Beekeeping and the Sweet Honey Bee

“The keeping of bees is like the direction of sunbeams.”
  Henry David Thoreau

honey bee/apis

Honey (fra Germanic: honang = "the golden")  is the storing-nutrients of the honeybees which they use in connection to overwintering. The bees gather nectare from flowers but also sugar from the excrements of the aphids, known as honeydew, and from nectaries in ferns and on leaves from some hardwoods.

beehives in France

The colour of the honey mostly comes from the flowers from where the nectare is taken - and it can be from white-yellow til greenish black. The taste also depends on which flowers the bees have visited. Clover and lime honey are light and mild, while heather honey, lavender honey and rosemary honey are dark and spicy.

The type of honey can always be determined by examination of the pollen grains in the product.

bee carrying pollen

Honey types:
flower honey ( mild with a fine characteristic scent)
forest honey (dark, neutrally sweet)
heather honey (dark and spicy)
herb-honey (each spice delivers a dark and very characteristic honey)
rape-honey (very mild, light with a quick crystallization)
clover-honey (mild, light and with a gentle taste).

Beekeeper

In addition is also the artificial honey made from sugar, glucose and fruktose

Honey is used as a herbal medicine but mostly in German-speaking countries, where they have a long tradition to value the preventive effect on the health. It was known since antiquity that honey works antiseptic  - and the Egyptians used honey for treating wounds.


The content of antioxidants enzymes, vitamins and minerals make honey a more healthy product than pure sugar.

a jar of honey

Some bacterias can survive in honey which makes the product unsuitable for small children under 12 months. Their gastric fluid is not yet sour enough to kill the harmful bacterias -  and eating honey might give them a serious food poisoning( fx botulism) ( netdoktor.dk ) 


Before humans made sugar from sugar cane, honey was a very important and sought for sweetener, and often the only one known. Today honey is used as a laying on and as a sweetener which brings a characteristic mild taste to dishes, desserts, cakes, candy and drinks.


Globally are more than 20.000 species of wild bees.

Harvesting honey from wild bees is one of the earliest human activities and is still being practized in some  native societies i Africa, Australia and South America. Beekeeping was known by humans for thousands of years. At some point humans began to attempt to domesticate wild bees in artificial hives made from hollow logs, wooden boxes, pottery vessels, and woven straw baskets or "skeps". Traces of beeswax are found in pot sherds throughout the Middle East beginning about 7000 BCE.
 According to legend the Irish Saint Modomnoc introduced the beekeeping in Ireland in the 500s.

cave painting, 15.000 years ago

Depictions of humans collecting honey from wild bees date to 15,000 years ago. The honey was usually being collected by pacifying the bees with smoke and then break the tree or the cliff where the bee-colony lived which resulted in the destruction of the colony.Beekeeping in pottery vessels began about 9,000 years ago in North Africa. Honeybees were kept in Egypt from antiquity. Domestication is shown in Egyptian art from around 4,500 years ago. Simple hives and smoke were used and honey was stored in jars, some of which were found in the tombs of pharaohs such as Tutankhamun.

stele, Mesopotamia 760 BCE

There was documented attempt to indtroduce bees to dry areas of Mesopotamia in the 8th century BCE by Shamash-resh-usur, governor of Mari and Suhu. His plans were detailed in a stele of 760 BCE.

In ancient Greece the god Aristaios was the shepherd god for beehives. Beekeeping was also very specifically addressed by the Roman writers of antiquitiy like Virgil, and the life of the bees were described by Aristoteles.

In prehistoric Greece (Crete and Mycenae), there existed a system of high-status apiculture, as can be concluded from the finds of hives, smoking pots, honey extractors and other beekeeping paraphernalia in Knossos. Beekeeping was considered a highly valued industry controlled by beekeeping overseers—owners of gold rings depicting apiculture scenes.

Archaeological finds relating to beekeeping have been discovered at Bronze and Iron Age archaeological sites in Israel in the ruins of a city dating from about 900 BCE. Beekeeping has also been practiced in ancient China since antiquity. In the book "Golden Rules of Business Success" written by Fan Li (or Tao Zhu Gong) there are sections describing the art of beekeeping, stressing the importance of the quality of the wooden box used and how this can affect the quality of the honey.

P. Bruegel 1568: Beekeepers.

Beekeeping, 14th century

It wasn't until the 18th century that European understanding of the colonies and biology of bees allowed the construction of the moveable comb hive so that honey could be harvested without destroying the entire colony.

