bees, beards, and bob blumer

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.....Oh yeah……and honey, and lots of it. Last weekend my friend, Robert and I went to visit The Honey Bee Centre in Cloverdale, B.C. We were there to attend the two day Honey Bee Festival, to taste and purchase some of the most gorgeous honey I’ve ever experienced, and to witness Robert’s friend, Bob Blumer, participating in the ‘bee beard’ competition. Why would Bob do such a thing? Because he was filming an episode for his t.v. program, ‘Glutton For Punishment’, which can be seen on The Food Network in 2008. This whacky feat was accomplished by placing a queen bee on a wire, which was then placed around his neck. In turn, pheromones emitted from the queen bee attracted the worker bees. By the end of 13 minutes, Bob was sporting quite the lively beard. I say ‘Better him than me!’

The Honey Bee Centre make and sell their own honey right on site. With more than 16 varities to select from, it was difficult to decide which ones to purchase. I finally chose the beautiful raspberry honey and also the ‘burnt’ fireweed version; meaning that it had been accidentally burnt during its filtering process. The resulting product is a sweet, deep brown syrup that has a concentrated, carmelized flavour. So YUM! Stay tuned for my festival inspired recipes…