[MUSIC PLAYING]

(SINGING) Ah

One small step for man

Bring me--

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Hello, and welcome to Free Speech with CR. I'm Molly Blakemore. And I'm here with my co-host, Dr. Keith Flamer.

KEITH FLAMER: Hi, Molly. It's great to be here with you today. And with us are two fabulous beekeepers, if I can use that word. Angela Stewart and Valerie Elder, both teachers at CR. So the first question is, how has beekeeping become such a strong culture in Humboldt County? And what does it actually mean to be a beekeeper?

ANGELA STEWART: I think it's always been around because I even start before I started keeping bees. I'm a Humboldt County local. And I always have this roster of things that seem very, very Humboldt County to do. And beekeeping has always been on that list. But it wasn't until somewhat recently that I actually started. But it's a fun hobby.

It's rewarding. It's, I don't know, particularly the good place to do beekeeping as well. Connects you to nature. It's neat to talk about. Why wouldn't you want to do it?

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: How did you get into it?

VALERIE ELDER: Well, my mom was beekeeper briefly. And I took the class at Cal Poly Humboldt that's focused on beekeeping, that's taught from some of our awesome community members. But I think in Humboldt County, we have agriculture as a strong part of our vibrant community. Beekeeping isn't necessarily the hugest part of that, but we have a lot of people who are interested in living sustainable lifestyles and connecting to nature.

And I think beekeeping is something that you can never really know exactly what's going on. And so it's a sense of curiosity. And I think at CR, we do have a sense of curiosity, whether that's how can we best help students, advising, or teaching in our classrooms. So I think being curious is part of being a beekeeper. So I think that's an underlying theme of that beekeeping culture.

KEITH FLAMER: So how long have you been beekeepers?

ANGELA STEWART: I think this is my sixth year at this point.

KEITH FLAMER: Six years?

ANGELA STEWART: Yeah.

VALERIE ELDER: Yeah, and I think this is about my fourth year. I actually took the beekeeping class with Carrie Maier.

KEITH FLAMER: Oh, my God.

VALERIE ELDER: Yes.

KEITH FLAMER: So you actually took a class?

VALERIE ELDER: Yes. Yep. And in that class, they walk you through the most important things to know. The common pitfalls and mistakes that folks make and how to keep bees healthy.

ANGELA STEWART: Mm-hmm. And you take a class, and then you go into the actual experience. And you think so much, and you go and you're like, I don't know anything. It's got a huge learning curve. Got a huge learning male.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: And where do you get your bees to start?

ANGELA STEWART: Mail.

KEITH FLAMER: She the mail?

ANGELA STEWART: It's kind of odd because it's just totally different like, how do you even start this? But you can order a package of bees, and it's about three pounds of bees. And then there's this little queen in the middle. And then you put them in the box.

How I did it is there was a person who organized a pickup where they would drive out, and they would buy the bees from a beekeeper, and they bring them all up at once. And that's how I got mine. Some people would get them from local beekeepers if they have too much or they're just looking to offload.

VALERIE ELDER: Yeah, so there's lots of different ways. The Bee Club or Humboldt County Beekeepers is really supportive in helping facilitate that. So you will just either get them in the mail, the post office or meet somebody in a parking lot. And they open the back of the truck and there's a bunch of bees back there. Or-- this didn't happen so nice.

KEITH FLAMER: In the parking lot?

ANGELA STEWART: You just put them in your car, adjust them over so they know it's there.

KEITH FLAMER: Yeah, but the fare is to be delivered at you.

VALERIE ELDER: But there's another way you can get bees, which is catching a swarm. So there's a swarm list if you look up Humboldt County swarms. And you can call someone. And Angela or I might be the person that comes. And so you never know what you're walking into when you're getting a swarm. A swarm of bees has a queen and about half the hive.

