Richard Spiegel, Owner of Volcano Island Honey Co, just got back from a trip to the East Coast to visit family, friends, and bees. He went to Vermont and stopped in for a visit with Ross Conrad, Owner of Dancing Bee Gardens and author of Natural Beekeeping, which has been a source of inspiration for beekeepers at Volcano Island Honey for years.
Richard found that he and Ross share a similar philosophy when it comes to beekeeping and the role of bees on the earth. Volcano Island Honey produces an organic, artisan honey that requires a high degree of attunement with the cycles of the bees. In order to maintain a close relationship with the bees Richard has kept the business intentionally small, managing between 130-150 hives. Most commercial beekeepers manage thousands of hives. Speaking to the organic approach in Natural Beekeeping, Ross Conrad says, “This emphasis on quality over quantity is perhaps the defining notion of the organic agricultural movement.”
A focus on quality over quantity has made Volcano Island Honey the company that it is. VIHC always leaves enough honey for the bees, so that the hive can maintain itself in the way that nature intended. Many large commercial apiaries take all of the honey from the bees and then feed the bees sugar- not their natural food! VIHC also uses “bee escapes” as a less invasive and non-violent way to vacate bees from the hive before harvesting. This is more labor intensive, but it is more gentle to the bees and does not kill bees. VIHC respects the bees as intelligent beings and teachers, instead of as a tool for making honey and money. We also make our own wax foundation, using our own beeswax to avoid beeswax from other sources that may be contaminated by toxins & chemicals.
Richard sees the bees as teachers- even after working closely with the bees for over 30 years he continues to learn lessons from the bees. Bees teach us many things about cooperative society and environmental sustainability. Beekeeping is an agricultural endeavor that has a positive environmental footprint. The bees give back and make the environment in which they live a better place. Not only do they share their incredible gifts of honey and wax, but they also help pollinate the area and increase the agricultural output of the trees and plants. Quoting Ross from Natural Beekeeping, “The honey bee inspires me to work into my daily life this lesson: That we should give something back and improve upon things, thus making the world a better place.” VIHC strives to make the world a better place through conscious management of every aspect of the business. However, even with all of this striving, it is very hard to create a positive environmental impact while running a business. The activities of the bees are an environmental plus, but the impact of the human activities of packaging and shipping are hard to avoid and hard to mitigate. “It is easy to talk about being a sustainable business, but it is very hard to live these things, try as we might,” says Richard Spiegel.
Bees are truly one of the natural wonders of the world- they make honey and wax- two things that humans have found very useful for thousands of years. Humans have figured out how to make wax from petroleum (yuck! beeswax candles are superior in every way!) but not to make honey. “Honey is something so precious and special; even with our highly developed technological sciences, we humans still have not been able to duplicate the efforts of the simple honey bee and create the same substance from what amounts to nothing more than sugar and water,” says Conrad in Natural Beekeeping. VIHC believes in using the honey as close to its natural state as possible and keeps the honey raw. Just like Volcano Island Honey, Dancing Bee Gardens also produces organic, raw honey.
So who’s smarter- Man or Bee? Well…you decide!
Watch this video of Ross Conrad speaking about his discovery of beekeeping and his all-natural methods for maintaining a healthy and thriving bee population.
Richard Spiegel and the team at Volcano Island Honey Company have been practicing and promoting sustainable business and sustainable agriculture for 30 years. VIHC has attracted international attention for its exquisite, artisan honey and innovative business practices. But perhaps Richard’s most influential work was done quietly at home, in the garden. The world’s most important and unrecognized job- raising children!
Following in the organic family footsteps, Richard’s daughter Shaina had a career at QAI (Quality Assurance International), one of the world’s largest organic certifiers. When Shaina left QAI to focus on raising her children, she continued to weave her belief in organic agriculture into her home life. Shaina’s homestead, in a small country town north of Escondido, California, has a sizable organic garden, chickens, avocado, fruit and nut trees.
This blog post was inspired by some pictures (above) that Shaina recently sent to Richard of grandchildren Hayden, Sierra and Leila Jane, on harvest day at their homestead. All three helped harvest, prepare, cook and then enjoyed eating a delicious meal from their garden.
Known as “the plant lady,” Shaina has been instrumental in getting a school garden program off the ground (or into the ground as the case may be!) at her son Hayden’s school. Richard loves seeing the positive influence of a healthy, natural lifestyle on his grandchildren and the other children that Shaina works with.
