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Let me start out by saying that I'm
a beekeeper who is afraid of bees. It doesn't matter how many times
I get stung, I'm terrified of bee stings. While Filipe throws
his bee suit on over bare skin and assumes that a few stings will go
through, I layer up. I wear tall socks, jeans and a long sleeve shirt
under the suit as well as tall rubber boots and the customary long gloves so
they don't sneak in anywhere. Although I get stung much less often than
Filipe, I sweat like marathon runner, I probably look like I'm tying
some kind of detox. In my defence, the species of bee that
we work with which is native to the region- the Iberian honey bee is far more
aggressive than the Italian variety most often found in the United
States. Although bee stings hurt a little- the itch the next day is
by far the worst part, although none of it really justifies an adult
beekeeper running screaming from the hives because a single bee might
have found it's way into her suit. Whatever, I soldier on.
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| Getting suited up- notice the fleece, collar up, under my suit. |
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| This lady in my beekeeping course made a suit for her baby, adorable! |
Now on to the more interesting
developments in my apicultural world. We started out this season
with six hives, meaning we lost three over the winter. They say you
should always expect to lose at least 20% over-wintering. The
hives that we lost were all in one area and when we took them apart we
found mold along the bottom. This tells us that we chose a bad
location for the hives; too much moisture/too close to the ground and
not enough sun. Since it was our first year here it was hard to
predict what the conditions would be like and where the sun would be
during the winter. Luckily we had hives in several different places
and some even grew over the winter so we know where the new ones this year will
go!
Last year being the first season
we had a relatively small take of honey. I know I should get all giddy and discuss
terrior and notes of forest berries etc. But I just wasn't that impressed
with the honey. Additionally, the cost and time required to meet
regulations when it comes to the storing, packaging and labeling of
food products make selling it on a small scale seem pointless.
That's why we're going for wax. Wax has a about the same bulk market
rate as honey (8€/kilo) but because it's not food, there are no regulations. To get bees to produce wax rather than honey is also fairly simple. A
wild colony produces it's own wax combs as soon as it settles in a
new place, once the comb is complete it begins to fill the cells with
honey to save for the winter. To get bees to produce honey you give them the wax they need so they can start
producing honey immediately, as soon as the first blossoms come. By the time winter comes there's
enough for them and plenty left-over to take. To get them to produce
wax you give them empty frames so that the comb is straight and easy to
remove. They make the wax and fill it with honey for themselves for the winter. At the beginning of the following
season (after they have eaten all the honey they stored) you take the
wax and give them new empty frames to start again. This week we began
melting down the wax we took at the beginning of this season. In
terms of selling the wax, there is always a market for beekeepers who
want wax to put in the hives, but the real money is in the crafts-
the candles, soaps and even crayons. For now, we'll be selling wax to
crafters and beekeepers, but I'm a keeping a little stash to try my
hand at some of these projects.
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| We removed last year's wax from these frames and now they'll go back in the hives so the bees can make more! |
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| Melting down last years wax in a double boiler. |
