Honey of a beverage in Scotch Lake

Bee losses due to cold weather, vandalism increase need for mead sales

Jen Holtom gives a tour of Scotch Lake Farms, down a path that leads to pear trees and an open picnic area, used for events. There are also spots for people to tent if they don’t want to drive after an event where they were drinking mead, which has an alcohol content of 12 per cent. The property is also available for tours, with advance notice. - Nikki Sullivan

SCOTCH LAKE, N.S. — Jen Holtom can’t keep up with the demand for the mead she makes at Scotch Lake Farms near Georges River.

Bottles of Midgard Meadery’s traditional honey wine recipe, which is sold at different farmers markets in Cape Breton. The meadery also has different fruit mead flavours, which owner Jen Holtom says are very popular. Holtom hopes to expand production of all the meads to meet customer demand.

Part of the reason for this is because she needs to finish the renovations to the Midgard Meadery honey wine-making facilities. The other is an extremely dry summer that left the farm with little water to finish making the ancient alcoholic drink or run other operations like laundry soiled from making the mead.

That’s why Holtom is trying her luck with a GoFundMe campaign for $5,000 to raise money needed to finish the upgrades to her mead-making rooms, to finish building the onsite sales area at the farm and to buy a second large water storage container called a cistern.

“We’ve had so many bee losses we can’t rely on just honey,” said Holtom, who is also part owner of Scotch Lake Farms and a bee keeper there.

“Even when I don’t make it I have people asking, ‘When are you going to get it?’”

Holtom’s partner in the farm is Micheal Magnini, author of Honey Plants of Eastern Canada. He originally bought the land for the farm in 1998 and took 10 years perfecting the mead recipe Holtom uses.

Magnini used to be the one in charge of making the mead but decided to stop because it takes a lot of time to make it. That’s when Holtom asked to take over full ownership and take over making the mead, which is more like a liquor than a wine.

The farm uses rainwater because of issues with arsenic in the ground water and this summer’s lack of rain caused many problems because they currently have only one cistern.

This summer’s water problem is only one of the hardships Holtom and Magnini have had to endure over the past couple of years. They suffered bee losses this spring due to unseasonably cold weather and had lost bees before that due to an act of vandalism (someone sprayed insecticide inside 12 hives and two nuclear hives that were located off site.)

Holtom is thankful for the support she’s had from different people in the community who came forward to help them overcome these and other hardships.

“People have come and done all kinds of things to help us. I’ve had Carmen from Carmen’s Bakery and their two sons come and help pull wood,” she said.

The mead Holtom makes is so popular they’ve shipped it out of province to as far away as the Yukon. This makes Holtom confident the expansion to the meadery will help her meet demand for the product and increase revenue for the farm.

People are invited to do tours at Scotch Lake Farms, which currently are given at no cost. Holtom asks that people call them ahead of time and people can be guided or wander the many paths around the farm and apiary on their own, as long as they are respectful of the bee hives.

There is also an area with picnic tables and a fire pit for events done in-house and by other people. Holtom said there is even space on the farm for tenting if people come to an event and want to drink some mead and not drive home after.

Midgard Meadery