The bee farming badge seems deceptively simple. There are only two requiremen
ts:1) Have a practical knowledge of swarming, hiving, hives, and general apiculture, including a knowledge of the use of artificial combs;
2) Describe different kinds of honey and tell from what sources gathered.
However, given the illegality of my pursuit, this could get tricky. Fortunately, there are the good folks at websites like http://www.nyc-bees.org/, where I tracked down a gentleman willing to help me out. We’ve scheduled a meeting next week — I’ll keep you all posted!
Meanwhile, I spent time today at the Union Square Greenmarket, talking to Dewayne from Tremblay Apiaries. Dewayne works with Tremblay, building their honey-harvesting materials for . . . get this . . . six hundred hives. (This means that there are something like 60 million bees. Yikes.) As far as he’s concerned, the beekeeping holds a secret message for modern society — “the bees can live, a hundred thousand in the same house, and they can all work together for a common goal.” And the honey they make? Delicious.
I’m currently enjoying a nice glass of ice water with lemon juice and some of the Tremblay Apiaries linden honey mixed in — this honey is NOT the kind I’ve gotten from regular grocery stores. It’s sweet, almost woody-tasting, and I cannot stop eating it. I tasted a very light, mild raspberry honey and a floral spring mix, too, and it’s utterly bizarre to me to see how different the varieties are. I hear buckwheat honey is delicious, but due to a bad crop on neighboring farms this year, there was none to try. Rats.So, let’s say I have a hive of bees (I don’t), and I want ‘em to make me some more linden honey. How can I do it? I have no idea. Fortunately, this seems be because it’s impossible. “You can’t convince a flower, or a bee, or the weather to do anything,” Dewayne told me. The best you can do is put the bees — who are shockingly efficient at honey harvesting, finding the flowers with the highest sugar content first, then the next, then the next, then the next — somewhere near one of the plant varieties they might like.
One final thought on bees, this regarding artificial combs. First, I really don’t get it. I’ve been unsuccessful at finding information about artificial combs on the internet, and the
folks I’ve contacted online (so far) haven’t had much to say on the subject either. This may just be because people don’t use them much — the artificial comb badge requirement may be a relic of a society eager to take ever more steps in farming technology. However , Tremblay does have one technology piece that I think is unbelievably cool. See, bees can be subject to mites, which like to nest in the hexagonal cells of the honeycomb, right up alongside the larvae. If the cells are too big and the larvae have too much wiggle room, there’s space for mites, so a good beekeeper wants to make sure his colonies all have small cells. To that end, the folks at Tremblay have plastic sheets imprinted with appropriately-sized cells imprinted on them (like this, I think), in order to give the bees a head start.
Also today, in Union Square, I was distracted by a woman from one of the many cat rescues in NYC. Someone had just dropped off something like 10 severely abused kittens, one of whom I wish I could unsee. Please, guys, stop by the NYC Humane Society site and consider throwing a few bucks their way.Personal history fact: I’ve never been stung by a bee. Have you? Since I haven’t, does that make me magic, smelly, or just really, really lucky?
Fascinating! I've been stung a bunch of times. The first that I can remember actually happened DIRECTLY IN THE INSIDE CORNER OF MY LEFT EYE, BEHIND MY GLASSES, when I was about five years old. As if wearing glasses when you're five years old isn't sufficiently painful.
ReplyDeleteYou'd think the bees might have some pity, right?
ReplyDeleteThat's the worst!
Egad, John, I had nearly the same thing happen to me! I was a bit older--12 or 13 at the time--but it was no less a harrowing experience for me than I imagine it was for your 5-year-old self. And this was no mere honeybee but, as far as I remember, a bumblebee, so I got stung a couple of times even after I threw my glasses to the floor and attempted to swat the beast away.
ReplyDeleteWe're up in the hills, surrounded by bees who like to die melodramatically in the middle of the street so my dog can step on them. Last time he got stung, the stinger got me, too, and it didn't start hurting until two days later.
ReplyDeleteHave you ever had honey in the comb? It's so good!
I haven't! I wish I had, though -- it seems pretty awesome. I'm still on a honey-in-my-coffee kick, which I"m really loving.
ReplyDeleteFirst I can remember being stung I was 6 or 7, in my grandparents' backyard in MI. I was running through the yard and a bee flew up, landed on my left middle finger (the part closest to the hand) and promptly stung me. At the time it seemed it was deliberate, which upset me more than the pain I think.
ReplyDeleteBut I don't remember that well, that may have been a yellowjacket. I have been stung by MANY yellowjackets. Mostly when backpacking in NC. We had to hike past a biiiig nest. We put on all our raingear first, then ran by to try to avoid them, but still all got stung a bunch. Three or four flew into my left hiking boot, like under the tongue! and stung me all up in my ankle. Jerks.
We also hiked through a huge field of giant flowers where there were thousands of bumblebees. The bumbles were all "...oh. Hey." and went about their flower-visiting business, in contrast to YJ's which see you six or seven yards away and are like "... HUMAN!! DIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIE!"
I hate yellowjackets.
I don't love honey; maybe I need to try some fancier honey. ;oD