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NorCal Nectar

NorCal Nectar Journal

Raw honey, honey sticks & beekeeping

Buying guides, serving maths, recipes and hive management — written to answer one question at a time, with the sources shown.

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Each hub collects the articles for one subject and links to the product they are about.

Raw Honey

What raw honey actually is, how to tell it apart from filtered supermarket honey, and how Northern California wildflower honey tastes through the season.

Honey Sticks

Serving sizes, pack maths, age safety, and how honey sticks work for tea, lunchboxes, events and businesses.

Recipes

Cooking, baking, drinks and infusions that use raw honey as an ingredient rather than a garnish.

Beekeeping

Hive management, seasonal timing, pests, equipment and California regulations — written for first- and second-year beekeepers.

2 articles · page 1 of 1

Beekeeping & Sustainability

How to Build and Bait a Swarm Trap: Catch Free Bees This Spring

Catching a swarm is the cheapest way to add a colony to your apiary — a single trap can replace a $250 package or a $200 nuc with a few dollars of plywood and a vial of lemongrass oil. This guide covers proven swarm trap dimensions, the right bait combination, exact placement height and direction, when to deploy in spring, and how to transfer caught bees into a permanent hive without losing the queen.

21 min read

Beekeeping & Sustainability

How to Build a Mason Bee House: Hosting Native Solitary Bees in 2026

A single female mason bee out-pollinates 60-120 honeybees on apple blossoms, and you can host hundreds in a backyard nesting block the size of a brick. This 2026 build guide covers exact hole diameters, depth, materials to avoid, where to mount it, and the cocoon-cleaning step most kits skip.

25 min read

Shop while you read

Every guide above points at one of these.

Raw California Honey

Unfiltered wildflower honey in 16, 32 and 64 oz.

Pure Honey Sticks

One teaspoon of raw honey per sealed straw. Seven pack sizes, 10 to 1000.

The Complete Beekeeper Course

Eight written modules on Northern California beekeeping.

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