April showers bring May flowers, as the saying goes, but many of Bermuda’s flowers continue their peak bloom throughout June, July and early August as well. This means that the Hamilton Princess honeybees are currently buzzing:
“When bees are bringing in the nectar, it’s really intense,” explains beekeeper, Spencer Fields, “It’s a great, beautiful buzz. The vibration that a colony of bees release, you can feel that.”
Hidden away in a shaded and protected area of the Princess Beach Club on the island’s South Shore, our apiaries are home to around 600,000 bees across 10 hives. These are surrounded by flowering trees, shrubs, vines and grasses including a mature rubber tree, bay grapes, pittosporum, pigeonberry and variegated honeysuckle, and it is this variety, along with Bermuda’s microclimate, that is the source of the honey’s unique flavour:
“Different plants produce different sources of nutrition,” continues Fields. “Some plants will produce a high amount of pollen, and others will produce a higher amount of nectar. Both are extremely important for pollination.”
He harvests his honey twice a year, first in August, then again in December. The December harvest can look and taste distinct to the earlier one because different species will have bloomed, most notably the Brazilian pepper tree.
Someone who is particularly appreciative of the Princess apiaries is the hotel’s executive chef, Adam Ashe, and this isn’t just because his team can use it in their kitchens. He also happens to live across the road from the beach club:
“99.9 percent of all the bees that are in my garden are actually going back to our beehives and taking all the lovely stuff out of my garden, and putting it into this little jar of honey here,” he laughs, holding up a jar of Hamilton Princess ‘Local Made Honey’.
They particularly enjoy his rose bushes, frangipanis and bougainvillea.
Unfortunately the 24lbs of honey delivered to the hotel each year isn’t enough for Hamilton Princess honey to be a permanent feature on the hotel restaurant menus, but it does allow the culinary team to use it in their bespoke menus, specials and for their amenity baskets: “We do a little honey cake. We serve the little pot of honey. We do some chocolates which are infused with the honey,” he says of the latter.
His tastiest ways to incorporate the local honey into their restaurant dishes include with duck, and separately, with scallops and bacon for which he creates a sweet bacon relish daubed across a perfectly seared scallop. Local honey also goes very well with jalapeño cornbread as well as in pastries and cookies.
The Hamilton Princess has been working with Fields’ business, Passion Fields, for eight years and it is very much a partnership. He works closely with the landscapers at the beach club, for example, who have not only planted bee-friendly plants, but will also wait until their flowering cycle is complete before cutting them back.
“I really love the fact that we are involved in looking after bees and making sure that bees aren’t removed from the ecosystem, because they play such an important and vital role,” continues Ashe.
Bees, adds Fields, aren’t just vital because they’re pollinators. They also attract other living creatures into their habitat, especially when their life cycle comes to an end. The typical bee only lives for three to six months, so the ground around the hives will often be littered with dead bees. This attracts critters that are essential for a healthy ecosystem such as ants, worms, snails, lizards and tree frogs.
Honey also has medicinal qualities, and, of course, is delicious to eat. Like wine however, the taste varies according to the local environment and beekeeping methods. So, how does the Princess honey stack up? Does the wild and wide variety of nectar sources make it taste better?
“In my palate’s sensational opinion, yes,” laughs Fields.