May & June 2022 (Issue #15)
YEEEEEEEESSSSSS!!!!! HONEY!!!!!!! The flow of nectar was strong this spring, the 3-frozen saints behaved (so there was no frost), and our bees enjoyed flying around and picking the flowers that they like the most, to make a superbe honey this year. Read more about this, about this year's massive swarm, what makes honey and glass similar, and the very bad news about bees in Swiss cities, here down!
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News from the Beehives
We have spring Honey! And it is all for you. If you have made already an order, we will send you a Whatsapp/ Email to tell you when (this week) we will deliver the honey to your mailbox. If you have not made your order yet, now is the time!
More on that, below. During the month, we also captured some bee-swarms... and we also let other go and find their way... among the most interesting ones, we had to use all of our charm and ingenuity to capture an eloping queen that aimed very high.... about 10 meters high, to be accurate. We finally summoned them back and provided them with a newly DIY hand made (thanks to Izzy & the bienen-gotti, Renato) bee-box.
We also captured 'Megalodon' a massive swarm. What determines the size of the swarm? The Queen and the quality of her pheromone!. This very powerful queen had 'chemically kidnapped' 3 kilos of bees. When her pheromone is very strong, she attracts also bees from other colonies. The good news? they flew to one of our trap-swarms (The 6 bottle wine box of the photo, imagine the size!) so we were very happy to be able to recover them easily. They are now living on their new full-size bee cottage... and have started storing honey for themselves (for info, we do not collect any honey from swarms the first year, as they need to build their own reserves)
xxx
Where is my Honey...?
Your honey is ready! Spring honey is readily available. This year's mellow spring has brought a very subtle spring honey, with no dominant flower taste. A favorite for kids!
We harvested the honey frames the days of 3rth & 4th of June. Hard work, but worth it!
We wake up at 5 a.m to 'steal' the honey from the bees as soon as possible (so they are 'sleeping' and they are less aggressive). Then, we move the honey frames back home to do all the de-capping, spinning, filtering & curating. When the honey frames are empty, we bring them back to the bee colonies, so the bees can start collecting forest honey. We let the honey 'pose' for a couple of days, so the wax floats to the surface of the honey. Meanwhile, we prepare the labels (yes, we design them ourselves). When the wax has floated over the honey, we scoop the wax out. We then fill, weight and label each pot, and finally they are ready to deliver to your mailbox. A serious physical work from beginning to end. But it is worth, we love our bees -and you love their honey!
Facts & Figures
Why do beekeepers get stung less than visitors to their hives?. Well...that's not exactly true. We, beekeepers, get stung on average once or twice per visit - but we don't make a fuss about it (most of the times). .Bees DO NOT recognize their beekeepers! Beekeepers are naturally calmer and more careful around bees, so bees just leave them alone....
Scientific experiments report that bees recognize & distinguish human faces accurately, and that in the bees' brains, the memories stuck: The insects can recognize the face for up to two days. Nevertheless, the way the bees recognize faces doesn't have much to do with how humans recognize each other's: The scientists who run these experiments said: "...If we would had used potatoes, I suspect they would have obtained the same result.". Bees are evolutionary trained to recognize flowers, not people, so, for them, faces are just another shape and pattern.... which resembles much more a predator (bears), so, when threatened, they recognize the pattern of 'ears - eyes - nose - mouth', the only target areas where they could attack effectively a bear...or a human!
Did you know that...?
Today, let's talk hard-core honey science. Do you know what the glass of your windows and honey have in common? Both of them are super-amorphous solids...or liquids...or both, with a glass-liquid transition temperature. The glass–liquid transition, or glass transition, is the gradual and reversible transition in amorphous materials from a hard and relatively brittle "glassy" state into a viscous or rubbery state as the temperature is increased.
At very low temperatures, honey does not freeze solid; rather its viscosity increases. The honey becomes thick and sluggish with decreasing temperature. At −20 °C, honey may appear or even feel solid, but it continues to flow at very low rates. Honey has a glass transition between −42 and −51 °C (−44 and −60 °F). Below this temperature, honey enters a glassy state and becomes an amorphous solid (non crystalline)
Honey is such an special produce, that it can also be both a Newtonian, and a non-Newtonian fluid....but more on that, on the next issue!.
Swiss Bees
Not good news for urban Swiss bees, I fear. The rapid rise in urban apiaries is exceeding the amount of greenery available to feed both honey bees and other pollinators, according to a study from the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research.
The study, called "Challenging the sustainability of urban beekeeping using evidence from Swiss cities" found that the number of beehives across 14 Swiss cities has more than tripled in recent years, from 3,139 in 2012 to 9,370 in 2018. By 2018, these cities (among which is Zürich), were home to an average of 10 beehives /sq km of urban green space, despite the fact that this area only provides enough resources to sustain 7 hives. This is due to the increase in the number of 'urban / hobby' beekeepers, and the reduce of the urban green space areas.
"We found ... ( ) .... that available resources are insufficient to maintain present densities of beehives, which currently are unsustainable," the researchers explained.
This is terrible news, and could explain the high mortality in winter of bee stocks held by urban beekeepers. Our bee-cottage is almost 100 years old, when Witikon was only crop fields, forest (and a cemetery). Unfortunately, we are seeing - particularly in the last 5 years- a continuous reduction of the farm areas around our bee-hive, and its transformation into urban building zones... maybe time to move our bees' house to a more remote location....?