BHL - Information for everyone

BHL
Biodiversity Heritage Library

 - a great web-site with free access to endless information.

Inspiring discovery through free access to biodiversity knowledge.

The Biodiversity Heritage Library works collaboratively to make biodiversity literature openly
available to the world as part of a global biodiversity community.

BHL also serves as the foundational literature component of the Encyclopedia of Life


Maybe you know it already for it was launched in 2005, but it has developed through time. It is really a good website. Books and material from all over the world and from various periods in time. Fantastic information. 

Have a good time !
Grethe B. 

Mandrake/ Alrune

Mandragora officinarum

Mandragora officinarum

From three species wildgrowing around the Mediterranean, especially in Italy, Greece and in Asia Minor, is Mandragora officinarum the mostly spread. A long root, often thick and deeply cleft, until 60 cm, branches off a close rosette of ovale or lanceolate leaves, the long-stemmed flowers are yellow-green, the berries round and yellowish. The whole plant is very poisonous.

 fruits

The root might resemble parsnips. The leaves are dark-green elliptic and oblong and might remind about the leaves of a big Rumex crispus. When the mandragora is some years old the fruits can look like small tomatoes. 

Mandrake belongs to the nightshade family. Mandrake contains deliriant hallucinogenic tropane alkaloids, and the roots sometimes contain bifurcation, causing them to resemble human figures, their roots have long been used in magic rituals, today also in pagan traditions such as Wiccan and Odinism . 

roots

Danish names:

Alrunerod, Satans æble and Dragedukke ( Alrune's root, the Devil's apple and Dragondoll).
The Danish word Alrune comes in 1534 from German Alraun and from the Gothic word: "runa",  meaning secret, which is also the name of a mysterious creature, a prophetess, in the Roman poetry callled a witsh or a fortune-teller and often called Alrune(Alraun). In ancient times was differentiated between a male and female Alrune. People believed that the root had mysterious and secret qualities.

In a translation from Book of Genesis it was called a dockyrt ( doll-herb) (1535). In 1663 it was mentioned by the very used name dragedukke (dragon-doll),  referring to the humanlike root . The name Mandragora came possibly from Greek mandra (= cattle stable) and agora (a meeting place), because the plant often grows in cattle pens, but there are more interpretations of the mandragora-name. In the 1700s the plant was mentioned by the name Galgemand (Gallows man) - and in 1883 armesynderblomst (the root had to be digged up on gallows hill under the body of an arm synder (a poor sinner). In 1906 the alrune was also known as tryllerod ( magic root) or mestermandsrod ( mestermand = executioner).


I'll call the plant Alrune in the following section,  since the informations are from folklore collectors who were travelling the country in order to get hold of informations from local people. 
People knew the plant by the name Alrune. 


Talisman and Superstition

The alrune does not grow wild and it was possibly never cultivated in Denmark. The humanlike root was brought from the south, probably by craftsmen and gypsies. The root was rare, some of the owners were known by name, a metalcaster at a Danish ironwork owned an alrune in 1666. In 1681 an example of an alrune-root was seen by a Frenchman in "Kongens Kunstkammer" (The King's art collection) . 

People thought the herb grew out from a hanged (and innocent)  thief's blood or semen under the gallows hill, it had to be taken up at midnight in a full moon, a  black dog had to draw it up from the earth and would die doing this, you had to put cotton or wax in your ears, for if you heard the terrible scream of the plant, you would drop dead, but by blowing a trumpet at the same time as the scream was heard, it was possible to outshout the scream. Since people believed that the plant grew at the gallows hill, it might be because the executioners cultivated the plant in order to make an anesthetic or sedative for the victims before the execution.



Strange deeds were done with the root. Some meant that this strange humanlike creature had grown from its owners' blood. Together with and mixed with other superstition the alrune was considered a mysterious creature - a living dragondoll, a pixie, a troll, a witch, a bjergmand, (mountain troll), a dragon spirits, and very important also as a coin, which would draw everything to its owner and provide for his wealth. The dragondoll had to be told on New Year's morning what it had to provide for the house in the next year.

dragondoll

If something suddenly had disappeared it was said in Jutland that the dragondoll had taken it - and they spit warding off in their purse. The alrune was compared to the kid of a rat, a grey fish, a toad, a little white worm with a red head or a beetle. If people in an unexplained way came to riches, it was said about them that "he has got a dragondoll". (1880) A fisherman who caught more salmons than the others, was also accused for being the owner of a dragondoll. By the help of the dragondoll you could draw all luck from your neighblours and become rich yourself.

