Our honey bees produce local New Jersey wildflower honey from local flowers, and the character of that honey varies from year to year depending on which flowers produce an abundance of nectar. Most years linden is high on the list of components, making a pale, mild honey. But we also have nectar flows from locust, tulip poplar, clovers, autumn olive, thistle, knotweed, smartweed, and many others.
Varietal Honey
We are fortunate to have a small apiary situated in a grove of black locust trees. These bees produce a limited crop of premium black locust honey each year. This honey is extremely pale, with just a hint of gold color. Its flavor is very delicate: waxy and floral. Locust honey is available only in one pound jars, and may not be available all year long. Once it's gone, it's gone until the next annual harvest! We also are able to obtain blueberry blossom honey, made by bees pollinating New Jersey blueberries in the southern part of the state. Blueberry blossom honey tastes like caramel - yum!
Raw, Minimally Processed Local Honey
All Gooserock Farm local honey is raw, i.e., it has not been heated in processing. It is filtered on extraction just enough to remove bits of wax but still retains trace particles of pollen and propolis. Raw honey contains all the trace vitamins and minerals as well as the flavor that heating destroys. Commercial producers heat and ultrafilter their honey to delay crystallization and prolong shelf life as a liquid. Our honey will crystallize (become solid) more quickly than commercial honey. This does not affect its quality, in fact, we've heard it said that honey doesn't reach its fullest flavor until it has crystallized. If, however, you want to return your honey to a liquid state, heat it very gently in a pot of warm water until the crystals melt. We are proud to announce that our own wildflower honey won the blue ribbon at the 2008 NJ Beekeepers Association Honey Show in the Light Amber class!!!! We always thought it was the most delicious honey we'd ever tasted, now we can honestly brag that we've got the best honey in the state!
Honey Products
Variety is definitely the spice of life, and we delight in making many delicious products from our honey, including honey mustard, cinnamon honey (reminiscent of the old powdered cinnamon and sugar some of us used to sprinkle on our toast as children), apricot honey and several varieties of honey and nuts. We're recently added a line of delicious honey fruit cremes made by adding pure fruit which has been dried and powdered to our local honey. The result: Blueberry Honey Creme, Blackberry Honey Creme and Lemon Honey Creme. Even people who claim to not like honey like these delicious fruit and creamed honey mixtures.
Creamed Honey
Creamed honey, or, as it's sometimes called, set honey, is pure honey with nothing added, in which the crystallization process is controlled. We add 'seed crystals' of very finely ground crystallized honey to our liquid honey and set it in a cool place to hasten crystallization. The remaining honey will form crystals the same size as the seed honey, resulting in a very smooth, creamy-textured semi-solid honey that won't drip. Creamed honey is perfect for spreading, and a great choice for kids as it tends to stay put better than liquid honey.
Honey should not be fed to infants under 12 months of age.
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