This summer the Woodmark Hotel, Yacht Club & Spa’s latest program, “Bee on the Lake,” will give residents a chance to taste a batch of honey produced by 180,000 Italian honeybees and six queen bees housed near the property.
Once settled in, it is expected that the six hives of bees, which are located on top of a Carillon Point rooftop near the Woodmark, will begin producing honey around mid-July. At the end of production in September, the Woodmark will have approximately 1,200 pounds of honey to work with, and with that impressive number in mind, has already begun planning how to best use the locally-produced product.
To keep each of the 20 by 10 inch bee hives in tiptop shape, bin on the lake restaurant’s Chef de Cuisine Dylan Giordan is taking on the role of beekeeper under the guidance of Daniel Sullivan of Shipwreck Honey, who oversees more than 40 hives in the Seattle-area.
Every couple of weeks, Giordan and Sullivan will slip on beekeeper suits to harvest the honey. This involves puffing smoke into the hives to encourage the bees to exit, and then scraping the honeycomb to release the golden honey. The process is not an easy one, involving cleaning and filtering the honey many times over before it is ready for consumption, but the end product is worth it.