Some people, who owned a dragondoll, never lacked money. This was certainly true about the bailiff in Ry Mølle, and the landlord of the manor Strårup at Kolding owned also such a little creature, his dragondoll looked like a little living human in the chest of drawers, it could sit up and look at people. A rich farmer had the dragondoll in a box in his corner cabinet, and he always kept the key in his money purse. The old and very rich Rasmus Kræmmer from Viemose i Sjælland owned a very small dragondoll - every time he opened its box in a hanging cupboard, it was sitting there with a skilling in its mouth.

foto: gb

If you at midnight went around a churchyard three times in the name of the devil, you would meet someone who asked you if you wanted a valuable coin or a dragondoll,  the coin was sure to get, but the doll gave most money. A woman at Funen passed a market place and saw a sweet little doll in a box, and when she lifted the doll, a new moneynote lay under it, she got frightened and went home, but when she entered the house the box with the doll was at the table.

If people suspected a woman to be a witch, she was put upon a chair with an alrune-root under the seat, and the witch would be squirming and wiggling.

If a guy had a dragondoll under his shirt, he would win the heart of every girl. (1760) A girl who dressed in a frivolous manner, was called a dragondoll. But it was also said that the alrunes which grew around the big longdolmen "Alrunes' grave" at the Danish island Alrø, was magic medicine against Cupid's arrow shots.

Fanefjord kirke, foto: grethe bachmann

It was said that many women owned such a little doll in a box, and this was of course the devil himself, for if someone kept him for nine years, they had to belong to him after death. For the same reason the devil moved from one woman to another.

1890: It was not easy to get rid of a dragondoll. Everyone was scared of being the tenth owner. The owner of a dragondoll was in collusion with the devil and could not get rid of it without selling it;  if he gave it away or threw it away it came back at once. A man threw it in a lake, Lyng Sø in Jutland, but in vain. It came back to him.


With a piece of root in the pocket the purse would never be empty and one could win games and be free from disease. The plant's contents of poisonous alkaloids  were used in "the flying-ointments" of the witches.



Medicine
Alrune was believed to be a plant which could cure every disease in the world. But if the root was used in a wrong way, it might provoke insanity. The plant was used as an aphrodisiac and in order to promote fertility. It was also used as an anesthetic.
The alrune was introduced in the pharmacies in 1672.
Wine decoct eased pains after operation and gave sleep afterwards. In 1520, the plant was part of a painkilling ointment. 1577: "If the root is cooked in wine it soon becomes intoxicating". Alrune was used against headache in East Jutland.
It was also used in livestock diseases. 







Literature.
The mandragora play a main role in the world's literature. It was known from the Bible and the Oddyssey, and many writers have mentioned and used this famous herb in their books.  Machiavelli wrote in 1518 a play called Mandragola and Shakespeare refers to mandrake four times under the name of mandragore, like in Anthony and Cleopatra, where Cleopatra says: "Give me to drink mandragora that I might sleep out this great gap of time. My Anthony is away". In Romeo and Juliet is said "Shrieks like mandrakes torn out of earth".
In Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling mandrakes can be found in the Hogwarts greenhouses. When pulled out of the earth, they resemble humans, and just as in the mythology, the cry is fatal. The mandrake can also revive those who have been petrified. Also John Steinbeck and Terry Pratchett have the mandrake root in their works.


Popular Culture
The four episode Doctor Who serial "The Masque of the Mandragora" by Louis Marks, broadcast in September 1976, features a living energy creature called the Mandragora Helix, a fragment of which hitches a lift to earth in the TARDIS and possesses and absorbs an Italian court astrologer towards the eventual aim of galactic domination.
Mandragoras appear as monsters in many video games, particularly in RPGs such as the Final Fantasy series.
In the film "Shakespeare in Love", Will Shakespeare, frustrated by writer's block, orders a mandragora in the pub.

Danish rock band: 
Alrune Rod (formed 1968) was a Danish psychedelic rock band.  

Source: V. J. Brøndegaard, folk og flora, Dansk Etnobotanik, bd. 4,1979. Wikipedia: Alrune and Mandragora 

photo: wikipedia and wikimedia.

