We do not heat our honey to bottle it, so it does crystallize in the fall. We think this is actually an advantage for you. We pack in wide mouth canning jars so it is easy to just spoon or knife out what you need – no drips and stickies since it is crystallized. Because it is not heated, the healthful enzymes are still active. We lightly filter it, so there is still a good bit of pollen in it. We do not force our bees through pollen traps to collect pollen, so no, we don’t sell “pollen” alone, just what is in the honey.
We have not needed to treat our bees for mites and disease, yet, and hopefully will be able to keep our stock this naturally healthy. We leave them lots of honey in the fall for their winter feed, but bees can starve even if there is lots of honey in their hive. They move upward, ignoring honey two inches to the side. So in early winter, we take jars of their crystallized honey down and put them in the top of their hives to be sure they have good eats into spring.
The “going price” for small quantities of honey, which all we generally have, is $8/lb plus the jar. So a 12 oz jar is $7. A 24 oz jar is $13.
Photo is a nice frame of “brood”, or eggs/larvae. The white you see are young larvae not yet “capped”. The brown are older larvae that the bees “cap” to protect them while they develop into adult bees. Around the edge are pollen and honey to feed the brood.