And they leave a new queen in the hive with the other half of the bees, and the other hive is going off and looking-- or the other half of the hive is going off and looking for a new place to live.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Those would be cool. We see a swarm--

VALERIE ELDER: Yes.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: And be like, oh no, there's a swarm of bees and call you, and you'll go. And how do you get those bees?

ANGELA STEWART: Various ways. Usually by the latter.

VALERIE ELDER: Yeah. Yeah.

KEITH FLAMER: Here, you have defeated as--

VALERIE ELDER: They can be very mellow at that phase because they're all focused on finding a home. So you can almost just grab them with your hands.

KEITH FLAMER: Oh, no.

VALERIE ELDER: Put them into a box.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Wow.

VALERIE ELDER: Sometime it's more complicated. People have modified vacuums and other systems. I'm not that fancy. But yeah, so you can collect bees, get them in the mail, get them from a neighbor or a friend.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: If you upset the swarm, then you have to take care of that swarm?

VALERIE ELDER: Yeah.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: So many bees do you have now?

ANGELA STEWART: That flexes throughout the year. Now, I actually have three hives. I had 13 over the summer.

KEITH FLAMER: 30 hives?

ANGELA STEWART: 13 hives. Yeah, 13 colonies. And it was a big personal project to get that down. It was too much for me. But I'm at three right now. I'm going into the winter with three.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: So 13, and then you gave those hives away?

ANGELA STEWART: No, I just reduced them down using various beekeeping tactics and gave away some certainties.

KEITH FLAMER: Beekeeping tactics?

ANGELA STEWART: Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of different strategies you can do depending on what your goal might be with the bees or with your beekeeping, or what you want to produce with the bees. And my personal goal was to not have 13 hives anymore because it was so much work. So yeah, just kind of combining them, narrowing them down to the point where I have it more manageable.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: So does that mean maybe some of the bees are swarming then somewhere or--

ANGELA STEWART: Some did. Yeah, some naturally swarmed. And there's things that you can do once the bees have swarmed, depending on what you want to do like if you want to try to reproduce another queen or another colony out of that. But what I did, instead of trying to preserve a full colony, I would just combine it with another colony just to make-- combine two into one. So instead of expanding, I would just narrow them down every single time. Yeah.

KEITH FLAMER: As you talk about beekeeping, it sounds as though you guys are nerds.

ANGELA STEWART: Yeah. It's easy to geek out.

KEITH FLAMER: Really?

ANGELA STEWART: Really zone out on.

KEITH FLAMER: Why? And seriously, I really want to understand how you can, as you say, geek out on beekeeping? I'm trying to understand the attraction.

ANGELA STEWART: Oh, you don't like getting stung or just spending hours sweating in a bee suit.

KEITH FLAMER: Yes. And yeah, quite true. I want to just be a go to a store and say, oh, made in Humboldt County. Done deal. So what's the--

ANGELA STEWART: There's so many different parts. It's such a scientific hobby. Well, it's such a satisfying hobby on so many different levels. I started beekeeping because I thought it would just be this natural extension of what we do in our yard. We have livestock. We have gardens. We have all this stuff. I'm like, hey, that fits. And I thought it would be a couple bee boxes we have in our yard.

And we just get honey every year. But I didn't realize how intensive it was. There's just so much biology involved. So wigging out on the biology is really satisfying. The products. Honey is really neat. Beeswax is really neat. There's all these different products you can harvest within the hive that's really neat. It's a cool community thing.

You make friends from it and it's really cool. A hobby that's always like giving to you. And you can bond over it with people.

KEITH FLAMER: I imagine it's somewhat competitive sometimes, isn't it? Or can it be as competitive?

ANGELA STEWART: It can be. Some people like to take pride in the knowledge that they know more than other people maybe or that they have more highs. But I feel like it's pretty cooperative. In Humboldt County, it's really cooperative. And then just the non-stop learning. Like she was saying, you think you go in knowing something, but then you see something totally different.

