Brad Makes Honey | It's Alive | Bon Appétit

They say put my finger there, okay, that's it, that's it, that's it, that's it, Vinnie said we were here today and we saw the Oregon Islands, the easy bomb was taking a video, it's okay, it's okay, it's well, IRA here in the store. Islands out of Portland with a local company and they set us up with a couple of hives, gentlemen, Ryan, who will show us the ins and outs. I hear he's a bit of a bee whisperer, we'll open 'em up, extract me

honey

, filter it out and then put it in. in the bottle, nice raw

honey

, so let's see how that tomato works, so let's not wear suits, that sounds like a good idea, oh my gosh, can you hear that?

Why don't you tell us what's going on here? So we have an active hive. Yes, loaded with honey, loaded with bees, yes, these two boxes here, this is where the Queen lives. In these two boxes you have offspring, what are larva eggs? There they will also bring pollen, store it there and feed it. pollen, yeah, and then how do they extract it, it's like a little sweeper, yeah, basically, it was like we were really fucking them, they're working their asses off, but you have to be very careful with the whip that takes honey. and when taking pollen, first things first, they have to have a knob which is really important, yes, when you extract you don't want pollen, you don't want larvae eggs in your honey, what is this for is for the other bees to store everything this. excess honey now we're smoking so little puff puff okay oh my gosh there's so many are you ready vincenzo just a little light puff oh gosh and this is basically something like a one way valve so like you put?

It's like the day before, two days before, and the bees can go through it but they can't get out. Can't. It's like this maze. Usually this would be full of these loaded. Hopefully, there won't be too much, okay? beautiful, yeah, so no, not too many and it's so beautiful there, so those are all little ones, the combs that they fill with honey and then they put a little bit of that wax layer on top, just a lid, yeah, so, What are they? what they do is when they bring nectar, the nectar has a moisture content, it is too high to sustain the voice, right, yes, there is too much water in it, so it confirms it, it can come back, you can feel when it reaches 18% 15 60 something like that. that once it reaches that moisture content then they will put a limit on it at that point that oh yeah, yeah, actually this is what happens oh yeah, you can't touch that, so ooh, that's delicious, that's so good, straight from the hive man.

I can't get over that, that's the first one, oh yeah, he's there, look, you know, he had his head all the way in, man, just drinking. Benny was like you last night with that bottle of wine and the good thing about this system is like a plastic. foundation, they build this, we take that off, we take off the lids and then all the honey will fly right out of here, yeah, next year we could give this back to them and then they won't have to build the honeycomb. just fill it up nice how nice it is to give and take so go hit them so how many different types of bees are there in a honey bee colony three types basically you got the Queen yeah you got them all the worker bees, all these workers.

I mean those are all the females, interestingly the males don't do much for the hive itself, they can't sting, they don't collect nectar, so they can't protect the nest or get resources, what the hell are they doing? Just have sex with the queen, yeah it's genetically diverse you know, they're just spreading their seeds okay and they'll die once they've completed their mating ritual, yeah I'm surprised how much they don't piss him off I mean. bees, they have kind of a very, very bad reputation, oh, look at that one, yeah, that's beautiful, that density. Oh God, did he get the shot?

They did it for me. They knew it would come. Five really cool things are done. boys, beat, beat, girls, oh god, yeah, I'd make a bomb, oh yeah, I do what I tell people, no, don't throw the first punch, put a little mustard on that punch, there it is, okay done, well done. Done, I like this one day, you know, I'll buy a nice little house with a field, a couple of fruit trees, you know, live the dream, get some bees, oh, dear, oh, it was like that, it sure was Mike, so this is what I would have seen. like we didn't have the skateboards Wow, this is what the whole box would have looked like, yeah, yeah, we just took all the frames out of the box and now we're going to seal this bad boy up and let's get started. you know, extracting the honey, I'm going to go ahead and give it a blast and then we'll get out of here oh yeah, it was good, yeah, thanks girls for the harvest, thanks girls, they killed it this year, they killed it. them next year don't take this away from the guys we're doing this winter we're going to cheat with a little lunch that's good so the next step this saw this is the decaf we're going to do here like the shwarma has a deal.

I know you don't want to like it, you should just scrape the cat on the top and it's a little colder so make it easier. No, it's usually a little easier when it's warmer. Budgeted for that person, so let's do some action. Go then. We passed it because the knife can't do everything right, so we took the photo and you go in and just scrape it, move it up a little bit and when we were tasting the honey, he blew me away. how much complexity of flavor was in it, I mean, it's like a roller coaster in your mouth, you know, here you have hundreds of different types of flowers and you're not going to do it instead of just a huge field of, you know, the same for any different nectar, we'll have all kinds of different flavor profiles.

