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Friday, July 27, 2007

Home Grown Honey for Barbecue

I suspect that most barbecuers use honey in their bbq process at some point. Whether they add honey to a commercial bbq sauce to "improve it" or whether they make their own bbq sauce from scratch, there's most likely some honey involved.

I've made posts in the past about knowing your beekeeper and buying local honey. Today I thought I'd share a little knowledge about becoming a bee keeper and having your own "private" supply of honey in your backyard.

The University of Georgia offers a "how to" institute and education program called the "Georgia Master Beekeeper Program" and makes lecture notes available to anyone that wants to read them. They also have some pictures from previous institute programs. There's a vast range of information available about honey bee biology, preparing to keep bees, and other winter and spring management considerations. It probably won't enable you to start your own hives, but it's definitely a good place to start learning about bees.

My brother-in-law and nephew keep bees at my father-in-laws farm in Tennessee and based on about 7-years of observation, keeping bees is a lot of hard work during certain times of the year, but very rewarding at harvest time.

We've become their best customers and purchase more than $100 of Tennessee clover honey each year. It pays to be nice to your beekeeper. Store bought honey just doesn't measure up.

BBQ Secrets!

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