|
|
Feature To Comment on this article Click Here |
|||
 |
||||
|
Guy Anderson credits his wife, Gail, his son, Josh, and their staff at Anderkin Foods for winning the Canadian Tire farm business/farm-related business of the year award from the Kincardine and District Chamber of Commerce. "We are honoured to receive this award," says Anderson. "It's great for us and our business, and it's nice to receive local recognition. It will certainly help us to become better-known."Located on Kincardine Avenue, just west of Highway 21, the Hive 'n' Hoe honey bee farm and market garden store run under Lazy J Ranch, while the company operates under Anderkin Foods. The store is open on a seasonal basis, promoting local products. "We also have for sale our own honey, honey butter, whipped honey, propolis (a natural antibiotic), pollen, bees wax candles, and maple syrup, as well as produce from our market garden." The produce varies through the growing season, including rhubarb, strawberries, raspberries, black currants, red currants, white currants, gooseberries, peas, beans, lettuce, potatoes, beets, carrots, squash, pumpkins, cabbage, tomatoes, and sunflowers. The honey farm is a full-time job for Anderson and his son, Josh who went to college in northern British Columbia and California to study beekeeping. Together, they have 1,200 beehives, located from Lucknow up to Southampton, over to Neustadt and even one in Holland Centre - but mostly in the Kincardine, Huron-Kinloss and Saugeen Shores area."We start in February feeding the hives and medicating them," says Anderson. "We do that until the middle or end of April when the dandelions come out. That's the bees' first food source." Then they inspect the hives and start splitting them to replace any winter loss or to expand the hives. By the end of May, the honey boxes go on and the production of honey depends on the weather and the crops available. Lazy J Ranch produces about 90,000 pounds of honey per year, filling up 140 barrels at 630 pounds per barrel. "We extract it when it's ripe," says Guy. "You can't take it off until it's been capped by the bees." When the honey boxes come in, the frames are put through a machine that cuts off the caps. They are inspected manually and then, if necessary, cut again. From there, it's into a centrifuge extractor which holds 72 frames, to blow the honey out. That flows into a sump where it is warmed up and then pumped into tanks. From there, it is filtered and put into barrels for shipping.
|
 Guy Anderson stands with a display of beeswax candles at the store "Each barrel has been washed and a food-approved plastic liner put into it before it is filled with honey," says Anderson. "They are weighed and numbered for traceability through the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. It's important to keep extensive records so each label can be traced back to the date it was filled and the batch number." In 2008, Lazy J Ranch sent out two truckloads of honey (wholesale) - one to Billy Bee in London and another to a packer in southern Ontario, says Anderson. The year before, honey was trucked to Pittsburgh and Atlanta, and before that, to Europe and Denmark. "We sell 92 per cent of our honey wholesale," says Anderson. "The rest, about 10,000 pounds, we sell locally - at our store and at 16 different outlets." He says the store was set up several years ago to determine whether local products would sell. Besides the local produce, they sell artwork by local artists, and hand-made soap, and there are beekeeping supplies available, including small extractors, boxes and wood supplies, nucs (nucleus of a hive), and other tools and equipment for the trade. |
|||
|
|
||||
|
 for
world news,
books, sports, movies ...Tuesday, March 16, 2010 |
|||
