Fireweed Honey Sticks

In the cold weather, raw, unfiltered honey will get hard. The temperature in a hive when the bees are in it and moving around in the summer is 125F. When it gets colder than that, it starts to solidify even if it’s not frozen. When we pour the honey in to the bottles, it’s in a special water jacket to keep the honey warm at 125F, careful not to over heat the honey. If you keep the honey in a warm place it will get more liquidy. Raw honey is not pasteurized so that’s why it doesn't stay in liquid form in all temps. But pasteurization will kill all the healthy enzymes that make honey beneficial. Some raw honey is fluid in lower temperatures depending on the flowers that the bees collect the nectar from. The higher the sugar content of the flowers/plants, the easier it is for the honey to be solid at normal or even higher temperatures. There is even honey in Africa, where it’s 100F, and the honey is chiseled out because it’s never liquidy. The markets in those communities actually won’t buy liquid honey because they think it’s watered down. They are used to having very high sugar and sweetness in those honey and very low water content. What they do with their honey is that they will add it to soups, or teas and coffees which have a boiling temp (about 205F) and it will dissolve, and they are used to it there.

As far as our Fireweed Honey, it also has a very high sugar and low moisture content too.

Honey ordered during the winter will take time to become fluid, especially being stored outside in transit and unheated warehouses. That’s why all of our containers are wide enough for a butterknife. It’s the perfect size for friends and family to scoop out and put in a nice cup of tea.

*We do not recommend using a microwave because it will super heat the sugar and it will turn more into a candy then liquid.