Since 2012, Jack and Dianne Wilson-and their daughter and partner Connie-have produced raw, unpasterized honey from the growing number of honeybee hives at their Carlyle-area farm. 'It's Just For You Honey' routinely sells out and is enjoyed by honey aficionados from as far away as Nigeria.
“Our neighbour's wife is from Nigeria,” says Jack. “She was going back for a visit. Over there, their honey is quite diluted (with water) compared to honey here. I gave her two tubs of honey to take with her and I told her: 'I don't care if you have to pitch it at airport security, just take it.'”
“All I want is a picture of the guy in Nigeria with our honey.”
“It turns out they loved it,” he adds. “It's pure, unadulterated honey that's not watered down and has absolutely no additives. We just strain it and we don't add anything. It's pure, raw honey.”
“We've gone to the Arcola Craft show for the past two years and we've always sold out. We've given our honey to fundraisers as prizes or auction items, but other than that, we've never really had to hit the shows and we've never really had to advertise.”
“Once people know about our honey, we get lots of calls. And if they already have had it, they call us for a re-stock,” says Jack. “They try our honey and seem to like it and they give it as gifts. It's a lot of word-of-mouth.”
“We're trying something new,” he adds. “We're selling our honey at The Pearl Boutique in Carlyle, so that will make it easier for people to pick it up.”
The couple's product has fans in British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and of course, Saskatchewan.
Consumers not only buy it for its taste, many buy it for its health benefits, too.
“One young guy buys raw, unpasteurized honey from the health food store,” says Jack. “He didn't believe ours was, too. But it's as raw and unpasteurized as you can get.”
“We don't whip it, heat it, or add anything to it.”
“He tried some of ours and said, 'Why am I paying so much for the honey I get there when I can just buy it from you?”
“We have another customer who buys our honey for his grandson, who has asthma,” adds Dianne. “And if you have a sore throat, one teaspoon of raw honey with a squeeze of lemon will look after that right away. For diabetics, honey is much better for them than sugar, and you can also use honey instead of sugar when you're baking.”
“Because of its antibacterial properties, you can put some honey on a cut or a scrape. This works for humans and animals. Vets use it for horses' cuts. One lady was sceptical, but she saw how it works and now she uses it on her animals.”
The Wilson's careers as honey producers began with Jack's curiosity which led him to a weekend beekeeping course in Saskatoon.
“I wanted to do something different,” he says. “I saw an ad for a beginner's bee course in Saskatoon and Dianne said, 'Go for it.'”
“I was the only one there with no protective gear, but I got along fine and I never got stung,” he adds. “I really enjoyed it. After that, we started out with four hives which we got from a guy who was retiring, and now after four years, we're up to a total of 32 hives this winter.”
The Wilsons have added to their inventory of hives by attending bee auctions, purchasing queen bees from Australia and helping homeowners with bee infestations.
“We went to our first bee auction sale in Brandon,” says Dianne. “You go with the idea of buying what you want, and the sellers are there to talk to. You view the bees on video. We learned a lot about the different ways people handle their bees. Of course, when you're ready to buy, you go to the individual farms to buy the bees.”
“Often the hives will come with a queen (bee),” says Jack. “But we also buy them. Most of our queen bees come from Australia and they are mailed to us.”
“The life cycle of a worker bee is 45 days long,” he says. “But a queen's life is usually three years. A queen lays eggs all winter long.”
“When they're mailed to us, the queen comes in a little wooden box with three holes drilled partway through it. There's a wax and sugar plug in those holes, and that's what the queen feeds on. There's also a little screen on the side of the box and when you receive it, you just put a bit of water on it.”
“The queens are loaded in Australia and they land in Vancouver. We've driven to Brandon to pick them up, but we've also had them shipped right here to the post office in Carlyle.”
The Wilsons have also added to their bee inventory closer to home.
“Some people near Parkman had a swarm of bees that we took away for them,” says Jack. “Once I had the queen, it wasn't hard to get the rest of them. With that bee salvage, we went to the home at about 6 a.m. and there were no bees. When we went back later that day, the whole side of the house was covered.”
They have also used their bees to help their rural neighbours in other ways,
“Two Saskatoon (berry) u-picks-one near Manor and one near Redvers-were flooded out. The landowners tried a lot of different things, but the berries just weren't coming back; the water had done so much damage. We took some hives out and the bees did their thing and totally revitalized the trees.”
“I've heard that honey had a fruity taste because of the berries,” adds Dianne. “What the bees feed on really does affect the taste and the colour of the honey.”
“If they feed on buckwheat or sunflowers, it's a darker, stronger-tasting honey. The darker honey is often really good for baking.”
“Canola makes for a harder honey that tends to crystalize,” adds Jack. “Alfalfa doesn't get you as much honey, but it's better, in my opinion, so that's what we use.”
“Fireweed is a plant I'd like to experiment with,” he says. “And we'd also like to try buckwheat to see what that honey tastes like. If we did that though, we'd take it off separately, to avoid any cross-contamination with our existing honey.”
“The hives are designed so that the queen bee can't reach the area of the hive where the worker bees store the honey,” says Jack. “The honey gets its start from flower nectar, which is collected by the worker bees.”
“It's naturally broken down into simple sugars and that's where the honey comes from. The hivers are actually big wooden boxes-also called 'soupers'-that are stacked on top of each other. Each souper is about nine inches high and when it's full of honey, it weighs about 80 pounds.”
“When we harvest the honey, I take the beeswax off by hand,” says Dianne. “It's liquid, with a soupy consistency and we don't add anything. We don't heat it or whip it, either. We just strain it.”
The couple is constantly seeking to learn more and have recently expanded their product line to include a honey salve and small, decorative glass jars of honey which have been used for wedding and party favours.
“And whenever we travel, we take some of our honey and we contact other honey producers,” says Dianne.
“We've met with a producer in the Niagara area in Ontario and we'll be meeting some bee producers in Prince Edward Island,” she adds. “It's interesting, we learn a lot and it's a lot of fun.”
“We're producers, but we're always learning something new,” says Jack. “I'd encourage anyone who is thinking of taking up beekeeping to take a course, to see what it's about and if it's for them.”
“I'm not in competition with anybody,” he adds. “We just sell what we produce and we're happy to help people out along the way.”
'Just For You Honey' is available at The Pearl Boutique, 114 Main Street, Carlyle.
To contact the Wilsons, call (306)-453-2593.
