I have been waiting for this for quite some time and the moment finally came! The bees and I were to be introduced to each other. :) I am not sure if they even took much notice - they are very busy you know - but I was thrilled to enter into this new world.
By a little farm which has a little wooded area, there is hidden away between the trees and bushes a collection of colourful boxes.
Beware, as these boxes are nothing to play with. Each box - hive - houses a colony of bees. And there are about 60,000 of them - in each hive!
In this little place there are about 160 bee hives. Yes, you do the maths (and you are correct - that is close to 10 million bees).
A bee colony consists of a queen bee (quite literary), the female workers and the male drones.
And that is me... as a newcomer I am covered from head to toe. I even received my very own hat. It has big bears on them. :)
Anyway, let's get back to business: of course we arrived to collect some delicious honey. But there is quite some work to do!
Modern bee-keepers use a light polystyrene boxes to house the colony. Each box - "hive body" holds 10 frames. Usually there are 2, 3 or even 4 boxes - hive bodies - on top of each other, each serving a specific function.
At the bottom of the hive is the "brood chamber" - mostly reserved for the birth of the off-spring. That is what you see here: all those little cells are filled with soon-to-be new arrivals. The honey is usually stored at the top hive body.
The life of a bee is clearly defined by numbers. Developing in three stages the working bee transforms from an egg to a pupa and a larva in ca. 3 then 6 and finally 9 days. And they live for a mere 21 days. A queen bee and the male drone have a different schedule.
Numbers also dictate their environment. Bees need an exact 4 mm for their movement. So the frames are specifically designed to allow that amount of space between each frames. If somehow more space is left, they make sure to fill it with a new set of honeycomb. Quite little geniuses that they are able to build those cells so precise. Forget a ruler.
Whether in a frame or on its own, the goal is to get the bees of the honeycombs. Usually you shake the frame and the bees fall off by themselves. But those, who hold on tight, will be gently brushed aside.
Swarming: we had two cases when the bees swarmed from their hives. Luckily as nature has it, they choose a close location, such as a branch of a tree above the hive. That is what you can see on the picture below - the black oval thing. Usually you can re-capture the family by cutting of the branch and having the whole family be introduced to a new hive. Bit tricky in this case when the bee hive is so far up.
In this case, the swarmed colony attached itself to a bush. Here we were able to get them back into a new hive.
Once the frames has been freed of the working bees, our delicious honey is still mostly capped off. That is the white stuff on top of the combs.
But nothing to worry about, there is also a solution for that - called uncapping. Like Mr. P can demonstrate here, you place the frames onto a stand and uncap the cells with a special fork.
The tricky thing is to move the fork from the bottom up and remove only the top coating (and without pocking the sharp fork into your fingers - yes, I am guilty.. :) ) so that the majority of the honey remains in the cell.
This is my attempt at uncapping the frames.
And here is an example of two uncapped frames.
Especially if it is warm and the honeycomb has been uncapped, the honey starts to flow from the little cells. This is pure raw honey. Yummy.
The uncapping tub after a few frames - it makes sure that not even a drop of honey goes to waste.
Into the extractor they go... Once the frames have been uncapped, 24 frames will be places sideways into this machine, which works like a washing machine. Spinning at high speed, the honey is sucked out of their cells and onto the side wall, where it slowly flows down to the bottom of the extractor.
Once it arrives at the bottom of the extractor, the honey flows towards the opening where it is collected in big plastic buckets. Look, this type of honey is light and clear. This is what we call "Acacia Honey". It is the most poplar honey here in Hungary.
And here we have the finished product. Doesn't it look divine?! It is sooo tasty!
We hope that you enjoyed this little bee-keeping session. And from now on, when you see a bee, do not be afraid. These little creatures are actually not that scary. They are actually real workaholics. So give them some respect for all their work. The honey sure does taste absolutely amazing. :)