You're always wondering, what are they going to do, trying to anticipate their needs. For me, it keeps me looking forward to every season because you're always planning for the next season. You're trying to keep the bees as happy as possible. They always keep you on your toes. They always keep you on your toes. And the minute you think a whole lot, they'll do something to just humble you down to the studs.

KEITH FLAMER: And does it? Is related to being stung? So you have to learn from your experiences.

ANGELA STEWART: Yeah, I don't mind being stung. I hold my own.

KEITH FLAMER: Wait, wait, we kind of-- OK, yeah, we have to talk a little bit about that.

ANGELA STEWART: What's it when you get stung?

VALERIE ELDER: I have a little bit more of an adrenaline response when I get stung. And so that's not necessarily a benefit. And it's because I'm being clumsy, usually. You can successfully check a hive and not get stung. But I think I'm kind of clumsy, so I get stung a lot.

ANGELA STEWART: OK. I like the adrenaline rush. For me, I like it. It feels really good. I enjoy it. And I don't recommend this for home at all. But some people are really big on bee sting therapy. And you can--

KEITH FLAMER: Bee sting therapy?

ANGELA STEWART: Yeah, yeah. There's apiculture, is a study of things you can do with bee products. And so one of the products is bee stings that you can harvest from hive. And there is-- or apitherapy, sorry. And there's a big apitherapy belief that stings will produce certain effects within the body that might be beneficial.

So one of them is reduced-- at first, you might smell from the bee sting, but eventually, your swelling might go down, or you might develop an immunity. Or if you have pain in certain areas, and you steam them, that pain might go down. And I've had that in my experience. So I don't panic when I get stung. I've stung myself on purpose before, which people think is super weird, but I don't--

KEITH FLAMER: Just the middle, yeah.

ANGELA STEWART: Yeah, but I don't know that--

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Some people get stuff on the face for youthfulness.

ANGELA STEWART: Mm-hmm. Yeah, like, to enlarger your lips and stuff. I don't sting myself in the face on purpose, but I have been stung in the face, and it is an adrenaline-- one time I had a really bad cold, and I got stung right on the nose, and my cold went away.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Wow.

ANGELA STEWART: I think it was the adrenaline rush. It just flushed everything else. I felt like I got punched in the face for a couple days. But--

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Is it true that the bees die when they sting you?

ANGELA STEWART: Yeah.

KEITH FLAMER: Oh, the reaction.

ANGELA STEWART: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

KEITH FLAMER: That's true.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: So how many hives do you have?

VALERIE ELDER: I have, I think, eight right now. I had a lot this summer. I have two locations. I keep them up at my home in Niland, and then my friend has a pumpkin patch in the Arcata Bottoms, Hattie's Harvest. And so I keep my bees there to help pollinate his farm. And that's really where this spiraled out of control as a hobby and having those two locations. But it's been really fun to see the differences in those two locations.

KEITH FLAMER: So it's no longer a hobby?

VALERIE ELDER: Well, I think it's still hobby level, but it's getting out of control a little bit. But I am a tree person, a plant person, a nature person. And so for me, it's really cool to see the differences in those two locations, the color of pollen, the seasonality when the trees are blooming.

I have two of my honeys on the table that folks listening can't see, but one is a really dark color, and that is from the oak trees that have this tannic component to them. So that makes it this really dark brown color you almost can't see through. And I've got a lighter one from the pumpkin patch that's more of this cool golden color, like a pumpkin blossom.

And so the bees bring in that from nature. And I think that's really cool. The flavors are there too.

ANGELA STEWART: If you'd like, we can try it over here.

KEITH FLAMER: Yeah, so we're about to make sure that we're able to describe that for the people that are listening.

ANGELA STEWART: Which is part of honey tasting. Yeah, it's just that one other thing.

KEITH FLAMER: It would be funny.

ANGELA STEWART: Exactly. Yeah. There's just so many different things you can get into from bees. And honey tasting is one. Let me get it to show you.

