New experiential honey center opens in Woodland
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The Hive grand opening will be held Saturday and
Sunday, Nov. 13-14, in Woodland. (Photos: Debbie
Arrington)
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This roadside attraction is sure to get people buzzing.
Featuring the first varietal honey- and mead-tasting room of its kind, The Hive will celebrate its grand opening Nov. 13 and 14 in Woodland.
Located just off Interstate 5 at Harter Avenue, The Hive offers a one-stop honey immersive experience. The new home of Z Specialty Food, The Hive combines honey making, packaging and appreciation all in one site – much like Northern California wineries showcase wine.
“We want to educate people about honey tasting,” explains Joshua Zeldner, Nectar Director at Z Specialty Food. “It’s very similar to wine tasting.”
Z Specialty and its sister brands, Moon Shine Trading Company and Island of the Moon Honey, offer more than 30 varietal honeys plus fruit-honey spreads and other honey-based treats. All of those will be processed and packaged at the new location.
“It’s hard to believe we are finally here, a true dream come true for our family business,” Zeldner says. “I am so excited to invite people to experience what we have created — the full circle of plants, bees, honey and mead.”
In the honey business for more than four decades, Z Specialty Food had been planning The Hive for four years. The project cost about $5 million.
The family business had operated for many years just down the road from its new three-acre location.
“It was a grass field I had driven by so many times,” Zeldner said. “It was not for sale. It took months to find the owner (and negotiate a deal).”
The Hive combines the honey business with honey appreciation. Filled with bee-friendly perennials and shrubs, a newly planted drought-tolerant pollinator garden encircles the building’s entrance. That flows into an outdoor events area.
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The Hive's logo features a bee, naturally.
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“There are all types of mead to appeal to all types of tastes,” explains Zeldner. “The educational component of what we’re doing is what I’m excited about. We’ll be serving meads from throughout the country – California, Michigan, New Hampshire. The idea is to have a rotating selection.”
The tasting room is decorated with hives and beekeeping equipment that belonged to the company’s founder, Ishai Zeldner, who died in 2018 at age 71.
“They’re not any old hives,” said Zeldner. “They’re my dad’s equipment.
Shoshana Zeldner, Joshua’s sister, and mom Amina Harris also are integral parts of the business.
Harris, Z Specialty’s Queen Bee, has long been a proponent of varietal honeys.
“I am passionate about introducing people to taking the time to taste honey properly, noticing every unique color, flavor, aroma and texture that comes through,” she says.
The tastes can be surprising.
“Most of our honeys are collected locally,” says Joshua Zeldner. “We also offer unique international honeys. We have two from Mexico – coffee blossom and mango – and their taste is mind blowing.”
Mango honey? Imagine liquid smoke mixed with barbecue and marmalade. Better yet, ask for a taste.
Open free to the public, The Hive’s Grand Opening will be held from 1 to 7 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 13, and 11 a.m to 4 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 14. The Hive is located at 1221 Harter Ave., Woodland.
Festivities include live music, games, craft and food vendors, yoga and movement classes, a mobile plant nursery, food trucks, big discounts on Z Specialty products and lots of honey.
Guests are asked to provide proof of COVID-19 vaccination or recent negative COVID test.
Before and after the grand opening, The Hive’s tasting room is open from 11 a.m to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Friday.
Details: www.zspecialtyfood.com .
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Garden Checklist for week of Jan. 12
Once the winds die down, it’s good winter gardening weather with plenty to do:
* Prune, prune, prune. Now is the time to cut back most deciduous trees and shrubs. The exceptions are spring-flowering shrubs such as lilacs.
* Now is the time to prune fruit trees. (The exceptions are apricot and cherry trees, which are susceptible to a fungus that causes dieback. Save them until summer.) Clean up leaves and debris around the trees to prevent the spread of disease.
* Prune roses, even if they’re still trying to bloom. Strip off any remaining leaves, so the bush will be able to put out new growth in early spring.
* Clean up leaves and debris around your newly pruned roses and shrubs. Put down fresh mulch or bark to keep roots cozy.
* After the wind stops, apply horticultural oil to fruit trees to control scale, mites and aphids. Oils need 24 hours of dry weather after application to be effective.
* This is also the time to spray a copper-based fungicide to peach and nectarine trees to fight leaf curl. (The safest effective fungicides available for backyard trees are copper soap -- aka copper octanoate -- or copper ammonium, a fixed copper fungicide. Apply either of these copper products with 1% horticultural oil to increase effectiveness.)
* When forced bulbs sprout, move them to a cool, bright window. Give them a quarter turn each day so the stems will grow straight.
* Browse through seed catalogs and start making plans for spring and summer.
* Divide daylilies, Shasta daisies and other perennials.
* Cut back and divide chrysanthemums.
* Plant bare-root roses, trees and shrubs.
* Transplant pansies, violas, calendulas, English daisies, snapdragons and fairy primroses.
* In the vegetable garden, plant fava beans, head lettuce, mustard, onion sets, radicchio and radishes.
* Plant bare-root asparagus and root divisions of rhubarb.
* In the bulb department, plant callas, anemones, ranunculus and gladioli for bloom from late spring into summer.
* Plant blooming azaleas, camellias and rhododendrons. If you’re shopping for these beautiful landscape plants, you can now find them in full flower at local nurseries.
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