Honey for My Honey
100 Steeles Avenue West
905-881-8298 (store), 705-435-1261 (farm)

“Busy as a bee” is no turn of phrase for a honey maker. It is the fascinating truth.

Alexandre Obnovlennyi, proprietor of Honey for My Honey on the northern edge of Toronto, has 15 million hard-working employees on his farm near Alliston, Ontario.

Each of his worker bees lives just 35 to 40 days, and its work is never done. They take pollen from nearby wildflowers such as linden, buckwheat, and clover. Then they return to the apiaries and produce what is Obnovlennyi’s shining refrain: Real honey.

And that is what is on display both at his farm — dubbed the “Royal Bee Castle” — and at his petite store in a Steeles Avenue plaza. I could smell the sweet aroma of honey well before I stepped inside his shop one sticky July afternoon. Obnovlennyi stood behind his wares speaking in his native Russian to what could only be a regular customer. (He emigrated to Canada in 1992 as a certified beekeeper.)

I quickly realized how seriously Obnovlennyi takes his craft. He is perhaps the most honest, all-natural honey maker you will meet. “Honey must be real,” he told me many times. There is no doubt that his jars of honey, selling for $6 and $10, go through minimal steps from the bees to his hands to your pantry.

Obnovlennyi does not feed his bees sugar syrup, a practice that he indicated was common amongst beekeepers. “My honey is collected from flowers,” he said. “Bees that make honey from sugar aren’t making honey — (they’re making) a honey substitute.”

He also does not ever heat honey. “High temperature kills all nutrients,” he said, adding that heat is often used by companies to make liquid honey with a long shelf life. Its natural qualities, during this time, evaporate. Obnovlennyi said that “real” honey must be crystallized into the orange blurry substance we spread on toast. Liquid honey, which he also sells during particular times in the year, must be consumed within a few months of his bees’ work.

Honey is worth buying as real and natural as possible. Obnovlennyi, holding a dusty copy of the “ABCs and XYZs of Bee Culture,” spoke of its vitamins, minerals and enzymes — as well as its proven ability to strengthen the body’s immune system. It is extremely hard not to take his word for it. Even so, a little research proves its immense value to the body.

In the mouths of bees, an enzyme in their saliva reacts with pollen and turns it into honey. Many studies have found that honey boosts the level of antioxidants in your bloodstream. One, in 2004, involved buckwheat honey: For a month, 25 people ate four tablespoons of honey a day. Throughout this time, their level of antioxidant nutrients rose significantly. (Gross H, et al. “Effect of honey consumption on plasma antioxidant status in human subjects.” 227th American Chemical Society Meeting, Anahein CA, March 28, 2004)

What about heart disease? Honey is proven to lower risk factors such as high cholesterol and high triglycerides — and a few lesser-known factors such as C-reactive protein and homocysteine levels. This multi-pronged heart protection makes natural honey an unsurpassed natural sweetener. (Al-Waili NS. “Natural honey lowers plasma glucose, C-reactive protein, homocysteine, and blood lipids in healthy, diabetic, and hyperlipidemic subjects: comparison with dextrose and sucrose.” J Med Food. 2004 Spring;7:100-7)

Why settle for faceless honey in some supermarket when you can buy it straight from a local source? But never even mind that: Obnovlennyi’s honey simply tastes better. It is a guiltless pleasure. But don’t thank him, thank his non-unionized, pro bono army of 15 million — and the queen that lays 2,000 eggs a day.

Now, who on Earth is busier than she?

(Note: in July and August Obnovlennyi will have brand new, fresh honey available as this is a collection period. The perfect time to visit the shop is in August — when customers may even find rare, all-natural liquid honey.)