Morgan County: Hunter’s Honey Farm
Back in May, we purchased a Groupon for Hunter’s Honey Farm. Around the same time, Isaac developed an obsession with bees (luckily it’s only resulted in one bee sting). On Saturday, June 30 we packed up the kiddos and headed over to the bee farm to check things out.
Based on Google Maps and the car’s GPS we decided to leave about 8:30 for our 10:00 tour. After a scenic drive through the countryside of Morgan County, we arrived at the bee farm about 9:45.
Reservations were required for our Groupon but I would suggest making them in a few days in advance; I called the day before and they only had two openings but luckily one of them worked for us.
We had a chance to explore the store, and check out the observation hive, sample some honey, and check out the frog pond. Unfortunately our tour got started about 20 minutes late and by that time Isaac had lost a little bit of interest.
The entire tour took place inside and we didn’t encounter any bees except when we got close to the entrance of the observation hive.
The first stop on the tour was a stop at (an empty) nest and some empty honeycomb. We then got to check out a large beeswax candle. Did you know each nest contains 50,000 – 60,000 bees? And Hunters’s has about 500 active nests at any one time.
The next stop on our tour was a stop at a different nest with some honeycomb full of honey. Honey weighs a lot. Isaac also got to try on some bee keeper’s protective clothing.
Continuing on the tour, we stopped in the wax room. Were the Hunter’s mold all of their candles.
Next up was a look at a vat of honey. This particular vat of honey had not been put through the strainer yet so there was bees wax and bees that needed to be removed.
The next stop on the tour was the bottling room.
And the last stop on the tour was back to the store were we each got to pick out two honey sticks.
After the tour Caleb and Isaac explored the little walking trail out back while Zoe and I hung out near the frog pond.
Although, it’s a bit off the beaten path, Hunter’s Honey Farm was a fun little family excursion.