From hive to jar: bournemouth honey's natural journey
Discover the meticulous journey our raw, minimally processed honey takes from the thriving hives nestled near Bournemouth's beautiful River Stour, right to your jar. Each step is guided by passion and respect for our bees, ensuring you receive honey that's pure, local, and full of natural flavour. We're proud to share the story of every golden drop with you.
The careful harvest: preparing for extraction
Our journey begins early in the morning during Spring and Summer, typically before the bees begin their daily flights. This is when we carefully remove the honey-filled frames from the hives. A crucial step the day before involves placing 'bee escapes' onto the supers – these ingenious devices allow the bees to descend to their brood box but prevent them from returning, ensuring a calm, bee-free harvest of their surplus honey.
Spinning gold: extraction and first filter
With the frames harvested, the exciting process of hand-removing the wax cappings begins, revealing the glistening, golden honey beneath. The frames are then loaded into our extractor, where centrifugal force gently spins out the honey. It then passes through a coarse filter, catching larger wax particles while flowing into sterile buckets. That first taste, straight from the extractor, is an unmatchable moment of pure joy and anticipation!
The patient wait: natural settling and final pour
From the buckets, our honey continues its journey into a holding tank. Here, it passes through a slightly finer filter, designed to allow the majority of beneficial pollen to remain. We then patiently hold it for approximately one week, allowing all the tiny air bubbles introduced during extraction to naturally rise to the surface. This gentle settling process ensures our honey is beautifully clear and ready for the final jarring and labelling stages, preserving its raw, natural goodness.
The pure taste of bournemouth: a moment of joy
You never lose the feeling of excitement when the first honey flows from the extractor and you are able to sample the unique flavour that our amazing bees have collected from the beautiful local wildflowers around Bournemouth. It's a taste of the season, a taste of nature, straight from our hive to your home.
The Bournemouth Honey Team