You're invited to visit apoidea apiary for our annual candlelight holiday open apiary this coming weekend. Sample from 14 organic-herbal honey infusions in addition to raw and cut comb honey. Friday night's feature will be spicy chili-infused honey paired with PA cheese! We'll have amascarpone cheese making demo lead by Steph Box, cheesemaker, farmer and grad of the Chatham Univ. Master of Arts in Food Studies. Kids are welcome on Saturday afternoon to see honey extraction in action! On Sunday afternoon, we'll be showing you how easy it is to make really uniqueholiday baklava with infused honey!If you can't make these events, you may visit the apiary by appointment until December 22, 2017 to taste and purchase holiday honey
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apoidea's worker bees very much appreciate your support!
schedule of events
December 8 : 5:00 - 9:00 pm : taste & shop
7:30 pm : mascarpone cheese demo
December 9: 11:00 am : kid's open apiary
3:30 - 9:00 pm : taste & shop
December 10 : 2:30 - 9:00 pm : taste & shop
3:30 pm : baklava pastry demo
rsvp
Please email cjn@apoidea-apiary or call (520)370-5585 to reserve preferred date and time. This notice is a special invite but friends of apoidea's friends are welcome by request!
2018 Good Food Award Finalist
Super happy to announce that our dark amber Fall Fallopia ("Knotweed") Wildflower Honey harvested from the lower Allegheny River zone is a 2018 Good Food Award Finalist! It's an honor to place in the top five honeys of our Northeast region of this national artisan food initiative! Apoidea has been a Good Food Merchant's Guild Member since 2014!We will know in January 2018 whether this particular honey is a winner of this year's GFA award. This is the third apoidea honey to be either a finalist or winner in this annual program that seeks to find authentic and tasty regional foods that are crafted with care and kindness to the environment.
Honey Buzz in the Burgh
Apoidea's artisan honey can be ordered through our webstore at this link: apoidea studio shop. A free local pickup option can be selected to avoid shipping charges. A full list of select retail locations in the Pittsburgh area is linked here:retail locations. Your purchase from any of these great local shops really helps two local businesses! Look out for us at the upcoming I Made It Market at Cranberry Commons on December 16, 2017 from 11:00 am to 5:00 pm.
duration: Easy 1 mile hike paced to stop and quick sketch the winter shapes of common native perennials such as goldenrod, wing stem and aster. We may collect some specimens and then draw them with more detail indoors (with a cup of hot cocoa ... or hot krupnik). Graphite or color pencil recommended drawing media. Weather Pending!
Kid's Holiday Open Apiary Harvesting Honey + Seed Ball Making location:Apoidea Apiary date:Saturday, December 9, 2017 time: 11:00 am start (about 1.5 hours) Kids ages 2+ can see how our fall honey crop is extracted in the processing space and sample raw honey. We'll also have fun making seed balls filled with native plant seeds generously donated by Audubon Society of Western Pennsylvania Center for Native Plants! The seeds are a mix of native plants that provide feed for lots of pollinators and make a fun activity for winter nature walks!
Over the past year, we've been collecting all kinds of educational beekeeping books to donate to our beekeeping friend, Fred Mugo, who is starting a library in Kerugoya, Kenya, a town about 2 hours north of Nairobi near Mt. Kenya. We only need 25 more pounds to get to our desired shipment weight so hope to get it off to Kenya soon! Receive a 10% discount on honey products at our upcoming holiday open apiary or I Made It Market if you bring a beekeeping book to donate to this effort!
Bees and a Changing Climate Post-Hurricane Season Bee Triage
The recent hurricanes that plowed through the Caribbean decimated island agriculture with $780 million in crop losses in Puerto Rico, alone. It is estimated that 80% of the managed honey bee colonies were destroyed in PR and USVI. Of the bees that remain, beekeepers are struggling not only with the loss of equipment but much more gravely the loss of floral resources (nectar and pollen) since many of the honey plants the bees relied upon were seriously damaged and destroyed during the storms. Beekeepers are asking for help to keep the bee's nutrition stabilized through sugar and protein feed while the landscape heals. We can all help via this link:gofundme - aid for Puerto Rican pollinators
While reactive stabilization measures of this sort are necessary in the aftermath of these horrific storms, equal amounts of proactive work should be focused on tracking and mitigating climactic extremes that will potentially continue to cause these disruptions at ever greater frequency.