Two Boys selling their irritating little Sister....

I've got a little book with short stories about a rather unusual Copenhagen family in the Victorian Age in 1890-1900s.  The author, Benjamin Jacobsen, wrote the stories as fictional memoirs. The episodes are told with a vigorous imagination and a good sense of the comical effect. His Victorian home is inhabited with some very striking personalities. The father, a botany-professor Edvard Jacobsen, the mother Wilhelmine, six children, Benjamin the oldest, Oscar, Emil and baby Victor and two girls, Magda and Anna, plus the grandmother, a very tough old lady and two housemaids. All living in a large apartment opposite the King's Garden in Copenhagen around 1900s. I'll do my best to translate one of the short stories for you, where two brothers, Benjamin and Oscar make an attempt to sell their sister Anna to a sailor in Nyhavn, a quarter near the Royal theater and at the old wharf, today it's a popular place with some fine old houses and cafés and restaurants along the kanal. At that time around the 1900s it was mostly a place where the sailors were staying. Benjamin is telling the story. ( the maid mentioned is the kitchen maid, Marie)

"White Slavetrade."


I was never a reflecting nature, my actions were all my life   mostly dictated by temper and intuition. When I was a child I never thought about the consequences of my behaviour, but I have tried to fight this bad habit through my long life. I often wondered how we children almost always got away with our misdeeds with the skin on our nose - we really did not deserve that. We were not worthy of such luck. The story about Oscar and I selling our sister Anna to the white slavetrade proves this perfectly.

It happened in September 1888. Oscar and I were really annoyed with Anna. She was actually a sweet little girl, although a little prickly by nature. She used every opportunity to correct her brothers and sisters. I was irritated on their behalf  - I don't quite remember, but I probably thought that something effective had to be done to achieve some peace in the house.

The idea came as lightning from a clear sky one day, where she had been teasing and harrassing Oscar. He stood blubbering in our room, his round machine-cut head was swollen with crying.
" Oscar," I said quietly. " Oscar, don't be sorry. We'll sell her."
" What? " Oscar said, tears running.
" We'll sell her to the white slavetrade."
" What's that?"
" I'm not quite sure, but is is said to be terrible for a woman to be sold as a slave -  Marie says so."
" No one will buy Anna," said Oscar disheartened, but with a flame of hope in his wet eyes.
" You'll never know," I said encouraging. "We might find someone who's drunk."
" We'll have to talk more about this," said Oscar and blew his nose.

We made strange and hatefull plans for several days, but none seemed to be realistic. It was obvious that Anna would smell the rat at once, if we asked her to crawl inside a bag - just for fun of course. And although she was not fat like sister Magda, we would really be in trouble, if we had to carry her, gagged and tied behind her back, downstairs and over into the King's Garden, where we wanted to meet a buyer. But mr.  Nicolajsen was the guard in the King's Garden, and he would simply not be the silent bystander of a slavemarket. He was confided to the maintenance of peace and order. We had to find another place. A place where the slavetrade was a common phenomenon.

Nyhavn! Why didn't we consider Nyhavn before? Here were sailors in numbers. They went to faraway and strange foreign countries where the black chiefs lived, who for some reason were particular appreciative of white slaves. If we sold Anna cheaply, a sailor might earn a good portion of money on her.
" Don't you think she's too dark?" said Oscar. "She's got brown hair. Inger was better, but she hasn't been teasing us."
Inger was our blonde cousin.
" We'll sell her very cheaply if she's too dark," I said. " And Inger is difficult to get hold of."
I was right in the last mentioned. Inger lived in Jutland.
So we stuck to Anna, prepared that the market was a little slack of slave girls with brown hair.

We made a really dirty approach. Low and evil. We lured her with licorice, which she loved. We bought each a bag of licorice figures and told our siblings that we went out for a walk -  we wanted to eat licorice. We were rustling with the bags and eating licorice figures with big gestures.
Everything went as calculated. Our siblings flocked around us, asking if they might join us, they claimed that they had actually thought of going out for a walk now and so on. Everyone came, except Emil. He didn't like licorice.

We graciously chose Anna as our companion and went down the street together. When we came to the King's square, we first took a walk around the horse figure, then we walked across the square to the Academy and came slowly closer to the forbidden place, while we were filling licorice on Anna in an increasing speed. She was chewing and chewing, and her only thought was to finish the mouthful and get some more. She had no idea that she would soon be translated into hard cash.