KEITH FLAMER: That would be fun.

VALERIE ELDER: While Angela is getting that out, I have a little wheel from UC Davis from their pollinator center on the honey flavor wheel. So you can use this to describe, much like you would wine or other sort of foodie related type products, the flavors that you're tasting. So there's everything, a nutty flavor to more floral type flavors on the wheel that help you taste.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: When I first moved here, I had really bad allergies and someone told me to eat the local honey and that would help with your allergies. And I did. And it did. And I don't know if that's just anecdotal.

KEITH FLAMER: Well, I'm very excited for today because mine are acting up--

VALERIE ELDER: That it's a good way to--

ANGELA STEWART: Is this something I can believe? Yeah, sometimes we all would-- how much science have we seen on that? I don't know if it's been scientifically proven or debunked, but there's a lot of anecdotal--

KEITH FLAMER: Really?

ANGELA STEWART: --stories of-- yeah-- of allergies helping because it's forged in the local area, although there's not pollen in the honey specifically. You can't have a beehive without having pollen in it. It's just ubiquitous. It's everywhere within the hive. So you have exposures to at least little bits. And depending on how the beekeeper harvests their honey, there might be different levels of all the pollen, just all the things that are being forged as part of the whole--

KEITH FLAMER: OK, so we're at the experience. What do we have first?

ANGELA STEWART: Yeah, so we'll start lightest to darkest of the five honeys that we have here. And so this is clover blossom. So at my friend's farm, he has a cover crop to protect the soil and incorporate nitrogen into the soil. And so there was a big clover bloom. And I was able to harvest honey right after that clover bloom before other things really took off, primarily blackberry. Squeeze this in.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Thank you.

VALERIE ELDER: So this is the lightest honey. It's very clear with just a faint yellow color. And I think it has more of a-- it's very, very sweet.

KEITH FLAMER: It is.

VALERIE ELDER: And a floral component issues that flavor.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Mm-hmm.

KEITH FLAMER: That's amazing.

ANGELA STEWART: l just had a cough drop, but I don't know how it went in.

KEITH FLAMER: OK. And so you're saying the location can dictate the color and the taste of the honey itself?

ANGELA STEWART: The floral resources and that one with--

VALERIE ELDER: Timing. And they're feeding off of other flowers and things in people's gardens, but it's what they're predominantly going on.

KEITH FLAMER: Oh, that's amazing.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Mm-hmm.

KEITH FLAMER: So here's a question for you. So talk to us about what is the best memories you have of beekeeping? And what are the worst memories you have of beekeeping? As we do more tasting.

VALERIE ELDER: Well, I can talk about how I met-- really became friends with Angela.

KEITH FLAMER: Oh, please.

VALERIE ELDER: Part of this. So I had my first-- I'm not sure if this is better to hand this to you.

KEITH FLAMER: OK, so which one is this one?

VALERIE ELDER: This is the pumpkin patch. And--

KEITH FLAMER: Oh.

VALERIE ELDER: --this has more of an earthy flavor compared to the clover. I think that I should let you describe it for me.

KEITH FLAMER: I thought you did really, really well.

VALERIE ELDER: Oh, I think it tastes how summer fields smell. It has this earthy flavor, and it's not quite as sweet as that clover blossom to me. But still really nice.

ANGELA STEWART: Just summarize the after finish to it.

KEITH FLAMER: After finish.

VALERIE ELDER: Yeah, see-

ANGELA STEWART: Yeah, there's different levels. And with honey, the idea with honey tasting is there's actually specific levels to doing it. You want the honey warm. You want to smell it. You want to put it in your mouth. You want to let it coat your tongue. And then you observe the textures of it. Because honeys have different textures.

They might have different ways that they're coating the tongue, coating the mouth. There might be different flavors that you're getting different points in your tasting experience. There's a whole formal protocol for honey tasting.