“My daughter Shaina grew up around the organic honey business and in our organic garden in Hawaii. Shaina and her children are proof that we can change the world and influence many suceeding generations by living what we believe,” says Richard. “What a great legacy.”
In addition to nurturing our own children, Volcano Island Honey Company hosts lot of school groups at the farm. Over the years, hundreds of school children have learned about the bees and enjoyed taking home their own little jars of honey with spoons.
A few years ago there was a bee swarm in my neighborhood. For a few days it was the talk of the town. Did you see that bee swarm? Are they angry? Are they looking for a person or animal to attack? Are they lost? Looking for their hive? It was both beautiful and frightening to the uninformed.
Richard says that some people are into horses, but if you don't know what you are doing a horse can hurt you. Bees are the same. If you don't know what you are doing you can get hurt, but if you understand what is happening, you will be fine. Richard is so friendly with the bees he captures the swarm with his bare hands. Don't try this at home!
The main reason that bees swarm out of the hive is that there is overcrowding in the hive. When the space gets too tight for so many bees, about half of them take off and go looking for a new home. An old queen also contributes to the instinct to swarm. The bees have a natural intelligence about when to leave and form a new hive, and this helps perpetuate the species. This works perfectly for bees in the wild. In managed hives, however, beekeepers want to avoid swarming because you lose half of your bees and decreases your honey production in that hive. Beekeepers keep an eye on the size of the hive and try to manage against swarming.
The bees are smart about when they swarm. They choose a sunny day with light wind and try to leave early to give themselves plenty of time to find a new hive. The bees swarm out of the hive with the queen, the bees stay close together because of their attraction to a pheromone produced by the queen. Then they cluster together in the shade, while scouts go out to look for a new hive location. The entire swarm does not go out hive hunting together. The bees prefer to build a new hive in a cavity, like a hole in a tree. As we know, bees will sometimes find a cavity in or around a house if they can find a way in- we hear many stories of bees nesting between walls. Scouts look for the new nesting site and come back to guide the way when they find a suitable location.
We recently had a bee swarm from one of our hives at Volcano Island Honey in Ahualoa and the bees clustered under a bush while waiting for their scouts to come back. Since these bees swarmed out of one of the Volcano Island Honey hives, Richard wanted to catch them back and give them a new hive. You will see in the video below that Richard is making sure that he captures the queen as well as the rest of the bees. If he doesn’t capture the queen, the bees will swarm out of the new hive.
Bees, in general, do not attack people. They primarily exhibit defensive behavior and will sting if they perceive a threat to the hive. A bee swarm is a group of bees moving to a new home and they usually eat a big honey meal before they go. Full of honey and without a home, they are not at their most aggressive. They are not out and about with aggressive intentions, but that doesn’t mean that they wouldn’t sting if they felt threatened. You can see in the video above that Richard is capturing the swarm with his bare hands!
The swarm will usually move on to their new nesting site within a day or two. You can call a beekeeper to capture the bees if they locate themselves in your home, or if you want the swarm gone sooner than they are ready. Some beekeepers like to catch wild swarms and put them in managed hives. They feel that wild bees might be stronger and add genetic diversity to the other colonies.
There was recently another bee swarm down in Puako…here are some pictures from that:
The swarm is on the move!
The swarm settles down on a tree branch to await the return of the scouts.
How do you know if honey is raw or not? And why should you care?
Truly raw honey is strained, not filtered, and is processed without using any heat at all- in the same state it was when it left the hive. Raw honey is better for your health than honey that has been heated, as heat changes the characteristics of honey- the enzymatic activity, antimicrobial properties, microbial quality, color and chemical composition. Heating the honey takes away the most beneficial attributes of the honey. Most of the commercial honey you see in the food store is heated. The raw honeys are more likely to come from smaller, artisan producers- like Volcano Island Honey Company!
To understand why some honey is raw and some is heated, it is first helpful to know a little bit about the harvesting and extraction process. Beekeepers provide frames, which are organized in a box (hive) for the bees to store honey and pollen. A frame is a rectangular wooden frame with two wires across the horizontal center that hold a piece of wax foundation in place. Wax foundation is beeswax that is embossed with the hexagonal shape that the bees naturally form for their comb. The bees “draw the comb” or build on top of the foundation and this is the comb where they store honey and pollen as well as where the queen lays her eggs (in separate cells!). When the individual cells are filled with honey or pollen, the bees cap it over for storage with wax, these are called wax cappings.