Thus it came about that an elderly, sligthly drunk man of the sea suddenly stood face to face with three children, of whom one was occupied by eating licorice from two bags, obviously completely at her disposal. The sailor tried to take evasion on starboard. Well, well. A new attempt, this time on portside. With no result. He realized that the boys intentionally were blocking his way, trying to avoke his attention - in all reverence and hat in hand. They were decent boys!
" What's wrong, boys?" he said with a growl.
" Excuse me, sir," I said. " Do you buy slaves?"
I can still see his face in front of me. His jaw lowered slowly, while the eyebrows went up. He did a swallowing and said.
" Ask me again , boy. And in the same words."
I repeated. " Excuse me sir, do you buy slaves?" and I added as an explanation:  "White slaves, sir."
Oscar interrupted me.
" Well, it is a slave girl we've got for sale, and she's not quite white, she's got brown hair."
The sailor composed himself.
" Are you slavemongers, children ?"
" Not exactly. We've only got one for sale, " I said.
" It's that one over there," Oscar said and pointed at Anna, who stood outside hearing range with her bags. And we both began to explain how strong and healthy she was. Oscar was the best. Definitely. But he had his reasons. He depicted imaginatively how she, although she was a Scandinavian, was able to endure the sunshine all day, especially if she was allowed to go bathing twice a day.
" And she's cheap," I said.
" Yes, because she's got brown hair," Oscar added. "But we've got a real white slave we might offer you another time. She lives in Jutland."
" How much is this licorice-eating kid?"  the sailor finally asked.
I pushed Oscar forward. His commercial talents were already famous in the family. Oscar took a deep breath, then he said:
" Two crowns."
" You are two devils. Do you sell your sister for two crowns?"
" She is an evil woman," Oscar said gloomily.
The sailor stood swaying for a moment. Then he pulled two crowns from his pocket, gave them to Oscar and said:
" Get lost, you slavemongers."

And as quick as lightning we run up to the King's square with the terrible sound of Anna's screams in our ears. A calloused hand had caught her arm, preventing her from following her fraudulent brothers.
When we came to our street, we went very slowly down the street and up to the front door, and we dared not look at each other in fear of starting to burst into tears. A moment after we had joined the dinner table, mother asked Magda to fetch Anna, and I felt so miserable that I was on the edge of vomitting.
Magda came back, announcing that Anna wasn't at home.
" Didn't Anna come back with you?" mother asked Oscar and I.
She got no reply. We raised a howl from the second world. We cried and cried without being able to speak a word. This was of course most alarming to our parents, who stood there shooking us to get an answer on their question.
" Where is Anna ?"
Emil had been watching this upsetting scene with no sign of compassion. He had just eaten his portion of porridge, and with a sigh he put down his spoon and said: " She is dead, I suppose."  I regained my voice. I felt I had to contradict this horrible presumption. After some vain attempts of speaking I managed to get some words up.
" We - we sold her in  Nyhavn. "
" For how much?" asked Emil.
" Two crowns, " Oscar said to himself.
" Wilhelmine, be strong, " father said to mother, who was white in her face and wringing her hands. Then he addressed us again in a much too mild tone:
" And you, my dear sons, would kindly tell me to whom you have sold your sister in Nyhavn for two crowns."
" To a drunken sailor," I said.
" Well. And you do not know this gentleman's ship or address?"
" No."
" Wilhelmine, I'm going down to the police station. Continue your dinner. Everything will probably be okay." And father rushed out of the door.

He didn't come far. On the stairs he met the sailor and Anna.
The honest man told father that he had bought his daughter in Nyhavn for two crowns from some of the worst brood of the devil,  the girl's own brothers, and the honoured gentleman's own sons.  He had paid two crowns to prevent the girl from suffering any harm in the claws of those two bandits, and now he would allow himself to go out and get so drunk that he would have to guess what was up and what was down.
For this pretty purpose father gave him plentiful pecuniary assistance.

And now Anna.! Yes, I know her tricks. She was always like that. In the beginning she was completely indifferent to it all. The scream she uttered was just nonsense. She even had the nerve - one week after Oscar and I could sit on a chair again without difficulties -  to suggest without  further ado that Oscar, she and I went for a walk in Nyhavn "like we did last week."
We had been forced to give her two crowns.
 But Oscar and I had given up the white slavetrade for good.