KEITH FLAMER: You are geeking out on honey.

ANGELA STEWART: Oh, my-- yes.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: And when you said it should be warm, because I always have that problem. Because here in Humboldt County everything is cold.

ANGELA STEWART: Mm-hmm. Crystallizes.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: And I never know how to warm the honey without changing the flavor or burning it or--

ANGELA STEWART: Yeah, I kind of want to talk about-- that brings me to one of the things I want to talk about is how bees will extract honey and how crystallization plays into that. So we'll put that one on the table. But from warming honey, keeping it out of direct sunlight is helpful because the direct sunlight sometimes can degrade the properties of the flavor.

It won't be so much, but to keep it as pure as possible, a dark, warm place can be helpful or putting it in a warm water bath. Keeping it below I think 105 degrees will keep things just preserved without degrading the texture.

KEITH FLAMER: At 105?

ANGELA STEWART: Mm-hmm.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: I'll put it in the microwave.

ANGELA STEWART: No, don't put it in the microwave.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Oh, I have been. I've done that before.

ANGELA STEWART: Oh, no, don't do that. It will still be honey, but it just takes away, like, the special properties. Like some of the beneficial properties will start to die away.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Keep it below 105.

ANGELA STEWART: Yeah, yeah. So a long water bath, like I have a-- I think it's called a sous vide or something. It just kind of keeps the temperature controlled.

KEITH FLAMER: This taste is different.

ANGELA STEWART: So this one is mine. Yeah, this is my honey. Yeah.

KEITH FLAMER: Wow! This is so different.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: And this is from your yard?

ANGELA STEWART: Yes.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: And where--

ANGELA STEWART: This is Fortuna honey. I live in Fortuna. So this is a Fortuna honey.

KEITH FLAMER: Yeah, it is different.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: So different.

ANGELA STEWART: Yeah, it's got more like a peppery finish. But anyway, sorry. Go on with your story. This is so easy. Like, it's so easy to go off on these side things, but. Yeah, keep on going.

VALERIE ELDER: All right, well I don't-- oh, my favorite memory? That was what it was. So I started beekeeping, and I think it was my first year. And Angela had come by before the end of the school year and was like, I'm so excited. I've talked to Kerry, you're beekeeping. Here's my phone number in case anything comes up. It's really nice to talk to someone if you have questions. And I was like, OK, sure.

And then I opened up my hives one day, and I had all these queen cells, which means my bees were preparing to swarm. And so I texted Angela like a picture. And I was like--

ANGELA STEWART: What do I do?

VALERIE ELDER: Help me. Like, I know we talked about it, but this is scary to try on my own. And she sent me all these directions and called me, and the directions worked perfectly. So I was able to split my bees and put a frame of pollen and a frame of honey because I had it and split the two bees, and I had a successful split my very first try, which is not always the case, but Angela is just excellent and walked me through it step by step. That was pretty fun. And so it is, it's a fun community and helping people learn.

KEITH FLAMER: And by Kerry, we were talking Kerry Mayer.

VALERIE ELDER: Mayer, yep.

KEITH FLAMER: Former administrator and faculty at CR.

ANGELA STEWART: Yeah. One of the beekeeping crew, like my favorite beekeeping crew, yeah.

One of my favorite memories. I think it's kind of like a commemoration of memories, but the raising queens, I love raising queens. Like, I find it more satisfying than honey.

KEITH FLAMER: You have to explain why you--

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: And what that is, yeah.

ANGELA STEWART: So yeah, creating. So every colony needs to have a thriving queen in order to be--

KEITH FLAMER: One?

ANGELA STEWART: Yeah, one queen. Sometimes they do have multiple queens. But typically one queen. And getting a hive to a spot, what we were going through is creating two colonies from one and having the product be a queen that is just beautiful, wonderful, doing her job. The whole entire colony is just doing what they're supposed to, and they're all healthy. It is so-- oh, it's just such a transcendental experience. I know that sounds so extreme, but it's so true.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: It's a great queen that's doing really good. And the brood pattern,

ANGELA STEWART: Yeah, their brood pattern looks great. Like, it's just nice and tight.