Okay, this is amazing. My favorite thing to put honey on. We made that fermented garlic in honey. It was great. It's great in tea. It's great. I am fish. Great for me, it's good for anything you make me bunny or anything you like, but I actually have honey in my shower, why would you do that cool thing on my face on the scan? Really yes, it's like you see it when you wash your hands like it's your skin, no joke, so soft, yes, this is a honey frame that we already cut most of the tops off and now we're going to put it in this machine Called an extractor, it takes out all that good stuff if there's no ice. eat something now, what's wrong?

When you buy like a good local, good local raw honey, I'll wait until it's over, can you demystify it all? Oh, you get good honey, good for your allergies, what is that, the idea behind it. it's basically you're getting pollen from your area you know in small doses your body can learn to work with it so you're getting a vaccine essentially from the honey yeah I don't really have allergies so I can't. Well I guess it's not you, you know you're close, yeah, I guess that speaks, guys rubbing honey on your face, I don't think you're going to turn out okay, so okay, I'm ready to start the spin cycle, Oh yeah, Vinny. get in there now that it's going, you're gonna have to lift your body, definitely, step on this wooden thing and oh yeah, see the thrush, your pelvis right on top of it, yeah buddy, just holding it like you love it, I love it, oh. yeah, look at that honey flying out of there, huh, we can kick it full speed, full speed.

Okay, I have to stick my pelvis in that one, look, there's like a fine mist of honey, like it's spraying everywhere now. something like here we go great pelvis action that's the key to a good harvest key a good harvest gotta have a good time good pelvis I had the best in the business right oh here we go yeah that's a good thing jump look we can go Ten seconds, I can't please, so we have these grates there that are spinning and all the honey comes flying out hitting the side of the barrel that I'm holding with my pelvis and the honey just runs down through this thing and that's the system of extension straight from the bottle man hives oh you're a newbie the first timer will just let you hold on that's the Witham barrel probably not even necessary I was a wild ride everyone should do that once in Norway so that's one of the good things about this process is you know next year I will introduce this.

They don't have to spend resources or time to build this honeycomb, so they can fill it with honey ready to see. that I feel like Winnie the Pooh, this thing carries that thing oh, it's so good, so after all of this has finished draining and filtering into this bucket, then come in to see the bottle or jar of the finished product straight into the jar, directly to whoever wants to buy it, yes, what are some of the challenges you face today? I mean, I know people talk about colony collapse, is it a serious threat? or yes, yes, I think it is a great challenge for the bees.

There are new sprays and things coming out all the time, it seems like you know that two steps forward and one step back will get some lobbyists, you know, to overturn some things when people ask what can we do, you know, if they can't raise bees. One important thing they could do is buy local organic honey, yeah if you support it then create the market for it and you know people will change from scratch, totally fine hey man thanks for making honey with us. showing strings, come back any time, man, okay Vinnie, that was it, man, this is the final product, look at that beautiful light color, oh, that's amazing, not only because it's sweet, but because it has so much complexity and different flavors, compared to something that you would know you're running the mill supermarket in your honey bear or whatever there's just no comparison in terms of depth and concentration of flavor amazing ingredients to work with it's more than just putting it in your tea you know you can put You put it on Sam and you can put it on the chicken, you can put it in a marinade and apparently you can cover your body and make yourself look young and beautiful forever thanks to the local honey and enjoy the Bon Appetit.

I just want to be a bee, Vinny. I want to fill a big 55 gallon drum with this stuff and just have one Brad dip container. I just soaked and bathed and honey it sounds wonderful. Okay, how do you say I own it again? Xabi soft. Okay, we're here on the Sava Islands. Resolve so angry Jesus Christ, we are here in the Sierra Bay Islands, so all the islands, well, how do you say that? Solve a Sally, hey Ben, how do you save the island so they solve a good, be nice, we're here in the Solvay so what they say solve solve islands Minnie Minnie saw violence right we're here in this Solvay they saw islands that were out here they say this so what do we call this a rack frame a frame yeah we went and picked these up. trees, a shelf, look, flame, frames, frames, yellow jackets, man, yeah, beat, Danielle jackets and no one likes you, they do a little, oh man, really, yeah, I think they just made nightmares Well, Vinny, don't take a picture of me standing here, hey, look. take the dog out, he's getting it done, give him some dog shots, a lot of people love dogs.