Taste of Dublin

We are very excited to be taking part in this year’s Taste of Dublin Festival in the Iveagh Gardens in June. Last year we had an absolute blast. Put the dates in your diary and we will see you there!

Swarms and Swarming

From April to July every year, bee colonies will naturally split. Half of the bees will leave their nest to find a new home. This is caused by many factors and is a natural occurrence within a colony. As the bees travel to a new home they will move in large numbers which is quite scary for some people, however, they mean no harm. The name for it is swarming.

Swarms can often be problematic in urban environments as the bees can move into man-made structures - chimneys, roofs, walls etc. The bees can be difficult to remove and are often exterminated. At OpenHive we launched a program last year to help with this. You can read about it here.

If you live in south Dublin, north Wicklow or Galway and need help with a swarm, feel free to get in touch.

A wonderful resource for help with swarms in Ireland can be found here: https://swarms.ie/

No Mow May

An important message from our friends over at the All-Ireland Pollinator Plan…

#NoMowMay is an annual campaign asking everyone to put away the lawnmower during the month of May to help our native wildlife.

Native Irish wildflowers like Dandelions, Clover, and Birds-foot trefoil provide the best source of pollen and nectar for our hungry wild pollinators. By mowing less, we can give them a chance to appear naturally – no seeds needed! 

This year, the National Biodiversity Data Centre are partnering with An Post to invite everyone to join the buzz to save the bees. Keep an eye out in your letterbox for a recyclable No Mow May postcard, which will be posted to 2.3 million Irish homes in the coming weeks.

Why should I take part?

On the island of Ireland, one third of our wild bees are threatened with extinction. This is mainly because of hunger – there isn’t enough food to support them in our landscape. If all of us chose to put our lawnmowers away for one month, we could start creating a network of places where pollinators can survive and thrive. 

How can I join in? 

Taking part in No Mow May couldn’t be easier – just lock away the lawnmower for the month of May and wait and see what grows. You might be surprised by what appears over a few short weeks. You might see plants like Dandelions, Red and White Clover, and Birds-foot trefoil, all of which are excellent sources of food for pollinating insects, as well as bees, butterflies, and birds, all attracted by the feast on your lawn!

Recipe Corner: Sweet Honey Curry

A lovely warm curry that isn’t too spicy but full of flavour…

Ingredients

  • 6-8 pieces of chicken I prefer thighs but you can cut up a whole chicken too!

  • 1/2 cup butter melted

  • 1/2 cup liquid honey

  • 1/4 cup prepared mustard

  • 1 teaspoon curry powder

  • 1 teaspoon salt

Instructions

  •  Preheat your oven to 350 °F.

  • Take all of the ingredients except for the chicken and whisk together in a bowl.

  • Take a large skillet and place some olive oil in in. Fry the chicken to get rid of some of the excess fat and crisp the skin.

  • If you are using an oven safe skillet, keep the chicken in it. If you aren't, transfer the chicken to an oven safe baking sheet or pan.

  • Pour the sauce over your chicken pieces, coating them all, then set aside some in a little dish for basting later. You don't have to baste, but there is so much sauce that I love to spare some and use it later.

  • Put the chicken in your 350 degrees oven and cook until the chicken thighs reach a temperature of 180°F.

  • Now. Important. The honey can and will burn if you have your rack in your oven set too high. Make sure its in the middle, erring on the lower side. Honey burns. Basting will also help make sure it doesn't burn as well. This is truly the only fiddly part about this recipe.

  • When its ready, serve it up!

Recipe & Photo Credit: The Kitchen Magpie

OpenHive x Wicklow Wolf

Over the past few weeks we have been patiently sitting on some very exciting news - a collaboration with one of our favourite breweries - Wicklow Wolf! Check out their tap room at the brewery and local stockists to taste the draft edition. You will be able to buy the cans in your usual off licenses soon! Enjoy!

From the wolf’s mouth, so to speak…

Locavore Spring 2023 is a Honey Hefeweizen brewed with heather honey from by our friends at OpenHive.. The bees worked hard in the Wicklow mountains to gather the nectar to make beautiful heather honey. Releasing into the wild early next week.

Oilseed Rape - Fields of Gold!

Our bees have made their first move of the season, making the short trop down to the stunning gold fields of oil seed rape (brassica napus) in Wicklow. We will move most of our hives to The Garden of Ireland to forage on the first strong crop of the year. The hives build up numbers and strength as the queen begins laying in earnest with so much food readily available. It is an exciting and challenging time of year as we move from the quiet months into the buzz of weekly inspections!

Good Mood Honey Duck with Camile Thai

We were very excited to see a new OpenHive honey dish launched by Camile Thai Kitchen last month. Check out the details below!

“There's a grand auld stretch in the evening” and to celebrate, Camile Thai Kitchen today announced details of Ireland’s first National Good Mood Day. Taking place today, Tuesday 28th March, the occasion aims to bring people together through the power of food; developed in response to a recent survey conducted by the award-winning Irish restaurant group where 70% of respondents called for its creation!