Source: Benjamin Jacobsen: Midt i en Klunketid", first published in 1955.  

copy of drawing from the book by Des Asmussen.

Harrild Hede, The Jutland Heath in August

The heath is a special place on a day with no humans to see far and wide except us two people and no sound from traffic or anything. It's so quiet. Like Björk sings: "It's oh, so quiet". Except for the humming little bees!

But I can imagine how it must have been to wander on the large heath from house to house, where the distances were far, to overnight by a heath-farmer and his wife or sleep out in the open air with the starry sky above. Many people lived like that , they had to in order to earn a living. They used the heather twigs for brooms and other things and they sold some heather peat, but they also sold woolen things like homeknit woolen socks, perfect and warm for the winter season, easy to bring with them and easy to sell, and this was tbe first beginning of the wool-fabrication in the middle of Jutland with the energetic  town Herning as a center of the wool-industry. But this is not about the wool - this is about the Jutland heath. And the heath has a special place in a Jutlander's heart.

Holtum Aa River.

Here at Holtum Aa river by Harrild a Danish movie was made in the early forties about some vagabonds, one of the most popular comedies in Danish film-history. The hero, who was one of our most beloved actors, was singing a lovely and happy summer song, which is still being played in the radio. And it is odd that he was walking here on this place singing this song.
Well, look at the photo, I stood there for some time imagining something - and the photo shows surprisingly perfect what I mean. Couldn't you just imagine Hamlet's Ophelia coming floating along upon the twining waterplants with the pretty white flowers? If you are a romantic soul I'm sure you could imagine just that !

John Millais, Ophelia (Tate Gallery)

Queen Gertrud about Ophelia's death:
"..............when down she fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide, and mermaidlike awhile they bore her up. ......................but long it could not be till that her garments, heavy with their drink, pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay to muddy death".   

Harrild Hede lies between the towns Ikast and Brande, just west of the Jutland  Ridge ( den Jyske Højderyg) in one of the largest wastelands of Mid Jutland. Here is an opportunity to experience open heath and grass heath, which alternates between plantation and clean, fast-flowing water-streams. Here is also a special fauna, since this nature gives good conditions for wild deer and some rare birds. In the southern part of the land are rests of prehistoric fields, some north-south turned, low, parallel earth banks, each with a distance between 20-25 meters.



Skov og Naturstyrelsen ( Forest and Nature Management)  takes care of the heath by removing unwanted tree-growth and by mowing and burn lesser areas at a time, by which the heather - which usually has got a longevity of ab. 25 years -  will be renewed.  The fringes along the water streams are being grazed in order not to leap into forest and to create good conditions for insects and flowers. The forest cultivation is given up in the future upon the unfit localitites, which then are allowed to become heath or fringe. In the cultivated forest the management will try to establish a network of belts, consisting of stable tree-species like oak, forest fir and larch. The purpose is to create a larger variation.

The image is a painting by Johan Fr. Vermehren from 1855: En jysk fårehyrde på heden (A Jutland shepherd on the heath. The painting is at Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen. 

Harrild Hede holds several animals and plants, which are typically found in places like in these heaths and their connected moist lands. Plants are besides heather typically bell-heather, rosemary heather, cranberry, crowberry, lingbonberry and blueberry. The heather produces nectare which attracts the bees, and a honey from the heather (Danish: lynghonning) is a fine and expensive honey.

Red-backed shrike (adult and young)

Here breeds Eurasian teal, Wood sandpiper, Common snipe, Nightjar, Eurasian wryneck, Black woodpecker, Great-grey shrike and Redbacked shrike, Wood lark and Whinchat etc. Many other birds are seen like the White-tailed eagle, the Golden eagle, Cranes, Eurasian hobby, Red-footed falcon - several owls like the Eurasian eagle-owl, the Long-eared owl, and the Tawny owl etc. Last year and in 2010 a Short-toed Snake eagle stayed in the area for a period. In the forested areas is a big flock of roe deer and red deer, especially seen in the morning and evening hours. There are of course also many reptiles and  amphibians. And insects, ab. 30 dragonfly-species and 45 butterfly-species.

beehives

enlarge

According to this list of flora and fauna I should really have lots of photos of  birds and animals in this post, but I wasn't there in the morning or in the evening hours. There were no butterflies here today - which is a mystery.  Maybe next year. But I did meet millions of bees, they were humming and summing and working, they were fetching honey for the many beehives which stood along the edge of the forest eveywhere, and I saw them fetching water too. The bees are divided into many job-categories. Did you know that? I didn't. Not in this particular way. Those little bees (please enlarge the photos)  were the water fetchers. They use the water to cool the beehive, not to drink it.

