Early the next morning, Bill’s grieving widow, Annette, walked slowly and thoughtfully to the nearby apiary to tell the bees of his passing, thus keeping faith with the ancient tradition. The beekeeper, William Mawson, Bill to all who knew and loved him, died peacefully during the evening. Each day, for the three days prior to his passing, a lone bee flew quietly around the room, leaving the room and returning to the hive as daylight faded, only to return at first light the following day. On October 19, 1996, a quiet, dedicated and much loved beekeeper passed away in the seclusion of his East Devon home. Ogden in the March 2007 issue of Bee Culture-about a beekeeper in the UK : Christianity adopted this ancient symbol and even today, at Easter tide, the honey bee is celebrated in the Great Vigil, on the eve of Easter, calling forth the risen Christ by the lighting of the candle made of beeswax.īut nothing could be more telling of the relationship between bee and human, co-evolved over centuries, than the following story, recounted in Best Friends MagazineJanuary/February 2008, from an article by R.B. Packed for the afterlife, honey represented the bee as a symbol of resurrection. Our whole food system relies on this gift.Īnd then there are our human stories, religious ritual and myths intertwined with the lowly honeybee.Ī honey stained vessel was found buried in a tomb over 5, 500 years ago in the Caucasus of Russia-some 2,000 years older than the honey found in King Tut’s tomb in Eygpt. We have been inextricably bound to a common fate, dependent upon the honeybee’s free pollination services. In the interconnected web that we all are a part of, it is impossible to discount the mystery of honeybee and human relationship throughout the centuries. I will be looking for venues to sell my sweet, organic elixir. Two gallons is a breathtaking amount of bees. Lest we take this for granted, remember that honeybees make only about 1/12th of a teaspoon of honey in their short 45 day lifespan. This year I am left with about 2 gallons of honey. The kitchen becomes a magnet for every insect known to humankind if not cleaned immediately and properly. This potion will sit in the sun for days while the solar wax and honey separator does its good work.įinally, the thick, viscuous honey will be strained at least twice through cheesecloth into jars. Meanwhile, if not completely sealed, ants and bees will swarm into the bucket causing drowning by honey. They are insistently waiting for even a glimpse of skin so they can take revenge for this honey heist.Īt home, the honey must be crushed by hand through a large stainless steel colander into a bucket. Then, when one shoos enough of them away in order to whisk the dead weight of elixir to the car, there will still be stragglers buzzing around. Terribly hard work.įirst one must wrest the comb away from the girls who stick to the comb like….well…honey. I’ve always heard that it’s possible, but it never happened to me.Īnd processing honey is hard work. This year will go down in history (or her-story, as the case may be) as the biggest honey flow in my short 8 year beekeeping career. Meanwhile the girls have been busy gathering nectar and pollen beyond belief. So, I took out the lackluster queen and gave them a freshly mated, mite resistant, weather resilient queen- recently emigrated from Canada. Sadly there was no future generation on the horizon. Ferociously they guarded their massive storehouses. Desperate to survive, but a little misguided in their efforts, they had put away enough honey to feed the entire ‘hood. They seemed happy to tolerate a “less than” queen rather than have no queen at all. The imposter queen was merrily pretending she was royalty-but sorely lacking. When I checked on her progress, all I found was wall to wall honey and a few drone eggs. ![]() The queen that replaced the one I stole away was either infertile or poorly mated. ![]() ![]() It knocked them back alright….but only the baby brood, which disappeared altogether. So I took their queen away and made them start from scratch, right at the moment of the honey flow. The only reason I have so much honey this year is because I did my bees a dis-service.
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