DVD Review A new DVD to help with honey extraction
Honey: A Beekeeper’s Guide
HONEY IS a unique and universal food, produced and enjoyed throughout the world; it is recognised as one of the oldest foods known to man. With the annual demand for honey in the UK currently at 30,000 tonnes per year and rising, beekeepers in this country can only supply about 10% of this requirement, ie, just over one month per year.
This is a thoroughly well thought out and presented DVD giving details of all the aspects of honey production from the hive to the jar (or bottle in the case of mead).
There are seven sections:
1 Honey and the law – details of how EU regulations have been incorporated into the UK honey regulations are given by Peter Martin, a public analyst. This is presented in a simple, straightforward way by an expert in this area.
2 Honey harvesting – here a description is given of how to remove full supers of honey from a hive without causing too much disturbance to the colony and avoiding the possibility of robbing breaking out.
3 Honey extraction – Peter Metcalf, a Norfolk beekeeper, goes through the correct way to extract honey from frames taken from a
hive, step-by-step. Care is taken to ensure the process meets the required standards for food handling.
4 Honey varieties – here again Paul Metcalf gives details of some of the common sources of honey in this country. The most important crop is oilseed rape although he says it does not have much flavour. Other valuable crops include field beans, ragwort, sea lavender, blackberry, willowherb and ivy. Himalayan Balsam, although an invasive crop, is also a good source of nectar. Tree honeys get a mention and include hawthorn, sycamore and lime. Finally, heather is discussed with Willie Robson of Chain Bridge Honey Farm, who has 1800 colonies that work this crop.
5 Honey for sale – this section describes how to prepare extracted honey from storage containers into jars, ready for sale. Filtering is best done through 200-micron straining bags with honey heated to 24 °C. If the filtration used is designed to remove more pollen, the label should say ‘fine filtered’. Preparation of clear and soft-set honey is described to minimise the inclusion
of air bubbles. Finally the statutory requirements of label contents are described.
6 Honey for show – the most important aspect of showing honey is to read the schedule carefully and ensure that it is followed precisely as, in a class with a relatively large number of exhibits, the judge will look for anything that can eliminate an entry. Chris Symes, a honey show judge, takes us through the judging of a few honey classes.
7 Honey for mead – here
a description is given by John Watts, a prize-winning mead maker, of how to make show-winning mead. He gives an excellent description, in some detail, of one of his typical recipes.
So, overall, this is a useful DVD to own and to understand how to raise the general standard of honey both produced for sale and given to friends.
DVD produced by Great Takes Television Ltd, 2011. Producer William Smith. Running time 120 minutes.
Bee Craft Digital April 2012 Page 35
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