OUR BEEFARM IN FINLAND
Bees are man's best friends
Natural beauty & good taste!
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Here we are, Elina and Martti. Two city dwellers amidst the wonders of nature deep down in the Finnish forest. Together with our bees we make quite a beautiful team that we have named Elma B.
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We produce artisanal honey as well as beeswax candles and beauty products all by hand in Satakunta in the South West of Finland. All of our raw products are produced at our own apiary in the middle of the finnish forest. The workshop is right in our own garden, in the former village shop that served the local community.
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We like to keep the products as simple as possible, focusing on using only a few potent ingredients. This means you'll never find any artificial flavors, scents or preservatives in your Elma B. product. You'll find details of the ingredients listed on our product pages as well as our packaging.
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Producing our goods in a way that respects both nature and the bees, is a given to us. We use wooden hives and always take great care to treat our animals in a gentle, skilled way. We don't believe in moving our hives just to get a better harvest, using antibiotics or offering pollination or pest control services at the expense of the bees.
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We produce artisanal honey, which means plenty of handcrafting. The taste of honey arises from the characteristics of the nectar of the crop plants, so we pay special attention to the flora around the beehives. The honeys are extracted by location and marked according where the bees are fed.
This is how we get different flavors to our Hymypoika honey.
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Won´t you stay with us a while.
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Love,​
Is honeybee soon to be endangered in Finland?
Generally, the bee population in our country is doing well.
The biggest single harm to the honeybee is the mite, which has already spread almost everywhere in the world. However, beekeepers dedicated to their bees know how to help colonies in this matter. We ourselves combat the mite using natural methods, such as thyme oil containing thymol and oxalic acid found also in rhubarb. These organic compounds are harmless to the bees but the mites cannot tolerate them.
Locally, bees may also face difficulties due to careless pest control on crops or busy city traffic if hives happen to be in such vulnerable locations.
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What do beekeepers do in the summer/winter?
In early summer our main task is to keep the bees happy to stay in their hives. This involves ensuring that the bees have enough space and warmth in their homes. Towards the end of summer, we make sure that the colonies are thriving and have enough food for the long winter ahead. During winter the hives need to be left alone. During this time, the beekeeper carries out equipment cleaning tasks and dreams of becoming summer.
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Do you steal all the honey from the bees?
We don't. We only harvest the honey that the bees haven't used. It's essential that bees have access to the honey they've collected throughout spring, summer, and autumn as much as they need. The same goes for pollen. Operating this way only can we also hope to get a harvest ourselves. And if the season appears to be not so good, it's definitely only our loss.
We also leave honey in the hives for the winter. For the heart of winter we also provide the hives with pure sugar dissolved in water. The bees turn this into their so-called winter food. This is an important care measure for the colony to survive through winter. Pure sugar doesn't contain minerals like honey does. Minerals cause the bee's gut to fill up quickly and create a need to defecate inside the hive. During winter, this would be fatal to the entire colony. Bees can't safely consume honey before early spring. That's why honey is placed on the edges of the hive in autumn. The bees will find it when they start moving around again after the coldest period of winter.
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Do bees hibernate in winter?
They're awake. As the outdoor temperature drops, bees stop flying and gather in a ball formation inside the hive. In the center of this ball the queen bee stays warm at a comfortable temperature of over 20 degrees Celsius. The ball becomes denser as the outdoor temperature decreases. By doing this, the colony never freezes during the winter. However, this can happen if the ball were to break down for some reason. For example, birds, small rodents, or bears can cause hive deaths by disturbing them in early spring. And yes, we've had bears visiting our hives.
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How many bees are in a hive?
In a healthy hive, there is about 10,000 bees overwintering, and in summer about 50,000. Colonies start growing rapidly in spring time and are at their largest in late summer. In the hive, there is one queen, a few hundred drones, and tens of thousands of worker bees. The queen and work bees are females, while the drones are males.
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How long do bees live?
During summer, a work bee lives for about 6 weeks, but when born in autumn, bee can live through the winter for several months.
A queen bee can live for a few years.
You have asked us about bees..
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How much honey does a hive produce?
Both Finnish summers and bee colonies vary greatly. Honey yields can range from 0 to 100 kg. For us the average is probably a bit under 40 kg per hive.
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Is honey healthy?
Honey is an antioxidant and supports the body's immune system by preventing the oxidation of fats. It has an antibiotic effect destroying microbes. Honey is also well known soothe for sore throat. However the health effects are difficult to study because honeys can vary greatly. Therefore, when selling honey its potential health benefits cannot be mentioned.
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Does honey contain sugar?
About 80% of honey's composition consists of various sugars, all of which are orginated from the nectar of flowers. Honey does not contain man made sugar. However, honey is the second most adulterated food in the world after olive oil. Unfortunately, no external factors indicate whether honey has been adulterated, for example, with molasses. This can only be determined through laboratory analysis. Fortunately, Finnish honey is unbeatable in this respect.
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Is Finnish honey better than honey produced elsewhere?
Honey is an excellent souvenir from a holiday trip, but overall, there's nothing like domestic honey from our own country. Bees benefit nature locally everywhere they go. Honey is local food, and it's not worth transporting large quantities from one country to another. Also the origin of domestic honey is easy to verify from the beekeeper. Honey production in Finland is not an industrial sector but rather the enjoyable but often hard work of beekeepers who are passionately dedicated to their bees.
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How is honey made?
Bees make honey by collecting nectar from flowers, adding their own enzymes to it, and then removing water from it. The taste of honey depends the flowers bees have visited on. Humans don't participate in making honey; honey is a ready-made, pure natural product.
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Does honey spoil?
Honey doesn't actually spoil, so it's never inedible. The closest to this is honey that has started to ferment. In this case, the liquid part on the surface develops an unpleasant, cloying taste. Fermentation can start in unfavorable storage conditions, especially if the honey is slightly moister than usual.
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Why does the honey jar say not suitable for children under 1 year?
Honey may contain a naturally occurring bacterium that can cause infant botulism, a severe poisoning condition, for small babies. However, the bacterium is completely harmless to older children and adults.
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What can honey be used for?
Honey is extremely versatile; only imagination is the limit. We use it in beverages, salads, with meat, fish, vegetables and berries, in smoothies, on bread or porridge, and generally as a substitute for sugar.
Not only is honey environmentally friendly local food, but it's also a good sweetener because people perceive honey as sweeter than regular sugar. Therefore, less is needed for sweetening in quantity. Additionally, honey contains 20% fewer calories than sugar.
.. and honey. We answer.
HONEY
A spoonful of honey makes up the life's work of a single bee.
COSMETICS
We take inspiration from the millennial-long tradition of using beeswax to care for face and body.