KEITH FLAMER: Yeah, so like this, say prior to getting out show and tell.

ANGELA STEWART: Oh gosh.

KEITH FLAMER: So some of these things. And so what happens if you have more than one queen?

VALERIE ELDER: You can make some decisions from there. I've been noticing I have-- it's one of those things, like, I don't know if I've always had this or I'm just now noticing, but these last couple summers I have seen some colonies where there's two queens in existence, and it's usually where there's a mother-daughter situation where they're trying to sort themselves out, have an easier transition. I just leave them alone, let the bees do their things. But it's really exciting to see because it's supposed to be not common.

So when you see that happen, it's kind of a magical thing, like you see two queens on the same frame, and they're both kind of walking peacefully. Like you can't see that the bees are trying to choose one or another at that point. It's really thrilling. I usually get out my camera and take a video as soon as I can.

KEITH FLAMER: And so now tell us what you brought for us today.

ANGELA STEWART: Let's do more. Yeah, more you continue on with the how-to yeah.

KEITH FLAMER: Other show-and-tells that you had as well.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Well, we'll have to take a short break, and then maybe we can do the show-tells. Because obviously it's real easy to want to talk about a lot of stuff.

VALERIE ELDER: So this is the oak honey, and this is the dark color.

KEITH FLAMER: Different.

VALERIE ELDER: It's maybe a little more molasses type.

KEITH FLAMER: Very much, yes.

VALERIE ELDER: And this is from my hives in Kneeland. And so they have the opportunity to forage in the forest.

KEITH FLAMER: This is different.

VALERIE ELDER: Yeah. And the oak tannins contribute to this really dark color and different flavor.

ANGELA STEWART: I like the dark tannins a lot.

VALERIE ELDER: To the honey. Yeah, it's also very sweet, but earthy, really.

KEITH FLAMER: Earthy. Yeah, that's a good.

ANGELA STEWART: And then it kind of stops at the end. Like it just for me. It's just like a really blunt ending. That's so good.

KEITH FLAMER: So these companies that manufacture a lot of honey. And of course, I see one that little bear on them. How do they get them so consistently the same? Because these are so different based on location. So how does that work?

ANGELA STEWART: It could be a lot of different ways, honey. Mixing or just producing from similar crops. And so honeys can look like similar in color, and sometimes, there's some that are just more common, like clover's really, really common. What do you think?

VALERIE ELDER: A lot of our honey comes from some larger productions rather than our backyard hobby collections. So we're able to-- I harvest based on timing of when things are blooming to get these sort of special colors. But a lot of our-- a national level, our beekeeping happens on a lot of almond orchards and other fruit orchards as part of a cycle of pollinating for the food. That way we can have food in the grocery store pretty much all times of year.

And so a lot of the honey that you buy is from these larger productions that have more of a single source or multi-source that can be blended together. And that's USA-produced honey. There's also international honey and different things. And there's great honey. And sometimes there's honey that has additives and different things in them that might not be all honey. But if you buy from a local beekeeper, you know where it came from and know what's in it.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Cool. And it sounds like we have plenty of the-- whole county, so.

ANGELA STEWART: Yeah.

VALERIE ELDER: Let's try the meadowfoam.

ANGELA STEWART: Yeah, meadowfoam is interesting. So these are all meadow. Yes. These are all from our beehives. This one is from Oregon. Meadowfoam is a native plant to the Western Coast. And yes, it's a really unique type of honey.

KEITH FLAMER: Wait, not so fast.

ANGELA STEWART: Yeah. And I really wanted to bring this one because it's so very different. So yeah, have some. Molly sniff it. Is totally different how you sniff it.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: And meadowfoam, what is it?