Much in the same way that you would cover food in the refrigerator with saran wrap, the bees cover the honey with a thin layer of wax for storage. Remember how your grandmother made jam and sealed it with wax? The bees thought of it first! The wax cappings have to be removed to get the honey out. Raw honey is extracted from the frames and bottled without using any heat. At Volcano Island Honey, the wax cappings are removed with an uncapping machine (which uses fast moving chains) and the honey is spun out using centrifugal force in an extractor. Most large commercial beekeepers heat the honey so it is easier to filter, bottle and to extend shelf life.
Beeswax from the cappings are another blessing bestowed on us by the bees, and the wax at Volcano Island Honey is saved to make beeswax candles and foundation for the hives.
All honey crystallizes, and although crystallized honey can easily be brought back to liquid state by placing it in warm water or in the sun, producers of liquid honey do not want crystallization to occur prematurely (as when it is sitting on the shelf). The heating of the honey breaks down the crystals and retards the process.
However, crystallization is not always undesirable, as a matter of fact, we use crystallization to our advantage. Some honeys are naturally crystallized and some use controlled crystallization to produce creamed honey. At Volcano Island Honey, our honey is not whipped or creamed- the white, creamy texture is a result of the natural crystallization of the honey. Our honey is kiawe honey and it is the nature of pure Kiawe honey to crystallize very rapidly. The crystals formed by rapid crystallization are very tiny; and, tiny crystals are what give Rare Hawaiian Organic White Honey its firm, smooth texture. The crystals in pure kiawe honey are “alive” and active. The thick, viscous, liquid honey that goes into the jar is transformed within a few days into the firm, silky texture by the growing crystals.
In order to keep the honey raw- timing in the harvesting, extraction, and bottling is critical! The growth and size of crystals in honey is affected by the size and amount of crystals already present in the combs. To maintain the naturally smooth and creamy texture of pure Kiawe honey the combs must kept totally free of old crystals. So, while the rapid crystallization causes the wonderful creamy texture of this honey, it also makes it necessary to “pick” the honey before it crystallizes in the hive. Read more about crystallization and our unique process of extracting raw honey.
Kiawe honey’s crystallization takes place so rapidly that a mistake in timing before it is bottled could easily allow the entire contents of a large stainless steel vat filled with Kiawe honey to solidify into one huge thousand pound chunk! If we made that mistake, we would have to melt it in order to remove it from the tank, thus ruining its gourmet delicacy and nutritional qualities. (It hasn’t happened yet!)
If raw honey is what you want, you might want to do some investigation before buying (or just buy our raw honey, which we guarantee is totally raw! ). The National Honey Board defines Raw Honey as “Honey as it exists in the beehive or as obtained by extraction, settling or straining without adding heat.” However, they also define Commercially Raw Honey as “Honey obtained by minimum processing. This product is often labeled as raw honey.” In pursuit of raw honey- some producers do not apply any heat at all and some are very conscientious about not heating the honey above the ambient temperature of the hive. However, some producers apply considerable heat, enough to kill the beneficial enzymes and still call it raw.
If you are making a beeline to the raw honey, ask the honey farm if the honey is truly raw or if they apply heat.
Buy your raw honey from a trusted source (hint, hint!). And I might add- with a commitment to organic, non-toxic beekeeping methods.
Our Rare Hawaiian Organic White Honey is so delicious that I often eat it by just sticking my finger right in the honey jar! I also put indecent amounts of organic white honey into my tea every day. But beyond the obvious ways of consuming this delectable honey there are a few ways to use our honey that you might not know about.
For the simple honey eater, who is classier than I am and does not want to use a finger- dipping almonds or unsweetened chocolate in the honey is divine. Spreading nut butter on the chocolate and then spreading it with honey is also a great combination.
Around my house and at Volcano Island Honey, Nut Butter Balls are a favorite healthy alternative to candy. Just mix your favorite nut butter (peanut butter, almond butter, macadamia nut butter, tahini) with honey to taste. Add nutritional yeast to thicken up the mixture and form balls. Roll the nut butter-honey balls in sesame seeds and refrigerate. Be careful- Nut Butter Balls are strangely addictive.
Honey is antibacterial and anti-viral, it forms hydrogen peroxide that will sterilize wounds, promote healing and reduce scaring. You can put honey on wounds, burns, acnes and infections. Our beekeepers use it faithfully on stings, burns and cuts.
