Brad Makes Honey

Vinnie, should I put my finger in there?

(laughs)

Alright, Vinnie, enough foolin' around.

(beep)

Alright, Vinnie, so today, we're out here

in the Sauvie islands of Oregon.

(dog barks)

Easy, pupper, shootin' a video!

(laughter)

Alright, alright, alright.

(dog howls)

Yeah (howls).

Alright, we're out in the Sauvie islands,

outside of Portland, with the company Bee Local,

and they set us up with a couple hives.

Our gentleman, Ryan, who's going to be showin' us the ropes,

I heard he's a bit of a bee whisperer,

we're gonna open 'em up,

extract the honey, filter it,

and then you put it into the bottle,

nice raw honey.

So let's go see how that's made, huh Vin?

Hey, let's not wear suits,

that sounds like a good idea.

(buzzing)

My God, Vinnie.

Vinnie, can you hear that?

(buzzing)

Hit 'em with the smoke!

(joyous surf music)

Why don't you tell us what we've got going on here?

So we've got an active hive...

Yep.

Loaded with honey, loaded with bees.

Yep.

These two boxes here, this is where the queen lives.

(pop)

In these two boxes, you have brood, right?

Which is what, what's brood?

Larvae, eggs, so in there they'll also bring in pollen

stored in there, which they'll feed,

they'll eat off of.

Is that the same kind of pollen you can buy

in like supermarket, just bee pollen?

Yep.

And then how do you guys extract that?

Is there just like a little sweeper that collected off 'em?

Yeah.

Just seems like we're really screwin' the bees.

(laughs)

They're workin' their asses off, and we're just taking

all the good stuff.

You have to be super careful with taking honey

and with taking pollen.

First things first, they have to have enough.

Right, you gotta take care of your bees.

So that's really important, yeah.

When you extract, you don't want pollen,

you don't want larvae, eggs, in your honies.

No.

What this is for is for the other bees

to store all this excess honey.

(puffing)

Now, we're smokin', just a little...

(pop)

Puff, puff.

Alright.

Oh, my God, there's so many of 'em.

Are you ready, Vincenzo?

Just a little light puffin'.

Oh God.

(puffs)

(woman laughs)

(laughs) They're everywhere, Vin.

Want me to give a little pressure?

Oh, Jesus.

There you go.

So this is basically somewhat of like a one-way valve.

Like you put it on, like the day before, two days before,

and the bees can go through it,

But they can't get out.

They can't, it's like this maze.

So usually this would be full of bees.

Loaded.

Hopefully, there won't be too many.

Okay.

(pop)

Aw, beautiful.

Yeah, so not too many.

And there it is, so...

Beautiful.

So those are all the combs that they fill with honey,

and they'll put a little bit of that wax coat over it,

just to cap it?

Yeah, so what they're doing is,

when they bring nectar in,

the nectar has a moisture content,

it's too high to sustain itself.

Too moist?

Yeah, there's too much water in it,

so it can ferment, it can go bad.

They can sense when that gets to 18%, 15, 16,

something like that.

Once it hits that moisture content,

then they'll put a cap on it.

At that point--

Can I touch that?

Oh yeah, actually this is what's up.

Oooh.

(laughter)

Oooh, Vinnie, didja get that?

You can touch that.

(laughs)

(smacks lips)

Oooh, that's delicious.

That's so good.

Right from the hive, man, you can't beat that.

That's a first.

Oh yeah, he's in there, look.

Look at how he had his head all the way in there, man,

just drinking away.

Vinnie, it was like you last night,

with that bottle of wine.

(beep)

And the cool thing about this system,

there's like a plastic foundation.

They build this out, we take the caps off,

(springing)

and then all the honey will fly straight outta here.

(laughs)

And then next year,

we can just give this right back to 'em,

and then they won't have to build the comb out,

they'll just fill it right back up.

Oh, how nice of you.

It's give and take, so.

(bang)

Don't go bangin' 'em around.

So how many different types of bees are there

in a honeybee colony?

Kind of three types, basically.

You've got the queen.

Right.

You've got all the worker bees,

all these workers, those are all the females.

The males, interestingly enough,

don't do much for the hive itself.

They can't sting.

They don't gather nectar, so they can't protect the nest

or get any resources for the hive.

Well, what the hell do they do,

just have sex with the queen?

Yeah, it's genetic diversity, you know?

They're kinda just spreading their seeds.

Okay.

And they'll die once they've completed

their mating ritual.

Damn, (laughs) nature, man.

(laughter)

It's alright guys (mumbles).

Oh, jeez.

