Bohol Bee Farm

Seafood Soup

A little distance away from Bolod Beach, but on the same side of Panglao Island, is this charming rustic resort that promotes a distinct lifestyle waiting to be experienced. You come here to smell the flowers, then eat them, too!

Bohol Bee Farm is all about the birds and the bees, literally. The actual bee farm is on another property in mainland Bohol, so there's no fear of bees swarming you while you stop along the herb-lined paths. But a colony is kept in the resort for showcase, with a very educational beehive tour included in the room rates.

Honey, of course, is used extensively. In the food served, in the spreads sold in The Buzz Cafe, as well as in other non-food products that beg to be collected, and are good pasalubong for friends. 

But the resort is not just about honey. Situated on a ledge atop the sea, there is no beach to frolic on, only a sun-bathing balcony. But you come here to indulge in health and rejuvenation. Thickly foliaged corners invite contemplation, the scent of herbs and flowers explode to mingle with the sea breeze, clearing the mind, and your lungs.

grilled blue marlin

Your gut is cleared, too, cleansed by the food. Unmilled, whole brown rice, freshly-picked organic greens from the surrounding gardens, lightly seasoned seafood and poultry, freshly squeezed fruit juices. Island living can be as good as this!

A closer look at that floral salad - I see cosmos, bougainvillea in two hues....but so much as they enliven the dish with their bright colors, they don't contribute much in terms of taste. Their main purpose is for visual effect, and for nutrition. 

honey-glazed chicken

lemongrass tea

fresh fruits with shredded young coconut and yogurt dressing

breakfast, with honey-glazed ham and honey waffle

Such respect accorded to the human body is mirrored in the way the gardens are cultivated, and in the design of the structures scattered in the resort. Villas and rooms were built around standing trees and plants to preserve them, and native and locally available materials were used and emphasized.  

So even though there is no sand hereabouts, and the sea is almost impossible to access, I find joy here. Peace bee with you.

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Bohol Bee Farm

Dao, Dauis, Panglao Island, Bohol

Website

Tel. Nos. (6338) 5101822, (63) 917-7101062, (63) 939-9046796, (63) 917-3041491

Email Address: vickywallace@boholbeefarm.com

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P.S. My photos of the ice cream were all blurred, so I didn't include them here. But they were absolutely fantastic! A bit pale because no artificial dyes were used, but the all natural flavors and creaminess made them comprable to gelato. A trip to Bohol Bee Farm only for the ice cream would be worth it.


Other Posts on Bohol
Bolod Beach
Mainland Bohol

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Weeds of my Childhood

The continuous rains the past week due to several typhoons racing one another along the eastern and western coasts of the archipelago have enlivened the growth of weeds all around the house. Grasses have shot up at least a foot, and close to the ground mini jungles have grown lush.

I scheduled lawn-weeding as a home weekend project for the kids this morning, but we ended up not being able to uproot anything. Being close to the ground I suddenly remembered that weeds took up a good part of that carefree time that was my childhood. 

Like that cliche lightbulb, something lit up for me - I now understand why my kids are so obsessed with footwear, and they can identify whose pair it is without fail, and will even point out that somebody is wearing somebody else's slippers.    

I don't know their names, and it's difficult to research them, but these weeds grow everywhere in the country.  These pink-yellow tiny blooms ward away children with their bitter fragrance, but they are a lively addition to the flower baskets offered daily at the altar during the month of May.  

What kid is not well-versed with the magic of the makahiya (shrinking mimosa)? For girls its pink ethereal flowers are as desirable as the hard-to-resist urge of touching each and every frond of tiny leaves, until not a single minute leaf has shrunk onto itself.

The explosive magic of this flower is more attuned to boys' hard play, but I had endless happy days gathering the hardened pods and submerging handfuls and handfuls of them in a shallow basin of water.    

I wonder if my mom worried about me and my playmates taunting fate with this plant. I certainly had more than one instance of seeds lodging in my eyes. But perhaps I didn't suffer that much, because I'm not worried  about my kids, who discovered this kid-bomb on their own and with their friends. I taught them afterward  that's it's cool to put one pod inside your closed mouth, tingling with anticipation when it would explode.

In Cavite there is a different plant with sword-like leaves, but with the same kind of flower in pink and white, and the same bomber pods. 

Of course I couldn't resist turning this into a chance for reinforcing learning, as both my gradeschoolers have gone through the subject of seed dispersion. 

Elders told me that this is eaten in some places, but I've never had it, as I haven't met anyone who eats it who can teach me how to prepare it. It looks likes it's good in a fresh salad. 

A variety of tawa-tawa (asthma weed, snake weed, fei-yang ts'ao, Euphorbia hirta Linn.) that's been used for asthma, and is now making a name for its anti-dengue properties. It's quite abundant in any weed/grass patch, and ours in Cavite is purely bright green with no violet edges like those in the photo above, which was taken in a golf course in Cabanatuan City.

Amor seko (crabgrass), whose barbed seeds lined the hems of our skirts and short pants after a day gallivanting in the fields. They are the bane of labanderas (laundrywomen), when it is windy and the dried clothes hanging on the the lines drop on the grass. 

The Gardens at Chateau Royale Tagaytay

In a fit of brain fever my husband bought the largest home backyard pool he could find in the mall. It has a diameter of 12 feet and is 3 feet deep. All in all it needed almost 1,500 gallons of water, and at least six hours, to fill it up.

