"Being a beekeeper is a complete science".
The bees are worth their weight in gold
From the bees to the honey
The bees are an important resource
Our beekeeper Martin has been a beekeeper at Falster for 3 years. He has been trained by a bee mentor who has been a beekeeper since 1989.
"I quickly opened my eyes to how great a science bees are. It's like a whole community in itself. I was incredibly stung by it and like all other beekeepers, I had to look at the hive constantly to see what mine" little friends" laver".
At Din Likør, we do not compromise on quality. We want to use the best of the best and will therefore produce our own honey, which is the basic ingredient in the liqueur.
As soon as spring sets in, we start checking the feed stock. This means that we drive around and lift the hives and see if they have enough food until it will be weather to fly in as well as nature for the bees to "pull on. _cc781905-5cde-3194- bb3b-136bad5cf58d_Something that the first thing that will be drawn on is, for example, willow and hazel and then the big yellow rapeseed fields that you see everywhere in Denmark.
Most wild flower plants only set seeds after insect pollination. Many insects pollinate flowers, for example bees and butterflies.
Bees are generally efficient pollinators – they visit many flowers and actively collect pollen, thereby transferring pollen between plants. While many bee species are completely dependent on a few specific plant species, there are no wild plant species in Denmark that are dependent on just one species of bee.
Although most of our crops are pollinated by the wind, there are also crops that are wholly or partially dependent on insect pollination, where partial dependence implies a higher yield with insect pollination.
This applies, for example, to canola, fruit trees and strawberries. Both honeybees and wild bees contribute to the pollination of crops, but among the wild bees, it is the common species that contribute by far the most. Therefore, the ecosystem service crop pollination cannot justify the conservation of the many rare species of bees.
Honey beehives, which are moved to fields and plantations while the crop is blooming, help to increase the production per unit area of several crops. There are several international assessments of the economic value of pollination as an ecosystem service, particularly focusing on the honey bee.
City life
In February/March we will start setting up our stages. We have now checked the feed and we have had a hand on top of the bees to feel if they develop heat.
If they develop heat, they are in full swing and breeding. This will mean that it will soon explode in the hive and approximately 2500 new bees hatch per day, if you do not have an overly old queen. When this happens, they must have box number 2 which we have gone and prepared in the winter. There we have tightened the threads and put new wax in the art boards.
In addition to No. 2 box for brood bed which sits at the bottom, there must also be a honey magazine and this is the way we control how we can control the queen's movement.
In short, between box number 2 and 3 there is a small grid called a queen grid. It is just the right size for all the worker bees to pass through, but drones and the queen are too big and will therefore stay in the bottom box.
In the brood bed there will basically be the queen, cleaner bees (which clean cells for new eggs), nurse bees (which look after the brood) and court bees (which look after the queen they feed and groom her all the time). At the bottom, by the flight slit and the landing board, sit the guard bees, they repel other bees that do not belong and are very fast and usually the ones that sting.
From the city to our honey
The hives overwinter in one box. When you start building up the nest in March, they get 2 more boxes (brood box and honey magazine).
The bees always build upwards, in pyramid form. That is, they put the nectar just above the queen lattice. They fill up the cells in the board and begin to vaporize it. Evaporating means they sit and ventilate to get the moisture out of the honey. When they have finished steaming and the boards approx. 80% sealed, the honey is ready to be removed.
The bees lay a thin layer of wax over the cells so that it is ready for their winter storage. The fact that it is sealed means that the honey has a water content of less than 20%. If it is higher than 20%, there is a risk that it will start to ferment.
As a rule, we take our first honey in the month of June. We do this by lifting all the sealed honey as high into the hive as possible, which is usually for box 4 or 5. When the frames are there, we put a piece of wood on it. It is a wooden plate with a small plastic tunnel in which the bees only go one way and thereby empty the honey magazines without that it spills over the bees. When the boxes are empty of bees, we take them off and put them on our trailer and put the lid on. We now give them a fresh box with either art boards that are new or virgin boards that are used but have only contained honey.
The honey must now be thrown into our belonging sling room. Here, there is a long day/night ahead of us where honey must be thrown. It must not stand for too long, otherwise it will crystallize and be impossible to remove from the boards. A board contains approx. 2500 cells per page. When they are full, there are about 2.5 kg of honey in what would say a box in high season, weighing up to 25 kg without frames and box.
When we have to throw, all the boxes must go into the room and be closed so that there are not too many hot-tempered and prickly guests. We set up the boards in a stand where you begin to open all the cells, quietly in the boards. For this you use a so-called garbage fork. When the loop is finished and both sides of the board have been looped, all the honey falls to the bottom where there is a tap. Underneath it there is a fine-mesh strainer to catch if there may be wax residue. We are now ready to brew the fresh raw honey.
If you want to have the honey poured into a glass, you are not done yet. We find something that the best honey we have thrown, e.g. we start from what the bees have drawn on and then you have to go for a low water percentage. We will then start stirring the honey. It takes place in 20 kg buckets. We have to stir daily and preferably both morning and evening. When the honey is no longer transparent or looks like (egg shampoo), it is ready and needs to be poured into glass.
At Din Likør, we process each apiary separately, which means that we can have a selection of different varieties, from the white rapeseed to the yellow garden honey.
Our bees- our honey- your liqueur
Din Likør is today's answer to mead
Mead is an alcoholic drink made of three ingredients:honey, water and yeast.
Mead can be very sweet, semi-sweet or dry it depends on the ratio between water and honey. A dry mead contains the least amount of sugar.
Mead is not to be confused with beer, which is brewed from grain - if mead was actually to be compared to anything, it would have to be wine or dessert wine (Since it's made the same way, but with honey instead of grapes).
"To create the right soft taste and balance in the liqueur, the production of "Your liqueur" takes a minimum of 12 months."
"Martin - beekeeper and brewmaster at Din Likør"
Won silver and bronze at Mjødens dag 2022
Won medals at this year's taste assessment.
