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.

The Bees are buzzing now................

What happens in Spring?


When the temperature is above 7-8 Celsius the bees wake up and start their work. A bee family has about 20.000 working bees in early spring. The bees have been waiting through winter in the beehive and in the center of the bees is the queen, well protected from the cold.



In the first month of spring the bees gather pollen,  especially the yellow catkins of the willows give an important source of protein. If you get a close look at a bee  near a willow tree, you'll see it wearing big pants filled with golden pollen. The bees, who are fed with pollen in spring, are the same who are pollinating the fruit trees in April and May. While gathering pollen the working bees are vey busy, they have to fly 20.000 trips to cover the need of pollen for the beehive. If it is raining, the bees have to use the deposits from the previous years. But when summer arrives they can gather more pollen than they use.

bees gathering water

The Queen bee lays 200 eggs in each 24 hours during April. Almost all eggs are working bees, unfertilized eggs are male bees or drones. They must be hatched in April to reach maturity for the swarming season in May. All the other eggs are female bees, but only the Queen bee can lay eggs.



When summer is near the number of bees in the family have raised till 60.000 -  and with so many bees in the same family, the Queen bee cannot control them anymore. The working bees build one or several special cells - Queen cells. They are larger than the working cells and hang down vertical. The Queen bee lays a common fertilized egg in the queen cells. When the eggs are hatched the larvae is fed with a special fodder - gele royal . This makes the larvae grow fast and be larger than the working bees. The larvae will become a new Queen.

Before the new Queen leaves her cell, the old Queen collects about half her subjects and leaves the beehive - she knows, she will lose to the new Queen if she stays. The old Queen and her following subjects gather in one big brown living lump upon a tree or a branch. During the next many hours some bees fly to and fro the place of residence, they are scouts looking for a new place where the bee family can live. When they come back to the other bees they tell them about their discoveries by dancing a special dance outside the lump. And when many scouts are dancing the same dance, they are telling about the same place. The big swarm flies up again and leaves and the scout bees fly through the swarm again and again to lead them to their new residence.






Source: Naturstyrelsen, Miljøministeriet: Forår, Bierne summer. 

photo: grethe bachmann
photo: yellow flower and bee: stig bachmann nielsen, naturplan.dk

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

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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

New Scientific Research

Antidepressives in the Water:





The rising use of antidepressives is visible in nature, where the level is rising in river mouths and coastal areas. Shrimps that live in water with rests of antidepressive medicine are five times more inclined to swim towards the light and thereby be eaten. This is shown in a scientific research from the University in Portsmouth - and this might be a serious problem. The shrimp plays an important role in the food chain - and a change in its natural behaviour can turn the natural balance in the eco-system upside down, says the leader of the research dr. Alex Ford.



The Honey Bee in Crisis.
There are problems in the honey-bee pollination right now. Since 2006 has a mysterious syndrome spread, where the honey-bees suddenly and without known reasons leave their hives. This was one of the themes at a World's Insect-Congress at Copenhagen's University this summer. 750 leading scientists from over 40 various countries met in order to exchange knowledge and experience from the new research-results, among others the honey-bee problems. This "Colony Collapse Disorder", as it is named, is an increasing problem for bee-keepers in Europe and North America, and it might threaten the honey-bee's crucial pollination of plants. The scientists of the congress met the Danish bee-keepers to try to find an explanation of the mystery. The solution might be found in the new DNA-technology. The value of bee-pollination in Denmark is about 700 million kroner, which was stated by Institute of Agriculture and Ecology at Copenhagen's University in 2007. Besides this is the huge importance the bees have on the biodiversity in our wild nature. The increased use of pesticides in the farmland and a decline in the number of bee-keepers has also marked the honey-bee's pollination.

Source: Danmarks Naturfredningsforening, Natur & Miljø, nr. 3, September 2010.

photo 2008/2010: grethe bachmann

The Honey Bee is in Danger

Life has gradually become an obstacle race for insects like honey bees - they live by flying from flower to flower and return to their large family with pollen and nectar which they change into honey.

Poison, slurry and gigantic corn fields do not harmonize with the bees' need for a clean environment with lots of flowers, bushes, trees and various crops. The development of the industrial agriculture has created a visible distance between the flowers in the landscape, and the population of Danish bee-families have gone from ab. 200.000 in the years around 1950 till ab. 80.000 in these years. The work of honey bees from early spring till late autumn is of crucial importance for the diversity in the nature.

The honey bees are among the most important assistants for the fertility of the flora. Also for the hundreds of plant species which are used in farming, foresting and in the gardens are the bee- pollination of crucial importance. Crops like winter rape and clover are completely dependent on the bee-pollination. Also all plants which seed, like fruit trees, berry-bushes and other similar plants. Danmarks Jordbrugsforskning (research) has estimated that the Danish honey bee- pollination only in the agriculture and in fruit and berry-cultivation represents a value of at least 1 billion kroner. The EU-commission is more concrete in its evaluation of the good deeds of the bees when it's about money. According to EU the bees' work represents ab. three billion kroner a year. (in DK) At the same time is concluded that the value of the pollination of the bees and the following fertility is 30-50 times higher than the value of the honey-production which in Denmark is ab. 60 million kroner a year.

The industrial agriculture has meant that the fields grew larger and larger. Stone-fences, earth banks and lots of hedgerows disappeared, and the distance between the small uncultivated oases for the flowers and bees grew longer and longer.



The verges and ditch-edges were once a study in a diversity of flowers which were good for the honey bees and other pollinating insects. Today are only few plant-species in those places. The heaths are attractive for the bees, but they are now in a crisis, caused by nutrient-rich precipitation. The nitrogen gives several grass species good living conditions at the expense of the heather.

The honeybee and all other pollinating insects lost terrain when 117.000 hectare fallow fields were ploughed and cultivated in 2008 - an area the size of the island Lolland simply disappeared as a habitat for bees.

All in all - the honey bee, the bumblebee, the butterflies and other pollinating insects are in danger. Some species have already disappeared never to return. Fewer pollinating insects will effect us more than we imagine right now - also in our daily economy. Fewer vegetables, berries, fruit will empty our pockets! So it's best for all of us, if there are more uncultivated places for bees, butterflies and other pollinating insects.

Source: Natur og Miljø, Danmarks Naturfredningsforening, Nr. 1, Jan Skriver, Honningbien.

photo March 2010: stig bachmann nielsen, Naturplan Foto