Honey can be added to your bath water or used as a massage cream on your face or body. (Some people are allergic to honey- before putting honey on large areas of your body, please make sure that your skin is not allergic to honey.)
If you want a great craft project- making lip gloss from honey, beeswax and oil is a lot of fun. It is simple to make and very yummy to use on your lips. You taste the honey each time you lick your lips and your kissing partner gets to have sweet, organic kisses!
From the Merriman’s website: “The Waimea restaurant is now widely recognized as the flagship home of Hawaii Regional Cuisine, the island-based culinary movement that has garnered worldwide acclaim. Chef and restaurateur Peter Merriman worked closely with local farmers, ranchers and fishermen to create Hawaii Regional Cuisine, which showcases fresh and local produce, meats and fish”
Now Hawaii Regional Cuisine has become the signature cuisine in Hawaii and Merriman’s legacy of supporting local farmers and using local ingredients has become the norm for most high end restaurants in Hawaii.
Last weekend, Richard Spiegel, the owner of Volcano Island Honey Co. stayed at the Kona Village Resort for a much needed and well deserved weekend getaway. Richard was all inner and outer smiles when the server brought a jar of Rare Hawaiian Organic White Honey along with jams and preserves to the breakfast table. It was the first time Richard’s white honey was ever served to him in a restaurant. Always doing market research, the incognito Richard asked the server if customers ever ask about the honey. The server lit up and said, “Oh yes! Everybody loves this honey.”
Back when the movement was just getting started, Peter Merriman started using our Rare Hawaiian Organic White Honey at the Mauna Lani. Now, 20 years later, the Mauna Lani is still serving our honey to guests.
We are truly thankful for the visionary chefs who started the Hawaii Regional Cuisine movement and all of the chefs today who continue to appreciate and utilize our honey.
It was a sweet start for Volcano Island Honey. Today, there are eleven high end restaurants and resorts in Hawaii that serve our honey to their guests:
Recently a Canadian film crew came to film us for the show Chef Abroad, hosted by Chef Michael Smith. The show is called Island Flavors, Hawaii and will air on Food Network Canada, on Friday, November 27th at 9:30 pm EST and Saturday, November 28th at 1:30 pm and 7:30 pm EST.
This will be our 5th interview for national and international TV. We are delighted to have the opportunity to share internationally our long held belief and practices of earth friendly and life sustaining farming.
On November 17, 2009, Dr. Stephen J. Martin of University of Sheffield in Western Bank, Sheffield, UK visited Volcano Island Honey Company. Dr. Martin is internationally recognized for his research on the biology and population dynamics of social insects (hornets and honeybees) and their pests, parasites and pathogens.
The Varroa Mite is spreading rapidly on the Big Island, and beekeepers are scrambling to learn how to manage and control the destructive pest.
Researchers know that colonies heavily infested with varroa mites have high levels of viruses including Chronic Paralysis virus, Acute Bee Paralysis virus, Kashmir bee virus and Deformed Wing Virus- but no one has studied the virus levels in specific colonies before the mite arrived and then after the mite infestation. Volcano Island Honey Company does not currently have varroa mites in our hives, therefore Dr. Martin is studying our colonies to get baseline virus levels before and after a varroa mite infestation.
Of course, we are hoping we never have a mite infestation, but the scientists say, “We’ve heard that hope before,” and then they emphatically repeat “You will get the mites.”
Dr. Martin took samples of live bees and eggs from the brood nests of twenty of our colonies. He explained that a normal healthy colony has defenses against viruses that infect the bees through normal transmission channels, like the entering through the digestive system; but when the Varroa mite parasitically feeds on the bee pupa or adult bees it injects the virus into the pupa’s or adult’s bodily fluids from which the bee host has no defense.
Currently, the Varroa mite is spreading across the Big Island faster than anyone had predicted. And we are hoping against hope, and scientific evidence to the contrary, that this blight will pass us over.
Yesterday a film crew from Japan interviewed Richard Spiegel at the Volcano Island Honey Company apiary in Ahualoa on the Hamakua Coast of the Big Island of Hawaii. They were filming for a show called the Voyage of Kona Coffee and were also featuring other Hawaii Island artisan products.
Richard opened up a beehive and spoke about our organic, non-toxic and non-violent methods of beekeeping. Many people, the interviewer included, wonder why our honey is so white and creamy. People mistakenly think the honey is whipped, but its not, it is naturally crystallized! Rare Hawaiian Organic White Honey is kiawe (a tree, similar to the mesquite) honey, kiawe honey crystallizes more quickly than other honeys and the white color is also a characteristic of the kiawe honey. The honey crystallizes naturally, and the smooth texture results from how we treat the honey all the way throughout the process. Learn more about our unique process of harvesting raw, organic honey.
