The A, Bee, C’s of Honey
When it comes to learning, there is no better way to make things stick than to have fun while doing it. Clovermead Apiary, just north of Aylmer in Elgin County, has taken their role as an educator about bees and honey very seriously while having loads of fun along the way. With honey running through their blood, the third and fourth generations of the Hiemstra family have kept the family business thriving. Chris Hiemstra, along with his wife Christy and their three children, take pride in inviting other families to share in the joy of beekeeping by engaging in fun and educational activities on the farm, including informative Bee-Line Tours of the apiary and fun-filled activities in the Adventure Farm. Their working farm has been turned into a destination for family outings with a zip line, a pedal go-kart track, wagon rides, and friendly farm animals. And while you’re here having fun, tidbits about beekeeping stick to your brain, just like honey to toast, as the Hiemstra’s offer an education about these fascinating insects. And then there is their line of delicious products. The fun activities and educational opportunities are just a bonus for visitors who come for Clovermead’s bee by-products that the Heimstra’s harvest from their hives. The Honey Gift Shop, located front and centre on their farmland, displays the versatile products available from their honeybees. There is non-culinary merchandise like beeswax candles and skin care products, along with the health product off-shoots, like bee pollen, royal jelly, and propolis. But of course, the main draw is honey which can be enjoyed at a Honey Tasting Bar and taken home in your own container from the six large vats of floral-sourced honey on tap. The six types of honey can also be purchased in pre-packaged containers in its pure form or enjoyed in 12 honey spreads, with such creative flavours as root beer, citrus amaretto, and ginger. Not all honey is created equal and, by bellying up to the Honey Tasting Bar, you get a sense of how much stronger Buckwheat Honey is from the Sweet Clover Honey.
The production of honey is fascinating and it is the story about how it is created, and the flavours that result from it, that the Heimstra’s want to impress on their visitors. To get just one pound of honey, a bee visits 2 million flowers which could cover as much as 55,000 miles of air space, but a honeybee will only travel two miles from its hive, so whatever crops the hive is positioned near will determine the aroma and flavour of that batch of honey. Clovermead’s most local honey is Summer Blossom – a sweet mixture of native wildflowers and clover. To get other types, such as the Wild Blueberry Honey, hives are shipped to New Brunswick for pollinating east coast blueberry farms. Hives do a lot of cross-country travelling with a two-fold purpose: to pollinate crops in their near vicinity and to stock up on nectar for honey production. Once the bees have collected their nectar and been returned home, in the perfect mix of nature and humanity, the human staff then prepare it in its pure form or manufacture it into flavoured spreads.
Clovermead honey is available in London at Covent Garden Market and Hyde Park Country Feed Store, but Christy has found that customers love making the trip for the authentic country farm experience offered at Clovermead. It is quaint and charming and they keep adding more fun-filled attractions – this June they introduced their Giant Jumping Pillow. In fact, expansion seems to run in the family. Chris’ father, Henry, started the business by selling honey out of his garage in 1975 with 200 hives. With an average of 40,000 bees per hive, Clovermead now has 24 million of these tiny employees generating honey in 25 different bee yards across Elgin County.
On the farm, the bees can be seen at work in glass display cases, an outdoor Bee Observation House, an Enchanted Bee Yard nature trail, and even behind glass displays cases in the refurbished outhouse! Henry’s garage eventually gave way to an old log cabin that was restored to become the first store on the property. Chris and Christy have expanded it even further into several antique buildings, giving the look of an old western town with a variety of shop fronts, like The Royal Bee Bank Loan Company. Clovermead is a perfectly charming setting for a day out with the family in the peaceful countryside. And while you’re there having fun, tidbits about beekeeping stick to your brain, just like honey to toast, as the Hiemstra’s offer an education about these fascinating insects.
