Dorchester, ON.
Big Sugar Farm
OUR STORY
A Family-Owned Business
Meet Dwayne, Owner of Big Sugar. When he is not beekeeping or tapping trees, you can find him learning new ways to make the best-of-the-best raw honey and maple syrup.
ABOUT BIG SUGAR FARM
Big Sugar Farm began on our farm in 2005, situated on 100 acres of rolling pastures with approximately 20 acres of pristine, managed forest, located just West of London Ontario.
Since then we moved our location to the beautiful town of Dorchester Ontario. Beehives remain at our original property as the honey that is produced from that location is spectacular and the new owners love the bees as much as we do.
We started tapping trees in 2014. We do this the old-fashion way, collecting our sap in buckets. Sap that is collected is cooked down within twenty four hours and normally right after we make our daily rounds.
Excellent syrup begins with using the very freshest Sap from the trees, if you let Sap sit it can ferment and this will cause an off taste in the final product. We boil with a wood fired evaporator and that definitely adds to the overall taste by infusing a small amount of smoke flavour in every spoonful.
Finally and most importantly we neither add or take anything away from the finished Syrup. It retains all its natural qualities to impart an amazing flavor and smoothness that will impress you!
Our Equipment
In 2017 we improved our evaporator by purchasing a brand new Smoky Lake unit. This is a Corsair 2×4 High Performance dual pan Evaporator with forced air under fire blower which boils off up to 45 gallons of water per hour. With the amount of sap we are collecting the old unit just took too long to boil and I would be boiling for over twelve hour shifts.
In early 2018 we added a five plate filter press which absolutely changed the way our syrup looked in the bottles. This is a game changer and provides crystal clear finished product that I was never able to achieve with simple hanging cone filters.
OUR APIARY
2017 Marked the beginning of our Honey Bee Adventure and it has been exciting!
In just a few years we have expanded from 4 to over 50 colonies! In a very short time we have learned what it takes to keep our bees happy and give them everything they need to thrive. It also keeps us jumping in the apiary every day from April to November. Hats on!
Our Bees
We know that bees want to make more bees and swarm every spring, this is their prime directive. Hive management is the key to success. Keeping bees in our boxes and not in the trees is the number one priority for us in the spring once the honey flow begins. It's a lot of work, but we love it!
