Throughout our business journey, we engage with other small local, Canadian-owned and operated businesses whom we’d like to highlight. We all need to support each other and celebrate our successes together. Please support these businesses if the opportunity arises.
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The Bee & Thistle Winery is proud to be in the forefront of developing Haskap and Canadian fruit wines. We are excited to introduce to you HASKAP MIST, available soon in selected retail outlets and in our online store.
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SLGA, our governing authority for the sale of beverage alcohol in Saskatchewan, has mandated that we send several of our wines for analytic testing. This analysis is done through LCBO Analytic Laboratory in Ontario as part of SLGA’s Quality Assurance Policy, which guarantees the customer that the wine they are about to consume is safe to drink, and adheres to the Quality Control measures as outlined in the QA Manual for commercial craft wineries in SK.
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The first bottle of wine is not the only first in our journey, but it was a very special first.
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We are very pleased to announce that two vintage batches of our Haskap wine debut, “Chiad Fhion”, are underway. The name “Chiad Fhion” was chosen as its name in Gaelic is “First Wine”.
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Another Haskap harvest is complete. This year’s video focuses on operating the harvester and shows how we simply couldn’t harvest our crop without it. We also have a video on our Weed Badger Model 4000 and how it will eliminate 30-40 hours per week of manual hoeing.
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Final inspections were completed in April, 2020, with approvals received from both the Canada Revenue Agency and the Saskatchewan Liquor and Gaming Authority (SLGA).
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Exciting times! We are nearing completion of the winery and have started stocking it with equipment and supplies.
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It’s been a very busy summer here at the winery. Here’s what we’ve been up to.
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Harvesting for 2019 is complete. We manually harvested 800 pounds of Rhubarb and mechanically harvested almost 9,000 pounds of Haskap. Here are a few pictures from this year’s harvest.
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This winter was a busy time at the winery. Peter completed a lot of construction work inside the winery building, while Margie completed the UC Davis Winemaking course and also completed several tasks required for our manufacturing license. The team worked with a design company and finalized what our first three fruit wine labels will look like.
Spring promises to be even busier.
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Wineries that produce Haskap fruit wine, such as the Bee and Thistle Winery, grow a lot of haskap bushes. They require regular maintenance, care and attention. The home gardener can also grow Haskap bushes with basically the same care requirements but on a much smaller scale.
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In July, 2018, the team completed its first full harvest. The custom harvester that was purchased from Poland worked extremely well. Local help was hired to assist on the harvester with sorting, and at the cleaning station.
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Bee & Thistle Berry Orchards started with their first planting of 10,000 bushes of Haskap (also called Honeyberry), with varieties of Indigo Gem, Tundra and Smart Berry Blue. In 2016, Aurora was added to the lineup.
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Follow along as we post pictures of the winery building being constructed.
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The Bee & Thistle Winery is planning to expand its offerings to include Cherry wine and liqueur. All of the Cherries will be grown on Collin’s Ravensfield Farm, located just down the road from the Bee & Thistle Winery and Orchards.
Bees
Every effort is made to sustain the wild bee population, with retention of treefall along the edges of the woods (wild bees nest in the treefall), and the placement of wild bee boxes for them to nest in.
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Haskap berries are best picked with a harvester specifically designed to protect both the fruit and the bush. In 2018, the Bee & Thistle Orchard purchased their custom-designed harvester, the Joanna Premium, through Weremczuk Agromachines, Poland. It has special attachments which enable the machine to work low to the ground, maximizing the harvest from each plant.
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