Right from the start complications arose. With that amount of water we couldn't just replace it every time we wanted to, especially since Maynilad has just connected Cavite, and our water bill had shot up a thousand per cent.

We needed a filter, which cost more than the price of the pool. And because our residence is surrounded by trees that shed leaves like hairfall with the constant sea breeze, we needed to put a lid on it. Sadly, it's been a month and I have gone to all the malls within my radar, but all I could find is a pool cover that's 10 feet in diameter.

   

But what would life be if we kept our attention on shortcomings? Particularly if you have kids who called you at the office every hour offering to set up the pool themselves. There is a real, 25m swimming pool a stone's throw away from our house, but we forbade the kids to go there without me or the husband, as there's bound to be a lot of children for the lifeguard to watch over, and the nannies can't swim. 

So we set up the backyard pool, and started to reap happiness. If I got home early I joined the kids in the evenings immersing ourselves in the pool, whose water had by then become a steam bath after a day's boiling in the sun. Whenever I stood up I shivered, because the ambient air was several degrees cooler.  

It was fine for a while, and we were happily waterlogged. One evening I declared to the husband it was worth buying after all, even with the filter, because we didn't need to go out of town anymore for a vacation.

But then green cottony things started growing in there. And multiplied so fast we couldn't keep up with straining the water with nets. We had to use the water for the plants, and for cleaning the pavement, but it began to get thick that at last I had to have it released, the pool scrubbed.

I have not seen our latest water bill yet, but I'm not planning on getting myself shocked. Into the garage went the pool, empty of green slime, and into the van went the kids, packed for a vacation in a cooler clime with a cold swimming pool.

We ended up on the slopes of Mt. Batulao, by the border of Cavite and Batangas and thirty minutes out of Tagaytay proper, where the temperature approximates Baguio City. There's a 15-ha resort there with icy-cold twin pools, a fishing lake, picnic grounds, a lotus pond, children's playgrounds, as well as indoor steam baths and sauna if ever we missed our backyard pool.

But the main attraction for me was the countless greenhouses and gardens that stretched for kilometers along the property. It was where I first saw blooms of basil, white and ethereal, and the large unfurling petals of pink lotus flowers.

radish blooms

Tagaytay is known for plantations of pineapples, and here we were presented with fruits in various stages of development.

I didn't know pineapples started out in coral, pink and blue-violet hues.

kamote abloom in lilac

It was fun to slide open the door of a greenhouse and discover what plants were growing inside. There were several that served as nurseries, and the kids had a heyday identifying which vegetable the sprouts would become.

 

The kids didn't want to leave, and I had a hard time departing myself. I loved the place, and I promised we would all soon be back. The only thing I regret was that the in-house restaurant didn't make use of all those wonderful greens being grown. It served usual Filipino fare - meats and soups that were flavored with synthetic powder. It was so out of sync with its surroundings.

I can't decide, though, if we should be there every weekend, or we set up the pool again. I contacted a chemical supplier, and I was told that besides granulated chlorine, I needed to buy dry acid to mix it with, and a kit tester to ensure we put in the right amount. Or chlorine in tablet form, which needs to be in a specially designed floater, plus the test kit. Each serving a different purpose, but both sets setting me back thousands more. And which makes me think weekend vacations would cost less, after all.

a cow smirking at all of my trivial human travails

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Chateau Royale Sports & Country Club, Inc.
Km. 72 Batulao
Nasugbu, Batangas
Tel. Nos. (632) 696-4374 / 696-4376
Website

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Turning A New Leaf

Starting October, all around Pangasinan, and all along the McArthur Highway in the provinces of Tarlac and Pampanga, the rounded crowns of mango trees have been sprouting clumps of brown leaves as if wilting and exhibiting symptoms of deciduous trees preparing for winter.

For those not in the know, it may look alarming. Are the mango trees dying?

But for those who grew up under the trees' shade and are intimate with the leaves' tangy fragrance, the brown leaves are the symbol of happiness. It represents an excitement in anticipation of sweet things to come.

For a few weeks after the brown leaves appear, cottony blossoms emerge underneath them. 

Mango flowers are not a sight to fall head over heels for. It is a bit ironical that such nondescript blooms will bud into the sweetest thing you could ever have on this earth a few weeks later.

Wishing for a golden Christmas!

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Siling Labuyo

Having been acquainted with the "pointless" sili in Cagayan Valley, I came home to Cavite to find pots and pots of the real stuff - siling labuyo, all abloom and sprouting young fruits - at my public market suki, who sources vegetables from Tagaytay City.


My suki said this is the authentic siling labuyo - short, stubby, and so fiery it'll cut your tongue off. I got so scared I didn't buy a pot, to avoid any accidental run-ins with the bunso who's fond of picking flowers from our lawn. So I just took photos, and consoled myself by buying more fruits since I was able to save Php150 per pot of sili.


The emphasis that this is authentic siling labuyo is apparently needed, because there are impostors out there, and they outnumber the real one. Generally termed siling pula, the more common sili are longer, red, and not as hot.

By the looks of the leaves, this is not the species where the sili tops that are indispensable in tinola and sinuwam come from.

I think siling labuyo is related to the halang-halang that abounds in Samar-Leyte and Negros Oriental.


Variously known in English as bird chili, bird's eye chili, bird pepper, hot chili, cayenne (scientific name Capsicum frutescens), siling labuyo bears attractive flowers that bely its inner heat, originating from the pith where the seeds nestle. Nasa loob ang kulo, as they say.

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