 Customers can now enjoy a celebratory 15% off the entire menu for a limited time only as sharing food with friends and family topped the poll of mood boosting activities for over 94% of those surveyed. The Irish owned restaurant group is also marking the inaugural festivities with the launch of the all-new Good Mood Honey Duck Stir Fry.

A nutritionally certified source of mood and energy boosting vitamin C, this healthy new stir fry dish will feature succulent honey roast duck, stir fried with broccoli, pomegranate, spring onions, and mint in a ginger-sesame sauce - enriched with the sweetness of 100% locally sourced OpenHive honey, produced by Camile Thai-supported native Irish honeybees. 

Recipe Corner: Bees Knees Coacktail

A light, fresh, sunshine-in-a-glass kind of drink!

Ingredients

  • 2 tsp honey

  • 50ml dry gin

  • 25ml lemon juice

  • ice

  • lemon zest strip, to serve

Method

  • STEP 1: Put the honey in a small jug or cup and add 1 tsp freshly boiled water. Stir well until smooth and the honey is nicely thinned down.

  • STEP 2” Pour the honey mixture into a cocktail shaker along with the gin, lemon juice and a large handful of ice. Shake until the outside of the shaker feels very cold.

  • STEP 3: Double strain into a cocktail glass or a coupe and garnish with a curled strip of lemon zest – you can do this by wrapping it tightly around a spoon handle.

Recipe: BBC Good Food & Photo: Food & Wine

OpenHive Partnership Programme: amdocs

We are delighted to partner with amdocs. Amdocs have been part of our partnership programme for almost a year now and have helped us to introduce hundreds of thousands of our native Irish honeybee into the local ecosystem. 

Get in touch
We can tailor our offering to help your companies achieve their Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) goals or fulfil their Corporate Social Responsibilities. Help us to conserve our native Irish honey bee. Read more here: OpenHive Partnership.

Apiary News: Ard Bia - The Burren

One of the more exciting apiaries that we are developing this year is in Clare with the wonderful team in Ard Bia. Our native Irish bees will be part of their Summerage project in the Burren: "established to respectfully honour this land of unique topography with plans to support and harness further what is naturally there. Steeped in history, Summerage celebrates a simple and slower pace of life. Here, nature takes centre stage to make the space habitable in a modern and ecological way.  Creating a more localised economy and supply chain is just one of the elements to Summerage. In time, the property structures will be restored for retreats, to bring people together through connection, creativity, well-being and finding a place of calm in a very busy world." We can't wait to get started.

OpenHive Partnership Programme: Opinions

Opinions are one of our latest hive partners. We are delighted to welcome these new partners and look forward to bringing them to meet their hive in the coming months.

What do they do?
'Put simply, we do what it takes to resolve your business challenges or fill gaps in consumer, customer or social understanding.

With a toolkit that covers all types of research; quantitative and qualitative, and a highly experienced consulting team they go beyond the data to bring strategic clarity and confidence. 

Their impact on sustainability.
Last year they invested to achieve a verified Net Zero in 2022.  They implemented a number of initiatives underpinning this endeavour including travel and commuting support for staff, office and energy-based efficiencies.  However, they also completed 'Opinion’s native Irish tree planting programme' delivered in partnership with Hometree that saw them planting over 1,000 native trees last year in West Clare.  

Get in touch
We look forward to building our relationship with like minded partners. Get in touch with us to find out more. 

We can tailor our offering to help your companies achieve their Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) goals or fulfil their Corporate Social Responsibilities. Help us to conserve our native Irish honey bee. Read more here: OpenHive Partnership.

Recipe Corner: Honey Glazed Halloumi

A tasty, straightforward and healthy recipe with honey at it’s heart!


Ingredients: 

  • 600g of halloumi cheese

  • 5 tablespoons of OpenHive honey

  • 1 medium lemon

  • 4 sprigs of thyme

  • 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil


Method: 

  • Slice the halloumi in 1cm thick pieces

  • In a small bowl, add the honey, the juice of the lemon and the thyme leaves. Mix well.

  • Add one layer of halloumi slices to an air tight container. Spoon over a layer of the honey lemon dressing. Add another layer of halloumi on top, add dressing - repeating until all the cheese has been added. Pour over any remaining dressing.

  • Place the container in the fridge to marinate for as long as you can - a minimum of one hour. Overnight if possible!

  • Every now and then, turn the container upside down so the dressing can marinate and coat the cheese on all sides.

  • Heat some of the olive oil in a pan on medium heat. Once heated, gently place some of the halloumi cheese in the pan. Don't overcrowd the pan or have the pieces of halloumi touching.

  • After 2-3 minutes - when you have a nice sear, turn the cheese around. After another minute, add a few spoons of the dressing to glaze the cheese. Once the second side has seared, remove from the pan and add to a plate.

  • Keep repeating this process until all cheese is cooked.

  • Upon serving, add a few more spoons of the honey dressing to coat the cheese, then dig in and enjoy!

