Whole Hive Mead

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Blackbox_Brewing

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Anyone done this? I'm doing a slight derivation on it this weekend. My beekeeper friend wouldn't let me boil all his bees, especially not his queen, so I came up with this:

20oz whole honeycomb from the beekeeper
66oz Raw Honey/Royal Jelly blend
24oz imported Scottish Heather Honey
1lb heather tips
5 600mg propolis / 1500 mg bee pollen capsules (there should be plenty more propolis and pollen from the ingredients)

Target vol: 5 gal

Plan to let it naturally ferment for a few days and see how it does. I have a big starter of White Labs Sweet Mead if needed.

I'll post pics and let everyone know how it turns out! Plan to bulk age 6mo-1yr.

Thoughts? Experience?
 
Blackbox_Brewing said:
Anyone done this? I'm doing a slight derivation on it this weekend. My beekeeper friend wouldn't let me boil all his bees, especially not his queen, so I came up with this:

20oz whole honeycomb from the beekeeper
66oz Raw Honey/Royal Jelly blend
24oz imported Scottish Heather Honey
1lb heather tips
5 600mg propolis / 1500 mg bee pollen capsules (there should be plenty more propolis and pollen from the ingredients)

Target vol: 5 gal

Plan to let it naturally ferment for a few days and see how it does. I have a big starter of White Labs Sweet Mead if needed.

I'll post pics and let everyone know how it turns out! Plan to bulk age 6mo-1yr.

Thoughts? Experience?
Click to expand...

Still quite new at making mead so I've yet to hear/read anything about this so excuse me if I sound ignorant on the subject. Why would you want to add the royal jelly, propolis and pollen? Are there some sort of chemical advantages to it or just an experiment? other than that the ingredients sound good, the wax from the comb will give stuff to skim if it doesn't settle out.
 
I admit I'm a newbee.. is there wild yeast in bee hives? I haven't heard of such a thing, so I'm doubtful that it will ferment on its own..

it does sound like an awesome experiment though!
 
Yes, the ancient Celts used to make a mead from the whole hive. It is supposed to be superior to honey mead. Propolis, royal jelly, and pollen all contain large amounts of nutrients which are compounded through fermentation. It is said that bee venom is also an important part of the mead, imparting more flavor if the bees are "angered" before being added.

The wax is skimmed off and the wild yeasts come from the heather tips. There is a fungal growth on heather called "fogg" that contains wild yeasts and is said to impart a more intoxicating flavor.

There's a lengthy section on meads and ancient fermentation in Buhner's "Sacred & Herbal Healing Beers"
 
Interesting, the ancient method isn't surprising and would just fall under "thats just how they used to do it" category, they didn't have the type hives used by most now, didn't have the harvesting tools we have now etc. etc.

My question now is...using the pollen "pellets" and propolis powder? (not sure what form you may have it in), processed royal jelly, packaged heather, will it have the same effect as making whole hive? I've been reading some sincew your first post. The homeopathic health potential of this type of mead is definetely there but using the processed ingredients is kind of like making an enriched whole hive clone. will the packaged heather still have the fungus on it/ just curious since there are so many rules and health standards out there are they required to wash it off some how.

I'm definetely intrigued, look forward to updates on how it goes and how the final product tastes, and compares to what we call traditional verse a mimicked version of a truly traditional method.
 
There's obviously going to be some authenticity loss in this project, but I wanted a pretty close approximation for the fun of it. My ancestors are Scottish, so it means something to me.

The Royal Jelly is not processed. Actually, aside from the capsules, none of the ingredients are processed at all. The packaged heather tips have no impact on the authenticity of the "whole hive" element, as heather tips were added to the brew separately. I'm not sure (I actually doubt) enough fogg remains on the tips to get a ferment going, but I've read of some people having success with it. We'll see...
 
Blackbox_Brewing said:
It is said that bee venom is also an important part of the mead, imparting more flavor if the bees are "angered" before being added.

This whole project sounds really interesting, and I'm looking forward to seeing what comes of it. I'm not a real fan of mead, but I like the thought of the experiment, especially from the standpoint of exploring your family's heritage. With that said, I have an unreasonable phobia of bees and the thought of brewing anything in the midst of "angry bees" gives me the heebie-jeebies.
Click to expand...
 
Irritatingly, I found out my imported heather tips have been washed to remove the fogg. However (in answer to a previous question), pure heather honey that has not been pasteurized contains fogg. Unfortunately, I doubt my mere 24oz of heather honey will contain enough fogg to ferment the entire batch.

So after some further study, here's my process:

Heat whole volume of water to 170 degrees (in this case 5 gallons because I am not going to boil)
Add 10 oz heather tips
Allow liquid to steep overnight (or for 8 hours)

Remove heather tips and bring water to 180 degrees
Add whole comb and stir until wax melts and forms on the surface, skim off wax
Let must cool to 160 or lower
Stir in Royal Jelly/Raw Honey blend and vigorously stir until dissolved (this stuff is thick! almost solid)
Stir in heather honey
Strain heated must over a sieve containing 4 oz heather tips into fermentation vessel
Ferment until bubbles slow from airlock (add White Labs mead yest if fermentation does not start)
Remove 1/2 gallon of mead and heat to 170 degrees, add remaining 2oz heather tips and steep for 15 minutes
Return heated must (including heather tips) to fermentation vessel
Ferment for 26 days or until complete

Rack & bulk store for 6 months

Bottle and store for 2 weeks - 1 year (longer is better)

I'll post some pics in a bit when I start steeping the heather!
 
Update - decided to make a 1 liter starter with a tbsp DME, 1/4 tsp Fermaid K, and 3 tbsp heather honey to try & ramp the fogg up a little...
 
