Our Spring Honey Samplers will begin shipping on Tuesday, March 15. You can find our spring honey sampler for sale here or become a year-long honey subscription member here.
Logsden : Vine Maple & Dewberry
The small town of Logsden, Oregon is located in the central Oregon Coast Range along the upper Siletz River. Our Logsden apiary lies at the confluence of Mill Creek and the Siletz River surrounded by small farms, pasture land, and timber land. Nectar sources in the area include bigleaf maple, vine maple, bitter cherry, dewberry, chittum, and non-native blackberry. The site gets enough inland heat to make a good, consistent honey crop, but it also dries out earlier than some of our other Coast Range apiaries. As Henry was expanding his migratory beekeeping operation five years ago, the Logsden apiary was one of the first sites he selected to host hives away from our home.
Vine maple (Acer circinatum) is a large, native shrub that can form impenetrable thickets. It blooms in late April to early May with small, red flowers. Often wet Oregon spring weather prevents bees from producing an abundant vine maple honey crop, but the flowers are a good nectar and pollen source if bees can fly to access them.
Dewberry (Rubus usinus), also knows as trailing blackberry or trip briar, is a low-growing native blackberry that produces edible fruits later in the summer. The dewberry bloom is one of the principle spring nectar flows for bees in the Pacific Northwest.
This honey has an earthy, woodsy flavor with spicy undertones.
Boone Island : Wild Blackberry & Lotus
Boone Island and the adjacent shallows was formed by an ancient oxbow in the Yaquina River near Toledo, OR. The area has interesting tideland marshes dominated by tufted hair grass, gumweed, yarrow, Douglas’ aster, sedges, and orach. Upstream of the saltwater exclusion gates, the honeybee habitat is primarily made up of non-native blackberry and lotus. Boone Island was a major navigational point on the lower Yaquina for tugboats towing log rafts from the turn of the last century until the 1960s.
Himalayan blackberry (Rubus bifrons) is a non-native, naturalized species that is widespread in the area. It fruits prolifically in the summer.
Non-native lotus (Lotus corniculatus) was widely touted during the heyday of small scale dairying in Western Oregon as “poor man’s alfalfa” because of its adaptability to our region’s growing conditions. Lotus is nitrogen fixing and tolerates waterlogged and/or heavy clay soils. Its high tannin content prevents bloating in livestock but also reduces the forage quality of the plant material. It blooms early and continues to produce yellow flowers on wet sites until the first frost. The extra moisture in this area created by tidal influence causes the plant to secrete more nectar than is seen in other sites. The bees work lotus for both nectar and pollen.
This honey is bright and fruity with a slight tannin edge and a clean finish.
Kiger Island : Pumpkin
Our Kiger Island apiary is located on an island in the Willamette River just south of Corvallis, Oregon. Our apiary sits on property owned by a fourth-generation farmer in the area, Mike Hathaway. Henry moved in the bees to the site in late May to pollinate Mike’s clary sage crop, producing our clary sage varietal honey. The hives remained in place to pollinate the neighboring seed pumpkin crop on Smith Island across the slough.
The pumpkin (Cucurbita maxima) field was planted with an heirloom, hubbard-type “Golden Delicious” pumpkin grown for its edible seeds. The vines bloom through August, and the resulting pumpkin honey was the latest-season varietal we produced in 2015.
This honey has a toasty candy corn flavor with a tart tamarind finish.
Thank you so much for your support!
Camille & Henry Storch
Old Blue Raw Honey
Spring Honey Sampler
Our Spring Honey Samplers will begin shipping on Tuesday, March 15. You can find our spring honey sampler for sale here or become a year-long honey subscription member here.
Logsden : Vine Maple & Dewberry
The small town of Logsden, Oregon is located in the central Oregon Coast Range along the upper Siletz River. Our Logsden apiary lies at the confluence of Mill Creek and the Siletz River surrounded by small farms, pasture land, and timber land. Nectar sources in the area include bigleaf maple, vine maple, bitter cherry, dewberry, chittum, and non-native blackberry. The site gets enough inland heat to make a good, consistent honey crop, but it also dries out earlier than some of our other Coast Range apiaries. As Henry was expanding his migratory beekeeping operation five years ago, the Logsden apiary was one of the first sites he selected to host hives away from our home.
Vine maple (Acer circinatum) is a large, native shrub that can form impenetrable thickets. It blooms in late April to early May with small, red flowers. Often wet Oregon spring weather prevents bees from producing an abundant vine maple honey crop, but the flowers are a good nectar and pollen source if bees can fly to access them.
Dewberry (Rubus usinus), also knows as trailing blackberry or trip briar, is a low-growing native blackberry that produces edible fruits later in the summer. The dewberry bloom is one of the principle spring nectar flows for bees in the Pacific Northwest.
This honey has an earthy, woodsy flavor with spicy undertones.
Boone Island : Wild Blackberry & Lotus
Boone Island and the adjacent shallows was formed by an ancient oxbow in the Yaquina River near Toledo, OR. The area has interesting tideland marshes dominated by tufted hair grass, gumweed, yarrow, Douglas’ aster, sedges, and orach. Upstream of the saltwater exclusion gates, the honeybee habitat is primarily made up of non-native blackberry and lotus. Boone Island was a major navigational point on the lower Yaquina for tugboats towing log rafts from the turn of the last century until the 1960s.
Himalayan blackberry (Rubus bifrons) is a non-native, naturalized species that is widespread in the area. It fruits prolifically in the summer.
Non-native lotus (Lotus corniculatus) was widely touted during the heyday of small scale dairying in Western Oregon as “poor man’s alfalfa” because of its adaptability to our region’s growing conditions. Lotus is nitrogen fixing and tolerates waterlogged and/or heavy clay soils. Its high tannin content prevents bloating in livestock but also reduces the forage quality of the plant material. It blooms early and continues to produce yellow flowers on wet sites until the first frost. The extra moisture in this area created by tidal influence causes the plant to secrete more nectar than is seen in other sites. The bees work lotus for both nectar and pollen.
This honey is bright and fruity with a slight tannin edge and a clean finish.
Kiger Island : Pumpkin
Our Kiger Island apiary is located on an island in the Willamette River just south of Corvallis, Oregon. Our apiary sits on property owned by a fourth-generation farmer in the area, Mike Hathaway. Henry moved in the bees to the site in late May to pollinate Mike’s clary sage crop, producing our clary sage varietal honey. The hives remained in place to pollinate the neighboring seed pumpkin crop on Smith Island across the slough.
The pumpkin (Cucurbita maxima) field was planted with an heirloom, hubbard-type “Golden Delicious” pumpkin grown for its edible seeds. The vines bloom through August, and the resulting pumpkin honey was the latest-season varietal we produced in 2015.
This honey has a toasty candy corn flavor with a tart tamarind finish.
Thank you so much for your support!
Camille & Henry Storch
Old Blue Raw Honey