Recipe & Photo Credit: Cooking with Ayeh

NIHBS Conference

Over the weekend, OpenHive were one of many beekeepers to attend the annual National Irish Honey Bee Society conference in Tullamore. We heard some fascinating speakers talk about a range of beekeeping topics, updates on the work being done by NIHBS and more. Some of the standouts for us included Roger Patterson’s discussion about colony increase, Grace McCormack’s work from NUIG and Andrew Abrahams’ talk about his island beekeeping and consrrvation work in Scotland.

We also met many of the beekeepers we have worked with and hope to work with in the future. It was a very well structured and attended event and we hope to attend again next year!

OpenHive's Wicklow Heather Honey

Our heather honey was a finalist in the Blas na hÉireann Irish Food Awards 2022 and recently won a star in the Great Taste Awards 2022.

Heather honey is a delicious delicacy. Dark in colour, it can be reddish/orange to dark amber with its own particular flavour unlike that of any other honey.The taste is tangy, pungent, smoky, and mildly sweet, leaving a long aftertaste. The heather in the Wicklow mountains only flowers for roughly 2-3 weeks a year so it's always dependant on getting good weather for that window. You can pick some up here.

Our heather honey was produced in the Wicklow mountains in August 2022. We sell it on the comb just how the bees made it. Heather honey has been recently studied by Trinity and DCU to show it has comparable health benefits to Manuka honey. You can read that study here. 

Recipe Corner: Honey roasted parsnip soup

Something to keep us all warm during the cold snap…

Ingredients: 

  • 300 g parsnips (~ 2 large parsnips)

  • 1 onion

  • 1 tablespoon olive oil

  • 1 tablespoon OpenHive honey

  • Salt

  • Black pepper

  • Few sprigs fresh thyme

  • 750 ml (~ 3 cups) hot vegetable stock or water

  • 2 tablespoon cream, to serve (optional)


Method: 

  • Peel the parsnips, and cut them into finger-sized sticks. Peel the onion, and cut it into a few wedges.

  • Lay the vegetables on a baking tray, and drizzle with olive oil and OpenHive honey. Sprinkle over plenty of salt and pepper, and mix to combine. Spread the vegetables out into a single layer, and lay a few sprigs of fresh thyme on top.

  • Roast at 190°C (Gas Mark 5 / 375°F) for around 30 minutes, stirring once halfway.

  • When the vegetables are crispy, remove any thick thyme stalks from the tray (you can leave the leaves or any thin stalks). Then transfer the veg to a large saucepan (if using a hand blender), or straight into an upright blender.

  • To deglaze the pan, carefully pour a few tablespoons of boiling water onto the baking tray, and leave it to sit for a couple of minutes. Use a non-metal spoon or spatula to gently scrape any leftover crispy bits off the bottom of the tray, then tip the whole lot into the pan or blender.

  • Adding additional stock or water as necessary (I used about 3 cups of vegetable stock in total), blend the soup until it reaches your desired consistency. If needed, you can place the pan over the heat for a few minutes to ensure it's piping hot before serving.

  • If desired, serve topped with a swirl of cream and a few extra fresh thyme leaves.

Recipe & Photo Credit: Easy Cheesy. 

Photos from 2022

As the build up to the 2023 beekeeping season begins, we’ve chosen some of our favourite OpenHive photographs from last season to share with you. These are taken by the excellent Kieran Neary. Enjoy!

Meet Our Volunteers: Siobhán McNamara

Siobhán McNamara joined Open Hive as a volunteer in 2022. She is School Librarian in Gonzaga College SJ (site of one of OpenHive’s apiaries) and also coordinates the school’s Green Schools programme. Her special interest is biodiversity and she has led initiatives such as hedge planting and the establishment of All-Ireland Pollinator Plan wildflower areas on the school grounds.

Siobhán volunteers with Bloomin’ Crumlin, a community-led greening initiative, where she has been involved with projects such as distributing fruit trees for residents to plant in their gardens, and the ongoing development of a Community Biodiversity Action Plan for the Crumlin area.

Siobhán’s other main area of interest is active travel. Having rediscovered the many benefits of cycling as transport a few years ago, she would love more people to feel safe and comfortable walking, wheeling or cycling around Dublin. Siobhán is Vice Chair of Dublin Cycling Campaign and an Executive Committee member of Cyclist.ie, the national network of cycling advocacy organisations. She fully shares Dublin Cycling Campaign’s vision of a city where people of all ages and abilities can get around safely by bike or trike.

Look out for her in the upcoming St Patrick’s Day Parade, where Dublin Cycling Campaign will have a ‘Bikes and Biodiversity’ pageant, a fortunate combination of her two passions. The pageant will be a vibrant and colourful celebration of Ireland’s various habitats.
 
‘I had done an introductory beekeeping course in 2019 to learn how a honeybee colony works and to find out how honeybees fit in to the wider ecosystem. I found it all fascinating. Volunteering with OpenHive was a great chance to get some practical experience over the course of a full beekeeping season, from building frames in the early spring to harvesting the honey at the end of the summer. I am still amazed at the complexity of the colony. I’m very thankful to Jack, Kyle, and Mark for sharing their knowledge in a supportive and constructive way, and I’m so glad to have met the other volunteers with their wide range of interests and skills.’