Where can I find more information on how to order your products? Click HERE to view our Ordering Frequenty Asked Questions (FAQ) Where does your honey come from? With miles of old farms, many going back to woods and wildflowers, the area supports the apiaries with a wide variety of floral sources. Willow and dandelion in the early spring, followed by russian olive, locust trees, wild raspberry and multiflora rose provide early build up for the bees. Linden trees, aka basswood, provide the major late spring flow of surplus honey. Sumac also abounds. Midsummer, we have a selection of wildflowers including knapweed, Joe Pieweed, and thistle. Late summer bamboo, aka Japanese Knotweed, precedes the major goldenrod flow. Clematis also blooms at this time. As fall rushes in, bamboo and goldenrod get blurred together and purple aster often finishes off the season blooming well into October. Is your honey 'raw' or 'unprocessed' or 'organic'? Our honey has not been pasteurized or filtered. The temperatures that it is exposed to during extraction and bottling is not above 110 degrees Fahrenheit, or not much warmer than body temperature. It is then pumped through a strainer cloth to remove large particles. Not much processing going on here. As to whether or not we are organic, we cannot control where the bees gather nectar. Our apiaries are scattered over a large geographical area of the Fingerlakes. If you've ever visited the area, you will realize that there is little industry here and a lot of open country. With millions of worker bees covering many square miles of fields and forests, one cannot prevent a bee from stumbling upon that rose watered with Miracle Grow on Aunt Betty's porch. However, bees act as a natural filter between you and the environment, meaning, if a bee gets into serious pesticides or other dangerous chemicals, she will likely not make it back to the hive. Our own application of antibiotics and/or mitacides is kept to a minimum. Recently we have switched over to oxalic acid as our mitacide of choice in place of petrochemical derivatives.  How long will pollen last and how do I keep it fresh? If kept frozen, pollen will last a very long time. We trap our pollen and freeze it immediately and it lasts until the next spring quite nicely. That is six to eight months without any obvious change. Once it is opened and kept at room temperature, it will only last a couple of weeks. Keep a small amount in a sealed jar for immediate use, refrigerate if you like, and keep the rest frozen. Pollen that turns brown or is crunchy like Grape Nuts cereal is old and of little value. Is honey any good after it crystalizes? Great question. Often mistaken for sugaring, many folks mistakenly think that honey gone hard is no longer any good. Wrong!! Nearly all pure honeys crystalize over time, some quite fast and others quite slowly depending on the floral source and balance of fructose and glucose in the nectar. To return it to its liquid state, simply place jar in a saucepan with several inches of water (double boiler style) and heat water on stove on low heat. Stir honey occasionally and it will return to liquid state. Fact of the matter is that honey that granulates indicates its purity and unrefined nature (non-pasteurized, raw status).  Honey that has been severely heated actually loses nutritional value! There is NO sugar in our honey! Ever! Period. Where do you get your bees? We raise our own. We make splits in the spring from strong hives. We raise our own queens and requeen annually. Don't you get stung a lot? What is a lot? If I work 75 hives per day with an average population of 40,000 each, that is 3 million bees. Does 30 or 50 stings sound like a lot considering that? Anyway, after you do this for a while it isn't so bad. It still burns a bit at first but only for a short time and there is no swelling or itchiness. And bee venom is actually good for you! Check out the apitherapy site: www.apitherapy.org What about bears? We get a lot more bears here now. Their population is definitely on the rise. They can really do a LOT of damage in a very short time. Fortunately, electric fences do a pretty good job of discouraging them. What do you like about being a beekeeper? Being your own boss. Being responsible for your own wellbeing. Hard, honest work which does wonders for the environment. Doing something different every day. Learning to work with nature rather than against her, reading her nuances, interpreting her moods. Where , exactly, is Van Etten, NY? Click on this link: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=Van+Etten,+NY&layer=&ie=UTF8&z=7&ll=42.892064,-75.904541&spn=5.762743,13.886719&om=1