn State College of Medicine researchers asked parents to give either honey, honey flavoured dextromethorphan (DM), or no treatment to 105 children, between the ages of 2 and 18 children, all suffering from nocturnal coughs. The parents were asked to report on cough frequency and severity, how bothersome the cough was, and how well both adult and child slept, both 24 hours before and during the night of the dosage.
Based on parental “symptom points”, children treated with honey improved by an average of 10.71 points compared with 8.39 points for DM-treated children and 6.41 points for those who were not treated.
Several scientific reports linking honey to health have been published in the last few years, including research suggesting that taking honey in combination with calcium supplements could help boost bone strength.
Furthermore, Spanish scientists said in February that bees that feed on honeydew produce honey with double the amount of antioxidants.
Research such as this has helped boost honey consumption around the world, with sales increasing 14 per cent between 2004 and 2006, according to market analysts Mintel.
In international terms China is currently by far the largest honey-producing nation in the world, with around a 40 per cent slice of the market, while the next biggest producers are the US, Argentina and Ukraine.
According to the American Honey Producers Association, China and Argentina have been adversely affecting America’s domestic honey industry with cheap imports, although there is a counter argument that both China and Argentina have been helping to counterbalance falling production in the US.
Editor’s note: Certified organic honey is often reported to be tastier and have greater health benefits, in meeting strict guidelines in terms of sources of bees, foraging areas, internal feeding, health care, extraction, storage and others.
The Australian Organic Standard 2006 (BFA) includes requirements such as apiary locations must ”not be located within a 5 km radius of pollution sources which may cause contamination of honey by returning foraging bees”. Also, pasteurisation is prohibited and certified honey heated to over 45 degrees Celsius cannot be “labeled “raw” or “pure” honey due to heat denaturing of enzymes.”
Max Lindegger
Manila was very different this time – the Typhoons which have devastated large areas of the Philippines and resulted in the loss of many lives only happened days before. The bigger streets of Manila had been cleaned up but some of the low laying areas are still under water (early November). Manila Bay is a mess and obviously is not a high priority.
