Elderflower Cordial Again

It's that time of year again- the elderflowers are blooming and we have been foraging! This year we have collected the flowers early enough to make a couple of batches, I have tried using a small amount of campden tablet in the finished cordial to help with the problem of fermentation, apparently this will mean that it can be kept almost indefinitely!

Elderflowers ready to collect.

I have used more or less the same recipe as before (June 2010) using limes and lemons- I would like to try using honey but am not sure if the flavour of the flowers will be overpowered by the honey flavour. The local shops have sold out of citric acid so I have ordered some on-line- it just means that I will have to wait and hope there are still some flowers left when it comes to make more!

First Strawberries

Marshmallow strawberries- hopefully the first of many.

With the summer getting off to such an unpredictable start it's not wonder that our crops on the allotment  are all over the place- the asparagus seems to have completely given up and we have just picked the first few strawberries!

Only a few spears of asparagus have shown themselves so far this year!

The greengage tree in the garden has lost all its fruit in the storms and late cold spell, although it looks as if the Victoria plum may have some fruit to come later in the season. The Stella cherry has fruit, a reasonable crop if we can get it- I've just realised we have booked to go away just at the time we picked last year- hopefully with the season being so out of sorts they will still be there when we get back!

New Nucs

This year I decided to have a go at raising a nucleus to sell to a new beekeeper. In fact because the bees have done so well we have two beautiful 5 frame nuc boxes ready to move on- unfortunately it seems that everyone who wants bees have them so we needed to find them a new home.

 So one nucleus found a new home in the hive we got from Caddon Hives; to help them build up even more we put a frame of capped brood from the other nuc in with them and gave that nuc a new frame of foundation to keep them busy and give them more room.

The frame we moved shows a classic pattern of capped brood , pollen and honey arch - we use wired foundation and this frame shows how the queen has avoided laying in the cells where the wire runs through the wax base.

 The other hives seem to be going ok, the brood halves of the artificial swarms now have new laying queens, these will hopefully build up and be strong enough to store some honey from the late summer( if it comes!) flow. The 3 hives we have from the other half of the artificial swarms - one still has the white queen, but the other two have insisted on requeening and we are waiting to see evidence of their success in raising a new mated queen. Meanwhile we have taken nearly 80 lbs of honey from the early honey flow- some of this honey is now showing signs of granulating but has a fine texture and is delicious.

Trevor's Honey!

This week we have been harvesting more honey! For last weeks batch we finished off our 12oz jars labelled as Cordwood Apiary Honey, as we had decided to focus on the 1lb or 454g packaging from now, especially as we had the labelling and website designed for us by Simon of Cubic.  http://www.cubicstudio.co.uk/

We are still not sure if this has some Oil Seed Rape honey along side the early tree and wildflower forage, other beekeepers we have spoken to say theirs has already begun to granulate but ours is still runny, although it is cloudier than last years later crop - maybe this is an indication that it will be set honey. It is interesting to hear which honey people prefer- we have honey and lemon/lime everyday and it doesn't matter whether it is set or not, set is certainly easier to spread as the runny can get messy, but to drizzle on porridge and fruit and yoghurt the runny is best!
Honey is a saturated solution of mainly glucose and fructose, if there is a higher percentage of glucose then it tends to crystallise or set more quickly. When there is more fructose the honey will take much longer to granulate- it all depends on the nectar that the bees collect! To help liquidise set honey it can be warmed through by standing in hot water for a while and giving it a stir- also I have heard people say it is OK to remove the lid and put in the microwave for a few seconds before stirring to help it go runny.
Trevor's Honey website-www.trevorshoney.com