Fudge and Florentines

It is always good to receive hand made presents so this Christmas we began to think of treats to make - we love chocolate and we have honey so it is logical to think of combining the two. This recipe for Florentines adapted from  Nigella Lawson was delicious -

Honey  and Almond Florentines

100 grams flaked almonds
1 tsp. chopped peel
2 tbsp. butter
3 tbsp. sugar
3 tbsp. honey
2 tbsp. plain flour
150 ml. double cream
100 grams dark chocolate

1. In a heavy pan, melt the butter, sugar, and honey until smooth. Stir in the flour to form a paste, then remove from heat and whisk in the cream. Once the mixture is smooth, stir in the almonds and lemon peel.

 
2. Drop heaped tablespoons on the mixture on a baking sheet lined with greaseproof, leaving lots of room between them as they will spread. Bake at 190 C  for about 5-8 minutes, or until golden on the edges. Leave to cool for a few minutes before lifting, gently, with a palette knife onto another tray to cool fully. 

3. Once the florentines are cool, melt the dark chocolate then spread the chocolate on to one side or dip half of the biscuits in to the chocolate. Allow to set before serving.

Needless to say these did not last long and we made a few batches for Christmas!

Another recipe adapted from Nigella was for fudge- not true fudge but delicious and easy to make.

Chocolate and .......Fudge

350gm dark chocolate

1 tin ( 375gm) condensed milk

30 gm butter 

pinch of salt

150gm of flavourings

Melt the chocolate, condensed milk , butter and salt in a heavy saucepan until melted together.

Add flavouring of your choice- we tried cranberry and chopped macadamia nuts, sour cherries, and crystallised ginger ( in different batches) .

Pour in to a 23cm square tray lined with foil ( makes it easier to lift out) and leave to set in the fridge. 

Cut into mouth sized pieces.

The fudge needs to be kept in the fridge, but I made bigger batches and froze some as well so it was easy to make up gift bags - cellophane bags tied with ribbon and a tag- these made ideal gifts for Christmas.

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

Honey in May

Although the bees have been keeping us on our toes this month they have also been doing what they should. On Monday we put clearer boards ( boards that will let the bees go out of a super but not go back in) on 2 hives- the hive we had moved from garden had 3 supers on! On Tuesday evening we went back to bring them home and yesterday we spun the honey from them. The frames had a lot of pollen in them- earlier in the year the bees were finding plenty of pollen but not much nectar- hence the worry about starving bees with some beekeepers having to feed their bees.

Pollen filling lots of the cells in the frames.

We kept the two supers separate- the super taken from the garden hive was filled before we moved it to Cordwood so will be from different forage sources than the one from Cordwood. We can see Oil Seed Rape fields on the farm from the hives and although most of this super was also filled while the weather was fairly poor it could be Rape Honey which will granulate quickly- we will have to wait and see.
In total we filled 44 X 12 oz jars from the 2 supers- about 33lbs- not bad when lots of pollen was left behind to go back to the bees- hopefully they will still use this and clear the frames for more honey!

Solar Wax Extractor

Over a period of time doing inspections and extracting honey a pile of dirty wax begins to grow- reluctant to waste anything beekeepers tend to keep it in boxes until it can't be ignored. Cleaned wax can be used for lots of things- candles, lotions and potions as well as being swapped for new wax foundation. The problem is cleaning the wax- solar wax extractors are used by lots of beekeepers but they are expensive to buy for what the average beekeeper would need it for.
So, a search on one of the beekeeping blogs http://beekeeperlinda.blogspot.co.uk/  I follow produced a home made verion- something of a Heath Robinson afair but well within my means!

Step one was to gather the equipment needed- a polystryene box ( used to transport broccoli to the school kitchen)- this was painted black and lined with foil. All these things easy enough to find. Then a tub with a couple of inches of water covered with kitchen roll held in place by an elastic band is placed inside. The wax is scrunched into balls and placed on top of the kitchen paper. A piece of glass is put over the top of the box and the whole things put in the sunniest spot you can find - usually a tricky thing to do in Nottingham but with the recent hot weather , no problem!

Black paint on the outside to absorb the heat.

Water in the tub covered with kitchen paper



Wax - brace comb, capping etc.