A water fetcher

nurse and housekeeper

enlarge

Other bee-jobs: builder, packing pollen, honey-fetcher, guard, blowing-bee, scout, housekeeper, nursing kids
 

  A significant part of Harrild Hede was listed in 1954 in order to keep and take care of this fragile piece of nature, but this land is just a rest of the large heath which covered most of the Jutland peninsula about 100-200 years ago. In the 1700s the heath covered 1/2 of Jutland.   Today the large, widespread heath has almost disappeared, but not without a trace. There are marked traces in place names and farms and in the language and traditions - and the heath has also left rich traces in art and litterature. Some of  the most wellknown and loved Jutland poets are the heath-romantic writer and pioneer, Steen Steensen Blicher, and the environmentalist and preservation activist, Jeppe Aajær, who fought a fierce fight to save the Jutland heath from cultivation, and the smallholders' poet, Johan Skjoldborg, who wrote about  the smallholders and their conditions on the heath -  and finally H.C. Andersen, who wrote the wonderful Jutland national song.

What the heather was used for:
Bronze Age hills were often built upon heather-peat.  Up till about 100-200 years ago the heather was used by the heath-farmer for sheep and cattle fodder, it was used for fuel and thatching roofs, in early times even for building the house, it was good as a bed.straw in the alcove, as backfilling on sandy heath roads, and what was left and not used by the farmer at home was sold in the nearest town on the market - or the heath-farmer went from door to door in the large heath, staying out for weeks, selling brooms and other things made by heather and crossberry twigs, and selling some heather peat for peoples' stoves. The green heather was used for dyeing wool browngreen - and with alum the wool was dyed lemon yellow.

Harrild Hede is one of Denmark's most important bird habitats and also an Ef-habitat area. 3 hiking paths are marked in the area - and there are fishing places at Holtum Aa river. Brochures and information for free at the Tourist Bureaus and at the libraries -  and at the entrance to Harrild Hede itself.  Smoking is forbidden in the area due of fire hazard.

Are you ready for a walk? The path is longer than you think.....

I tried to catch a dragonfly - do you see a dragonfly in the clouds ?

...but then came a helicopter. What a dragonfly!!

photo August 2012 Harrild Hede, Jutland: grethe bachmann

Landscape, Forest, Manor, Marina - Strange Flora, Black Cat and other Things by Vejle Fjord and near Horsens.

Vejle fjord, Fakkegrav, stig bachmann nielsen, Naturplan foto.

The northern side of Vejle fjord is marked by tall clay-slopes and coastal hardwoods. The area is a herregårdslandskab (manor landscape) with the castle of Rosenvold and the manor of Barritskov, with large forests and unbroken fields. Large sections of the hardwood-edge along the coast is listed from aesthetic reasons. Close to the coast at the forest of Staksrode are large slide-terasses where the ground has subsided. In the 1950s a scout camp woke up on a rainy night and discovered that the camp with tents, kitchen and campfire was sinking about three meters.



The tall beeches stand as close to the coast as they possibly can The forests along the fjord are called  "Strandskoven på lerfødder". (The beach wood on clay feet). The old tall beeches lie as toppled trunks in a pretty disorder, the result of huge slides in the slope. The trees are toppling down now and then, when the plastic clay of the banks is sliding down into the fjord. The forest is also one of the most important forests of breeding birds of prey in the Vejle district, and several other rare birds are breeding in the forest. The place by Rosenvold is known as a fine migration place. In Staksrode Skov grows the rare Stor Gøgeurt (Orchis purpurea/Lady Orchid) and other rare orchids.


The Caretaker Project:
 A caretaker project is surveying and gathering knowledge about the endangered and rare breeding birds in Denmark. In the project are 45 bird species, and the project runs from 2008-2013; each species is connected to a voluntary caretaker group. 