ANGELA STEWART: It's just a delightful little flower. It's got a little yellow center and white. It blooms in like early May. It's just [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] flower is what I think some people call it sometimes, and there's quite a few blooms in Oregon.

VALERIE ELDER: It's used in cosmetics.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Yes.

VALERIE ELDER: And yeah. Other--

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Hand creams with oils.

KEITH FLAMER: OK, good to know.

ANGELA STEWART: But what do you taste when you're tasting this? What stands out to you? And if you need to try it again. Keith?

KEITH FLAMER: Flowery, of course. But it's a fruity type of flower. It's not like a dandelion type of flower.

VALERIE ELDER: Maybe like a campfire? Where you might have--

KEITH FLAMER: Kind of sneaky a little bit, yes.

VALERIE ELDER: Marshmallow? A lot of gives us a marshmallow.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Yeah. Really.

ANGELA STEWART: Yeah. And one of my friends says that she tastes a tobacco flavor to it.

KEITH FLAMER: Yeah, because it's kind of smoky type of heat.

ANGELA STEWART: And I have a really strong like metallic after finish when I tried it. Yeah, but not all people do. So maybe because I sting myself so much, I don't know, maybe that's a special.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Well, this is my first foray into honey tasting, so my palate is not very sophisticated.

ANGELA STEWART: It takes time.

VALERIE ELDER: Yeah.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: But it's very interesting.

ANGELA STEWART: You're doing great. Doing great. It's just fun to eat. Like, even if you're like, I don't know all the terms. Like, who's going to not want to eat all this, honey? So meadowfoam's a really fun one. It's always.

KEITH FLAMER: So what's the biggest seller in Humboldt County with top honey? I guess it depends on your palate, right?

ANGELA STEWART: Yeah. And I think also it--

KEITH FLAMER: Is it like a lighter color, darker color or just?

ANGELA STEWART: I talked with a beekeeper before who has a lot of this and actually a little bit more for it. The darker tan oak like later season, possibly. His honey is very acrid, and it's not particularly a nice yummy honey to eat, but it sells a lot because it tastes like the area, and it's really nice. So for him, that's actually a really big step. Yeah, it's a big seller.

So I think sometimes it's maybe more driven by who you know, people want to support their beekeeper, who they're closest to, what their access is. I don't know necessarily unless you have an opinion like what type of honey might sell.

VALERIE ELDER: The easiest way to really label, you label honey based on the predominant floral source. So that's how we have this clover, pumpkin blossom, and oak and Fortuna awesome honey.

But the predominant floral source in Humboldt County really is blackberry, that we have a large blackberry bloom. And so probably when you are looking for local honey, it's totally OK to be looking for what's called wildflower honey because that's-- you don't have something really specific you're drawing from, it's probably blackberry.

KEITH FLAMER: OK, so I'm looking at this oak honey. This must be yours, Valerie?

VALERIE ELDER: Yeah.

KEITH FLAMER: And the label has Hobbie's Honey. Who's Hobie?

VALERIE ELDER: Yeah, Hobie is my dog. She's a 10-year-old chocolate lab. She's sort of a reluctant beekeeper, actually. She gets a little bored when I'm working in the bee yard. And the bees make her a little bit nervous, to be totally honest. But she's very-- my biggest supporter. And will enjoy honey if I give it to her, I suppose. But yeah, the little label has a little photo of--

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: So you--

KEITH FLAMER: Oh, that's nice.

VALERIE ELDER: I do, yeah. And give them away to gift. I've got--

KEITH FLAMER: Really? Oh, really. Sell them, much is special. OK, Molly, I get it actually. Literally right now.

VALERIE ELDER: I do have a present for you. Mine is just-- I know.

KEITH FLAMER: That is so much better.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Well, we have to take a short break, but I want to thank Valerie and Angela for being with us.

KEITH FLAMER: This has been a pleasure.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Yeah.

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