Sweet

Oh, we got some nice Christmas presents this year.  Like a quart of delicious, pure Methow Valley honey from Amanda and Tom.  It's liquid gold, and will make a year's worth of honey-pecan granola.

Unfortunately, most supermarket honey comes from China, although a jar of honey will rarely say "made in China." Chinese honey is cheap and often contaminated because the beekeepers are notorious for keeping their bees healthy with antibiotics banned in North America.  Chinese honey sold in North America is more likely to be stamped as Indonesian, Malaysian or Taiwanese, due to a growing multi-million dollar honey laundering system.  What a world.

And John gave me this new reference book. It isn't about backyard beekeeping, but describes the 4,000! species of bees that live in the United States and Canada.  There's information on their habitats and an excellent photograph of each one, which is impressive, since busy bees are about the hardest creature on earth to photograph.

Our yard is messy and full of flowers and overgrown things, so the bees flourish in the summer.  I especially love my big bumblebees, but how much do I know about them, really? They must be sleeping snug somewhere, right now, on this freezing damp morning.