Richard also discussed our “Uncommon Philosophy” – a triple bottom line or people, planet, profits- approach to business.
Unless you are a beekeeper you are probably asking yourself right now, “What is Wax Foundation?” and “Why Do I Care?” Wax foundation is a thin sheet of beeswax that is embossed with the hexagonal shape that the bees naturally form for their honeycomb. The wax foundation is placed in a rectangular wooden frame with two wires across the horizontal center that holds the wax foundation in place.
The bees “draw out the comb” by adding wax on top of the foundation to create hexagonal cells, which is where they store honey and pollen as well as where the queen lays her eggs (in separate cells!)
Organic foundation is important because most beeswax foundation is contaminated from the use of toxic chemicals used by beekeepers in the hives to treat disease. The chemicals remain in the wax, which is processed into wax foundation.
Most beekeepers purchase this commercial foundation for use in their hives. Organic standards allow plastic foundation dipped in organic beeswax, but some organic beekeepers (like Volcano Island Honey Co. and Hawaiian Queen Company!) feel strongly that plastic should not be used in bee hives.
We produce raw, organic honey and have a commitment to nonviolent and non toxic methods to harvest honey, and in all aspects of production. We believe that organic wax foundation provides the basis for healthier, stronger bee hives, thereby increasing honey and queen production. Strong, healthy bees mean that trees and plants are pollinated which increases the agricultural productivity of orchard crops and maintains the health of non-native and native forest.
Making beeswax foundation in a small-scale farm setting is a lost art, there are not many people who know how to do it as the process has been industrialized in developed countries. The fact that it is not possible to purchase organic foundation means that making your own is a necessity for apiaries who do not want to use plastic foundation.
The process of making foundation is not complicated, but it does require time and patience. The only piece of specialized equipment required is an embossing mill. The embossing rollers come in both 4.9 mm and 5.1 mm sizes.
To understand why some honey is raw and some is heated, it is first helpful to know a little bit about the harvesting and extraction process. Beekeepers provide frames, which are organized in a box (hive) for the bees to store honey and pollen. A frame is a rectangular wooden frame with two wires across the horizontal center that hold a piece of wax foundation in place. Wax foundation is beeswax that is embossed with the hexagonal shape that the bees naturally form for their comb. The bees “draw the comb” or build on top of the foundation and this is the comb where they store honey and pollen as well as where the queen lays her eggs (in separate cells!). When the individual cells are filled with honey or pollen, the bees cap it over for storage with wax, these are called wax cappings.
Much in the same way that you would cover food in the refrigerator with saran wrap, the bees cover the honey with a thin layer of wax for storage. Remember how your grandmother made jam and sealed it with wax? The bees thought of it first! The wax cappings have to be removed to get the honey out. Raw honey is extracted from the frames and bottled without using any heat. At Volcano Island Honey, the wax cappings are removed with an uncapping machine (which uses fast moving chains) and the honey is spun out using centrifugal force in an extractor. Most large commercial beekeepers heat the honey so it is easier to filter, bottle and to extend shelf life.
In order to keep the honey raw- timing in the harvesting, extraction, and bottling is critical! The growth and size of crystals in honey is affected by the size and amount of crystals already present in the combs. To maintain the naturally smooth and creamy texture of pure Kiawe honey the combs must kept totally free of old crystals. So, while the rapid crystallization causes the wonderful creamy texture of this honey, it also makes it necessary to “pick” the honey before it crystallizes in the hive. Read more about crystallization and 
Last weekend, Richard Spiegel, the owner of Volcano Island Honey Co. stayed at the Kona Village Resort for a much needed and well deserved weekend getaway. Richard was all inner and outer smiles when the server brought a jar of 
On November 17, 2009, 
Researchers know that colonies heavily infested with varroa mites have high levels of viruses including Chronic Paralysis virus, Acute Bee Paralysis virus, Kashmir bee virus and Deformed Wing Virus- but no one has studied the virus levels in specific colonies before the mite arrived and then after the mite infestation. Volcano Island Honey Company does not currently have varroa mites in our hives, therefore Dr. Martin is studying our colonies to get baseline virus levels before and after a varroa mite infestation.