I'm surprised how much it doesn't piss 'em off.

I mean, bees, they just got a really bad rap.

Whoa, look at that one.

Yeah, that's beautiful.

Look at that density.

Oh, God, Vinnie, get the shot.

(laughter)

Vinnie, get the shot!

It's in my ear.

[Ryan] Wow, I've never seen one like that.

They did it for me.

They knew I was coming.

Oh, jeez (laughs).

(laughter)

Hi, Mom (laughs).

Probably one of the coolest things I've ever done.

Alright, beat it, boys.

Beat it, girls.

Oh, God.

Yeah, I would do a bump next time.

Do a what?

Oh, Jesus (laughs).

Get 'em with the smoke.

I tell people, Don't throw the first punch.

Put a little mustard on that hit.

Alright.

(thud)

There you go.

Later, girls, boom.

Well done, well done.

I like this.

One day, you know, I get myself a nice little house

with a field, couple orchard trees, you know,

live the dream.

Get some bees.

(thud)

Oh, jeez.

(thud)

Oh, no.

Oh, Vin.

Vinnie, who's idea was this?

I'm pretty sure it was mine.

Whoa, nelly.

This is what it would have looked like

if we didn't have the...

Wow.

Skateboards on 'em.

That's what the whole box would have looked like.

Yep, yep.

We just pulled all the frames out of the box,

and now we're going to seal this bad boy up,

and we're going to start extracting the honey.

I'm going to go ahead and give this a bang,

And then we're gonna get the hell outta here.

(thud)

(cheers and applause)

[Man Off-Camera] Well done, well done.

Yeah! (laughs)

Hell, yeah.

That was good, yeah?

[Man Off-Camera] Yeah.

Thank you, girls, for the harvest.

Thanks, girls.

Killed it this year.

Killed it, get 'em next year.

Don't take no (beep) from the boys.

Look at this, Vinnie, we're gonna cheat a little, watch.

(metal clanging)

Oh, that's good.

So, next up, this is the de-capping,

which we'll just do over here.

Like the shawarma kinda deal, you know?

You don't wanna like gouge out.

You just wanna scrape off the cap.

Just the top.

And it's a little colder, so...

Make it easier?

No, it's usually easier when it's warmer.

(crash)

(buzzing)

Glad you did that first.

So let's get a little action.

Wow.

So then we go through,

'cause the knife can't get everything.

So then we got the pick,

and you come in, and you just...

Kinda scrape it off?

Kinda flick it up a little bit.

When we were tasting the honey,

it kinda blew me away about how much complexity of flavor

was in it.

I mean, it just kinda was like

a rollercoaster in your mouth.

You know, out here, you've got hundreds of

different types of flowers

that they're going to,

instead of just one huge field of...

The same thing.

Different nectar will have all kinds of different

flavor profiles.

(thud)

Alright, this is awesome.

My favorite thing to put honey on?

We did that fermented garlic in the honey,

that was a great thing.

It's great in tea, it's great on fish,

it's great on meat, it's great on anything.

You can put honey on me, too, Vinnie,

(laughter)

whatever you're into, bud.

[Ryan] I do actually have honey in my shower.

Why would you do that?

Great on the face, on the skin.

Really?

Yeah, it is.

Like you'll see when you wash your hands,

like your skin--

No kiddin'.

Is so soft.

(laughter)

This is a frame of honey that we already

cut most of the caps off,

and then now we're going to put it in this machine

called the extractor, and get all that good stuff out,

if I stop eatin' it all.

(slowed-down laugh)

Now, so when you buy like a good, local, raw honey,

I'll wait 'til he's done.

Can you de-mystify the whole,

oh you get good honey, good for your allergies,

kind of thing?

What is that all about?

The idea behind it is basically that you're getting pollen

from your area, you know, in small doses

that your body can learn how to work with it.

So you're getting a vaccine, essentially.

Basically, yeah.

From the honey.

Yup, I don't really have allergies, so I can't--

Well, I would imagine not, you know, you're...

I'm just around, yeah I guess that speaks for itself.

Guy's rubbin' honey on his face,

(laughs)

I don't think you're gonna get allergies (laughs).

Alright, so.

Alright, I'm ready.

Initiating spin cycle.

(laughs)

Oh, yeah, Vinnie, get in there.

(whirring)

Now as it gets going, you're gonna have to body up,

definitely step on this wood thing,

and kinda just thrust your pelvis right up on it.

Yeah, buddy.

And just hold it like you love it.

(whirring)

I love it.

Oh yeah, look at that honey flyin' outta that, huh?

