Gutwenger beekeeping
Our busy bees
In addition to small mountain farming and rentals, we also run a beekeeping business with our own queen breeding. Around 50 bee colonies produce extremely tasty and high-quality honey from the nectar of mainly dandelions, blueberries, forest, raspberries, alpine roses and the diversely blooming mountain meadows. Our honey is a mixture of different flowers and herbs.
The short growing season at 1500 to 2300 m. allows only one extraction at the end of July, which means the honey is optimally ripe with little water content.
There is plenty of work from the end of June to the end of August. Be there when we take the honeycombs filled with honey out of the hives and spin them in our main building. Take this opportunity to learn some interesting facts about bees and beekeeping.
Apiaries
In the beehive
The inner workings of a beehive over the months is admirable. From February (hazel blossom) to mid-June, all the pollen and nectar collected is used for brood care.
Only from the summer solstice onwards does the breeding cycle decline slightly and then the excess nectar is stored as a reserve for the winter - unless the beekeeper intervenes.
At the end of July, when the main harvest is over and the honey is fully ripe, we take out a large part of the honey and supplement the harvest with feed syrup.
Slingshot and sale
The honeycombs are removed from the hives and replaced with empty honeycombs. At home in the spin room, the honeycombs are uncapped (the wax layer is removed from the cells) and then spun. The honey is sieved several times and left to rest for a few days so that the small air pockets collect into a layer of foam on top.
Only then can the honey be filled into jars of 250 gr., 500 gr., or 1 kilo, labeled and sold.
