Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Sampling Honey at Hunter's Honey Farm

One of the best aspects of living in the Midwest is the many opportunities you have to show your kids where their food comes from in a hands-on, tangible way. So far, we've done two dairy farms (Traders Point Creamery and Fair Oaks Farms), the apple orchard (AppleWorks), farmer's market trips and our weekly CSA box. You can now add honey farm to the list!

Instead of rows of plants or fields for cows to graze, a honey farm consists of (you guessed it) bee hives. Lots and lots of them.


I wrote about our time at Hunter's Honey Farm for Visit Indiana here. I'm also sharing the first video that I've done in collaboration with Visit Indiana:


Believe it or not, Big Arrow was actually scared to try the honey at first. Then again, I've never seen it by the bucketful either, so I guess I can't blame him for being a bit intimidated.

But once we got him to try out a honey stick, it was pure love. He couldn't get enough. He continues to ask me at every.single.meal if he can have a honey stick. (It's my go-to "not until you finish your vegetables" trick lately!)


If you ever get a chance to check out a bee hive, I highly recommend it. The art of beekeeping (which I knew NOTHING about prior to this trip) is totally fascinating. Even my crazy boys (all three of them) were pretty interested in checking out the hive.

(Why, yes, I did let my husband carry around 50 lbs. of children throughout our visit. Somebody had to do the hard work of taking pictures, right?)

Did you know drone bees don't sting? Big Arrow got to hold one.

I've definitely been inspired to use honey a bit more in the past few weeks since our trip. I've typically only used it in tea or spread it on toast. But I put some in stir fry last week and it gave it a great little sweetness. We purchased a bottle of Hunter's honey mustard dressing/marinade and that's delicious too. All kinds of uses for Mother's Nature's finest sweetener! How do you use honey?

This post is a part of Wanderfood Wednesday at Wanderlust and Lipstick and Photo Friday at Delicious Baby.

6 comments:

  1. my brother is a beekeeper - that honey is SOOOO good. and you know what else is good? rosemary bread, melted brie, honeycomb, and salted marcona almonds. oh yum.

    what a great trip you had!!

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  2. I have an uncle that keeps bees and the honey is so much better than storebought! I was feeling a little hungry for it after reading your post and then I read Wandering Educator's comment - now I have a full-on craving for brie, honey and almonds! YUM!!

    I had no idea that drone bees don't sting. Very brave of Big Arrow to hold one anyway. I would never be able to talk Emma into it - she has been absolutely terrified of bees since an unfortunate sting when we were in Alaska when she was 3. It may be difficult to even talk her into visiting a honey farm!

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  3. I have never liked honey, but luckily my kids do. I would love to see a beehive and I know they would too. Sounds cool.

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  4. The best education a child can have :-)

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  5. Local honey is said to be great for folks with allergies too! Did you take that picture so close the the hive, you are a braver women than I would be!! :) This is a great little adventure idea for sure.

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