We kick it up a notch, full speed.

Full speed, aye!

Oh yeah, I gotta get the pelvis in on that one.

You gotta do it, see?

There's like a fine mist of honey, just like--

(laughs)

Spraying all over me.

I kinda liked it.

There we go.

Great pelvis action, that's the key to a good harvest.

The key to a good harvest?

You gotta have a good pelvis.

Good pelvis?

I got the best in the biz, Ry.

(laughs)

(whirring)

(cheers and applause)

Oh yeah, that's the good stuff.

There you go, put your pelvis into it.

Oh, buddy boy! (laughs)

The rodeo, Vinnie, whee!

[Vinnie] Hang on tight.

Oh yeah, turn it up.

Oh, this one's jumpin', buddy.

See if we can go ten seconds,

I can't, one hand.

Please don't put that...

So we got those racks in there,

they're spinnin' away, and all the honey's just flyin' out,

hittin' the side of the barrel

that I'm holding with my pelvis,

and the honey's just running down through the thing,

and that's the extent of the filtration system.

Straight from the hive to the bottle, man.

Hey, can we turn this off (laughs)?

(whirring)

Vin, where'd everybody go?

(laughter)

Oh, you're a rookie bee first-timer,

we'll just let you hang onto that spinnin' barrel,

it's probably not even necessary.

That was a wild ride.

Everyone should do that once in their life.

(laughs)

So that's one of the cool parts about this process

is that next year, I'll pop this in,

they don't have to spend the resources at the time

to build out this comb,

so they can just fill it right up with honey.

Ready to go, look at that.

I feel like Winnie the Pooh, Vince (laughs).

Carry that thing around, just...

Oh, it's so good.

Alright, so after this thing is all done draining

and filtering into this bucket,

then what, it just goes into the finished product

bottle or jar?

Straight to the jar, straight to...

Straight to whoever wants to buy it.

Yeah.

What are some of the challenges you're facing nowadays?

I mean, I know folks that talk about colony collapse,

is that a serious threat?

Yeah, yeah, I think it is.

That's a major challenge for bees.

There's new sprays and stuff coming out all the time.

Seems like it's two steps forward, one step backwards,

they'll get some lobbyists, repeal some stuff.

When people ask what can we do, you know,

if they can't keep bees,

that's one major thing they could do,

buy organic, local honey.

If you support it, it creates the market for it,

and people will change, kind of from the ground up.

Right, totally.

Well hey man, thanks for makin' honey with us

and showing us the ropes.

Absolutely, come back anytime, man.

Alright, Vinnie, so that was it, man.

This is the final product.

Look at that beautiful color, clear.

Oh, that's amazing.

Not just is it sweet, but it just has so much complexity

and different flavors.

This compared to something you'd get at, you know,

your run-of-the-mill supermarket

in your honey bear, or whatever.

There's just no comparison as far as depth

and concentration of flavor.

Amazing ingredient to work with,

it's more than just putting it in your tea, you know,

you can put it on salmon, you can put it on chicken,

you can put it in a marinade, and apparently

you can just cover your body in it

and make you look young and beautiful forever.

Buy local honey, and enjoy.

Bon appetit.

I just want to be a bee, Vinnie.

I just want to fill a big 55-gallon drum with this stuff,

and just have a Brad submersion vessel,

just dunk and bathe in honey.

Sounds wonderful.

Alright, how do you say the island again?

Saw-vee.

[Man Off-Camera] Swah-vay.

Swah-vay.

Alright, we're up here in Saw-vay islands,

Sahv, Jesus Christ.

We're out here in the Saw-vay islands.

Saw-vee islands.

How do you say the island?

Saw-vay, savvy.

Hey, Ben, how do you say the island?

Saw-vaaaay.

[Ben] Saw-vee.

(laughs) Saw-vay.

Alright, Vinnie, so we're out here in the Saw-vay,

what'd they say?

Sahv islands?

Vinnie, Sahv islands, right?

We're out here in the Saw-vay, the Sahv islands.

Hey, we're outside, here.

Say this one, so what are we callin' this, a rack?

Frame.

A frame.

So we went and collected these trays,

or racks, you call them?

Frames.

(laughs) Frames.

Yellowjackets, man.

Beat it.

Damn yellowjackets, nobody likes you.

(laughs)

They make a little bit.

Oh, do they really?

I thought they just made nightmares.

Well, Vinnie, don't just get a picture of me

standing here, huh?

(laughter)

Check out the dog, he's doing it, too.

Get some dog shots, Vinnie, people love dogs.

(relaxing lounge music)