Ready for the sun!

We could see results within an hour, the wax melts and drips through the paper leaving the gunge behind.





 

The results are amazing - I separated the types of wax- the cappings gave the paler wax and the brace comb a rich butter colour. The only thing now is to decide what to use the wax for!



Honey Show

Those of you who know us and have followed the saga of our bees this year will be aware of the angst we had trying to get the bees to go up into the supers to store honey in May and June.  We had swarms and our original hive has now ended up being four hives. So the bees had to build up their strength before they could get out there and collect surplus honey. We tried smearing honey on the frames, changing queen excluders and Mary kindly gave us drawn frames to try and encourage reluctant bees to give us some of their bounty!
So, at the end of the honey season we have been very proud of the bees efforts this year- we collected about 50 lbs of honey in total from the 2 Cordwood hives and the Garden hive. From the Cordwood bees there was light and very dark honey; taken in July and August. The garden bees gave us about 19lbs in August- classed as light honey but a richer colour than that earlier in the year. Maybe not the most prolific harvest but nevertheless we were happy.
This week was the Notts Beekeepers Honey Show and we decided to have a go with our three types of honey- I thought they would be light, medium and dark- but in fact when it came to it we had 2 light and a dark. So I entered the garden honey in the beginner's class and  the Cordwood honey in the light and dark classes.

Well done bees!!!

Honey Harvest

Earlier this year when the bees were swarming and all we seemed to be doing was collecting bees and trying to build up new colonies, honey seemed a bit of a dream. But now at the end of the season we are pleased to say that we are happy with our harvest of honey. We have been able to take small amounts from the woodland apiary at Waxwings/Cordwood in both July and August and even some from the very smallest colony in the garden which has built up brilliantly and has lots of stores for the winter already.
The season has been incredibly dry and the woodland nectar appears to have slowed down much earlier than normal- where we had expected the bees to build up stores for themselves we have had to feed these colonies before the varroa treatments went on. However the farmer has given them a bit of a bonus- we have noticed a field boundary of sunflowers all in flower now, well within reach of the bees!

What has intrigued me more than anything is the difference in the honey we have collected- the July honey a beautiful pale amber with a mild flavour, but the August honey from the same bees as dark almost as Guiness and tasting of much more complex flavours!

Clean Frames

After the honey has been taken out of the frames they are still very sticky with delicious honey that just can't be got out- at least by us! The frames are traditionally put back on the hive for the bees to 'lick' clean. 



Before- sticky!!



After- clean and dry!

 It's amazing how pristine the frames are- all clean, ready to store or fill again!!

Honey in Jars

The next day the honey was ready to put into jars- we used a mixture of 12oz and 1lb jars. There was still quite a bit of air in the honey but with standing that should settle out and the honey should be clearer. We collected just over 20 lbs from the super. Not to waste any I collected the honey from the cappings and took a jar out without filtering to see what it would be like.

The honey has gradually cleared over a period of days and although I don't think it will go crystal clear it tastes delicious!!

Honey at Last!!

At last, the time came to take off our first super of honey. The extractor, jars, strainer and so on were all clean and ready to go. The super had been cleared using porter bee escapes left on for just over 24 hours.
We collected the super on Thursday afternoon, covered it and took it home ready to remove the cappings and spin the honey off. Nine frames were beautifully capped- I used a sharp serrated knife to remove the cappings, this seemed to work fine- the cappings fell into a tray. Not to bee wasted, I later emptied them into a sieve and they filled a 12oz jar!!!


Capped honey



Removing the cappings






















Ready for extraction


The uncapped frames were then placed in the extractor ready for spinning. Lid closed and away we went- at first it was hard to know how hard to turn the handle but gradually it became clear that it needed a fair bit of effort and then you could hear the honey pattering on the sides of the drum.

We only had one lot of frames to spin so there was enough room at the bottom of the extractor to let the honey collect before we needed to take any out, so we finished the extraction and let the honey drain down before opening the honey tap to let the honey flow into the double sieve to filter out all the bits of wax.



Draining into the settling tank

It took quite a while for the honey to drain through in to the settling tank, so we just left it to pour through, put the lid on the tank and allowed some of the air bubbles to begin to settle out ready to put into jars.