We are a small artisan, family run honey producer with a focus on providing a quality, naturally produced local honey with sustainable apiculture practices. Our apiaries are located in Indiana, and our raw honey is bottled with minimum filtering.
About our Honey
Many times people ask us if our honey is organic? Or what is raw or unfiltered honey?
Otter Lake Honey Company’s honeys are not organic, the European honey bee can travel 2, 3 or up to a 5 mile radius in search of forage. A two mile forage radius would require over 12 square miles, or 8000 plus acres; the plants must be free of fungicides, pesticides, and synthetic fertilizers. They must also not be genetically modified.
Our honey is pure which means nothing is added to decrease the cost of the product. This is a problem with many of the imported products.
Otter Lake Honey is “Raw” and “Unfiltered”, this means our honey is never heated to over 110°F which is the maximum temperature beehives obtain in the Indiana summers. Temperatures above this start to destroy flavor and the breakdown of natural enzymes in honey. We “strain” our honey through gravity fed 200 micron strainer (think of that fine strainer in your kitchen). This removes wax and other large particles. “Filtering” normally requires higher temperatures, and pressure which removes all or parts of the pollen and enzymes.
*Most honey will crystallize, if your honey does, it is NOT bad. Just place your bottle of honey in a heavy pan with water just to the level of honey, and place it on the stove on low. Do not let the temperature rise above 110°F and warm until the crystals disappear, and your honey will return to the perfect food that it is meant to “bee”.
About our Apiaries
Our apiaries are located in Hamilton, Madison, Delaware and Hancock counties the furthest being just over 40 miles from our homebase. The flora around central Indiana is fairly uniform but each apiary produces a unique variety of honey depending on a number of factors. Honey from different hives in an apiary can vary depending on the population differences during different nectar flows. We also see variations from the honeys year to year due to weather conditions. Our honeys will be labeled from the apiary of source but since we do not blend our honeys in large containers, each 4 gallon container has its own individual profile.
If you are interested in providing a space for an apiary please feel free to contact us. Please remember that we both have full time jobs and do this for our love of the hobby. When evaluating sites we look at travel time, sunny hive locations with forage availability, a water supply within close distance and areas away from direct human contact. This space needs to be able to house a minimum of 10 hives, so your backyard is probably not a space where you would want to invite 500,000 bees.
