Sep. 23, 2009 - Issue #727: Inside Books 2009

Patty Milligan

Like a lot of things, it pays to go all natural with honey

Yes, beekeepers do get stung and no, they don't ever get used to it.  Just ask Patty Milligan, aka Lola Canola. Not only does she own Lola Canola Natural Honey, she's also the actual beekeeper—the person who manages the bees and harvests their honey. She does this all under the protective cover of her big white bee suit. But those suits are exactly that—a form of protection. They're not sting-proof.

"You're out there and you're totally vulnerable—you're wearing cloth that they can totally sting through. And getting stung never gets easier. It still hurts every single time."

For Milligan, the stings are just a minor inconvenience, a very small part of what's involved in producing honey. Actually, the bees are really the ones who transform the nectar into honey; Milligan's job is to manage the bees and harvest their honey.

Milligan calls May and June the beekeeping months, when everything related to bee management needs to be done. Her time is spent monitoring the bees for mites, delivering treatments and splitting the hives before they get too big—essentially, making sure the bees are as strong and healthy as possible.

July and August are the honey production months, and that's when Milligan lets the bees do their thing; produce honey.

Bees gather nectar and transform that nectar into honey. And they accomplish that process rather efficiently.

Milligan says every colony has a plan. Scouts go out and track down the quickest and easiest source of nectar, then fly back to the hive and direct the colony to that source. Only once that nectar is all gone will the scouts go out again and track down another source of nectar.

"Bees are kind of like serial monogamists. They'll go exclusively to one source of nectar until it's all gone, and then they'll move on."

Honey gets its personality from the type of flowers the nectar is collected from, which determines the honey's flavour and colour and even its rate and texture of crystallization (how fast the honey starts to solidify after harvesting and whether the crystals that form are large or small).

In Alberta, our three main sources of honey are alfalfa, clover and canola and most of the honey produced here is a combination of the three. The honey itself is a very sweet, light honey—much like what you'd find on store shelves.

Varietal honey—where the nectar comes from one main floral source, such as blueberry, buckwheat or avocado—is where honey's personality can really flourish. These honeys can vary from pale amber and mild to dark brown and bold. "It's kind of like the taste of milk—it changes right along with what the cow eats." Right now varietals form more of a specialty market, but one that is growing.

Most of the honey you find at the supermarket is mild and very sweet. Most of it has also been heated. Although honey is a thick liquid when it comes out of the hive, it gradually starts to crystallize and solidify. To keep it liquid, honey has to be heated. "All honey wants to crystallize; it's just a natural process that it goes through. It's sugar, after all," says Milligan. "Some honey, like canola, crystallizes very quickly—within weeks. And then others, like borage, take a much longer time."

Honey is also heated so it can be filtered, otherwise it's too thick for the filters. Filtering removes impurities, even microscopic ones, that may have found their way into the honey, but it also removes bits of beneficial propolis and pollen, other products of the hive.

Filtering also slows down the crystallization process by removing anything that might encourage the honey to crystallize. Honey will start to crystallize when it comes into contact with bits and pieces of things—like toast crumbs.

Milligan offers honey that is both raw—which means it's never been heated above 35° C, the temperature of the hive—and gently heated, for those of us who need our liquid honey fix. But unlike store bought honey, her honey is only heated to about 42° C. That helps minimize the detrimental effects of heating, like a change in flavour or loss of nutrients.

Milligan doesn't filter her honey, either, she just strains it. That way it can go through the strainer without being heated first. Like filtering, the straining process removes some of the bigger impurities—"People don't want honey with a bee leg in it"—but leaves behind the pollen and propolis. After the honey's strained, any remaining impurities rise to the surface and can just be scooped off.

Milligan admits honey production is facing its share of challenges right now which some people attribute to Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), though Milligan doesn't. "The bee population is diminishing, we know that. We're just not really sure what's going on. People need to call it something, so they're calling it CCD.

"With CCD, the bees just disappear. There are no bees, period. Not even dead bees. What we have in Alberta are dead bees—lots of them."
Milligan attributes the losses to a combination of things, like stress, varroa mites and nosema parasites. And the bees seem to have built up a resistance to some of the medications that have been used to treat them. Like us, bees are battling their own superbugs.

There's so much more to learn about bees. They get grumpy on cool and cloudy days. Once they bring the nectar back to the hive, they fan it with their wings to bring the moisture content down because honey with a high moisture content will ferment easily. A single hive might contain up to 80,000 bees.

And honey isn't the only product we consume courtesy of bees. There are also pollen and propolis, both known for their health benefits. But that's another story.

Lola Canola can be found at the Downtown Farmers' Market. Stop by, ask some questions and maybe even buy some local honey while you're at it. V

Patty Milligan
Lola Canola Natural Honey
1.877.921.3657 

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