Barritskov on the northern side of Vejle fjord is an old farm known from the 1200s. Today it is known for Årstidernes Pakkeri (Seasons' Packing), which distributes vegetables, fruit and meat, packed in wooden boxes at Barritskov. In the old main building the firm works on communication, IT , economy and planning for the three farms connected to the Seasons and for the forests around Barritskov. The idea of the firm is to recreate the close connection between cultivation of the land and the joy by meals filled with quality commodities, health, flavors and presence. The Seasons' Packing is a great succes. They started in 1996 with 100 members, who fetched the food packages themselves. Now they are distributing to the whole country, delivering the package to the customer's door.

Rosenvold castle is a manor on the northern side of Vejle fjord, only with a 10 km distance to Barritskov. In the early Middle Ages it was a borg (= medieval castle) . It was demolished in the late 1300s on the
order of queen Margrethe I. The present building is from 1585, built by Karen Gyldenstierne, a widow after Holger Rosenkrantz. So you see, here you've got the names Gyldenstierne and Rosenkrantz, which Shakespeare used in his "Hamlet"! Rosenvold is actually a manor, but it is called a castle because it had a close royal connection to king Christian IV. Rosenvold is listed in class A. It has its own camping and a small marina.



Herregårdslandskab/Manor Landscape
When you look across a typical Danish landscape you see farms and houses spread near and far, surrounded by small fields, here and there a village with a church tower sticking up, it's a landscape with small lines, but there are landscapes of another type around the manors, where you can look across unbroken fields, where you drive through long avenues of old trees, and where you meet old buildings of cultural importance.  These landscapes are in Denmark often being preserved by listing or via local politics, where new buildings and change of terrain are prevented. A landscape like this is called a herregårdslandskab. The English translation must be a manor landscape. 
 
I like the Danish manor landscapes with  those large lines, where the eye can see far and wide. I don't think my photos will show you what the eye can see. Some English movies can. The director Ang Lee shows it in landscapes in "Sense and Sensibility", and there is also a beautiful scenery in the TV-series "Pride and Prejudice", the version with Colin Firth from 1995 is the best. I'm always looking out for a sunhazed wide landscape, it is a rare thing to meet, and my photos do no give justice to them.


















Downside Rosenvold castle and the forest is a small marina. It lies desolate at this time of the year, and the boats are all up on land. From the marina and the jetties is a fine view across Vejle fjord and over to the coastal beech wood at Fakkegrav and Staksrode. 



Church Dikes.
Along and upon church dikes is often a special flora with relict plants or feral plants. At a church dike in the village of Hornum was a strange plant I have never seen before. It's called Kermesbær, in English Poke Weed. Generic name Phytolacca, it's native to North America, South America, East Asia and New Zealand. The generic name derives from the Greek word phytos, meaning plant and the Latin word lacca, meaning red dye. The plant is poisonous to mammals, but not to birds. In some places people cook the young leaves of the plant which should remove the dangerous toxins.
From Wikipedia: Since pioneer times, pokeweed has been used as a folk remedy to treat many ailments. (...) Independent researchers are investigating phytolacca's use in treating AIDS and cancer patients. Especially to those who have not been properly trained in its use, pokeweed should be considered dangerous and possibly deadly.  (...) Pokeweed berries yield a red ink or dye, which was once used by aboriginal Americans to decorate their horses. Many letters written home during the American Civil War were written in pokeberry ink; the writing in these surviving letters appears brown. The red juice has also been used to symbolize blood, as in the anti-slavery protest of Benjamin Lay. A rich brown dye can be made by soaking fabrics in fermenting berries in a hollowed-out pumpkin.

My question:
Wikipedia says: aboriginal Americans. Is that correct?  I thought it should be native Americans.


                                           


  By the church dike came an affectionate cat up to us. The little black cat with the fine silken fur followed us around until we went out from the church yard again.
                                          

Is there someone inside the church ?

Other places by Vejle fjord and the Horsens district:

driving along winding roads

passing smiling landscapes

The farmer is out working today

lovely view from the hill - the day had a certain sunhaze

Sweet Jersey cows give fine cream

view from a church yard across a harvested corn field

and old chestnut tree by the church dike

a black horse in a sunhazed landscape

At Bygholm Aa

villa with a small arbour (to the left)

two lovely bull calves

a village with an old  church

overgrown grave hill

tax with berries on the church yard

A nice country house

colourful stone at the beach

this must really be an old model!

At Bygholm Aa river

Bygholm Aa river

At Bygholm Aa river

landscape

pretty cattle

sunhazed landscape

where's the handyman?

lots and lots of lovely apples this year!

photo Vejle fjord and Horsens district October 2011: grethe bachmann