So here's the heather being stirred in and the resulting heather tea I woke up to. I was surprised, it's darker than I thought it would be.

photo (2).JPG


photo.JPG
 
About 1.016. At 1.015 you're supposed to remove 1/2 gal of must, steep w/ remaining heather, and return. I went ahead and did it because I was close. The must is still fermenting down to my target SG
 
For those curious, the time has come. This stuff is awesome, dry like champagne and refreshingly tart. Got lots of great feedback at my club about how refreshing/dry/delicious it is :)
 
Thanks for posting this!

I am taking a slow and steady learning approach to mead making, but this experiment (and others like it) are definitely on my radar for the future.

Wicked cool. I might have to get my cousin to send me some heather from the UK.
 
Reading Buhner's book, it does not seem to me that the Fogg was what did the fermentation, rather it was some kind of psychotropic moss-type thing. If I am reading it right the moss coexists with wild yeasts on the heather plants. As the ingredients are not cheap I would hesitate to rely on wild yeasts to produce a good tasting mead.

I have a recipe similar to yours that I was going to try out too. I have a small jar of heather honey ($12 for 340 grams!) but I don't plan to use the whole thing because it has such a powerful flavor and aroma. I thought I might hit up the local bee keeper for a piece of brood comb to put in there too.

I made a tincture of propolis a couple years back and when I added 20 ml to the gallon of mead all the resins and waxes came out of solution to make a big cloud that I had to clear out after about 2 years with some chitosan.

I did make an all-heather honey/heather blossom mead that cost me $40 a gallon. It is still aging but the aroma of an empty glass that held the mead will fill the room for days afterward. I also make a liqueur with 52.5% heather mead, 10% heather honey and 37.5% scotch whisky. Excellent!
 
Bee venom inducing a more intoxicating flavor....hmmmm

I got stung in my ear by one of the bees from a pretty big hive in an Ironwood tree on our property last week
...that induced intoxication of another sort:tank:
 
Sorry I forgot to come back and update everybody on this; I don't use this site that much. It came out great! Very dry and since I bottled it with champagne yeast so it came out very much like champagne - crisp, clean, and delicious. The heather added a great aroma, but not as much as you'd find in a Fraoch Heather Ale (which is a good thing, I think).

I can't say whether all the healing properties of honey/mead are true, but I definitely felt better after a glass or two! A guy in my brewclub said it was the best mead he'd ever tasted, which I though was pretty awesome :)
 
Blackbox_Brewing said:
Anyone done this? I'm doing a slight derivation on it this weekend. My beekeeper friend wouldn't let me boil all his bees, especially not his queen, so I came up with this:

20oz whole honeycomb from the beekeeper
66oz Raw Honey/Royal Jelly blend
24oz imported Scottish Heather Honey
1lb heather tips
5 600mg propolis / 1500 mg bee pollen capsules (there should be plenty more propolis and pollen from the ingredients)

Target vol: 5 gal

Plan to let it naturally ferment for a few days and see how it does. I have a big starter of White Labs Sweet Mead if needed.

I'll post pics and let everyone know how it turns out! Plan to bulk age 6mo-1yr.

Thoughts? Experience?
Click to expand...
I have been making whole hive mead for about 8 years. The recipe you have here is going to make a pretty thin/weak mead. I use 4lb of honey per gallon of water. This will make about 12 to 16%. The first batch I ever made I used 3lb of honey per gallon and it only made about 9%, a little weak for something suppose to be "wine like". I also use Lalvin K1-V1116 yeast. I only use raw non-filtered honey with some cappings left in it and only use warm water to dissolve it. I also include propolis, royal jelly, and pollen in my recipe. I bulk age for up to a year and bottle age minimum 1 year before I will even taste it. I have some 4, 5 and 6 years old and WOW what a difference the age makes. There can be a little settling but if I stand one up 24 hours before opening it is a beautiful, crystal clear mead - no haziness.
 
Curious. Normally if you dissolve 1 lb of honey in water to make 1 gallon (US) the specific gravity of that solution (the must) is about 1.035. If you keep the total volume the same (at 1 gallon) but you add 4 lbs of honey the gravity before you pitch the yeast should be about 1.140 and that translates to a potential ABV of more than 18%. Are you using very watered down honey before you begin? I thought the standard for honey was 20% or less water
 
As I mentioned my mead is usually about 12 to 16%, probably closer to the 16%. It is a semi-sweet mead so a little of the sugar is still remaining. I really like the Lalvin yeast I am using, it makes a fantastic mead. There are other yeasts out there that I am sure would raise this to 18% or above but to me that is to much alcohol. I went to Drake Bros in Columbus, OH a few years back and tried one of their meads and I remember the first thing I noticed was a distinct smell of alcohol. I don't like that strong alcohol smell in anything I make, mead, wine or beer.
 
TheBrewingMedic said:
Still quite new at making mead so I've yet to hear/read anything about this so excuse me if I sound ignorant on the subject. Why would you want to add the royal jelly, propolis and pollen? Are there some sort of chemical advantages to it or just an experiment? other than that the ingredients sound good, the wax from the comb will give stuff to skim if it doesn't settle out.
Click to expand...
If you read about all the products made by the bees, everyone of them is incredibly healthy. That's why I include all those things in my mead, so I can make a nice fun mead that is exceptional in flavor and probably healthier than almost any other alcoholic beverage out there. With these ingredients there is no need to add any other nutrients. And yes, the wax cappings all settle out, at least they do for me.
 
Hi All!
I'm new here (again!). Just got into mead making. Have 2 batches going each dived into 2 one gallon fermenters. I started raising honeybees last year and may just have to try this come fall!
 

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