With nearly all this years clients hives having now been harvested, it is fascinating to see the regional variations and amounts of honey per hive. In our experience, urban hives have a longer season or a more elongated nectar flow than rural hives. This can be put down to a wider variety of flora and fauna, a slightly higher temperature in built up areas and possibly less exposure to winds, rains etc. Amongst our clientele, are the 60 staff at Estee Lauder in Covent Garden. They have two hives on their roof terrace. For those who live in rural areas, and cannot comprehend a city/urban hive, it is worth noting that within the range of the bees in those hives are 4 royal parks, as well as the mass of loved and cherished gardens, window boxes, parks, flower stalls etc etc, that help provide the urban bees with all their requirements. The idea that they are polutted by fumes and general city muck does not bare fruit when you see, smell or taste the honey. Honey bees are masters at adapting to their surroudings.
Some of our urban clients have had bumper crops this year including David in Blackheath. We refer to his single hive as "The honey factory". The output has been immense again this year, tipping the scales at approximately 90lbs.
Not all our clients hives behave quite so orderly and the levels of maintenance vary. The summer weather, for the second year running proved unpredictable, with a fantastically warm early spring, which was wonderful, followed by a dull early summer and a cold wet August. Most of our first year clients this year have had good colony expansion and good honey production. We always er on the side of conservative when extracting honey from a year 1 hive. In the long run, it is better to leave the bees an excess of honey for their first winter, rather than bee greedy for ourselves and possibly starve the bees of their food when they need it most. The upside to this cautious approach, is that in it's second year, with everyting in the colony bursting into action come spring, the yield is likely to be much higher. Patience in beekeeping seems to nearly always pay off.
Winter is fast approaching. Some of our clients worry about the hives being exposed and un protected during the cold days and nights. However, as many already know, so long as the colony is strong and they have everything they need, the bees goes into slow down, but not hibernation. They all feed on their honey, to give them energy. This means they can then rub against each other and create warmth. Beekeepers are tempted to go through their hives in winter, but in our experience, it is best left alone. Imagine spending a lot of time getting your house up to a good temperature on a cold day and then someone comes along , removes your roof, re-arranges the walls and furniture, generally makes a nuisance of themselves and then puts the roof back on and dissapears ! We would not be best pleased.
Apologies for less blogs than we wanted to publish. We have just been rather busy. Now winter is round the corner, we will endeavour to post blogs more regularly.
To finish, we thought it appropriate to remind all our clients (and anyone else) with a jar of local un- pasturised honey in their cupboard, that as the cold and flu season is nearly upon us, a teaspoon of honey, on its own, first thing in the morning, will help stave off this years bugs. None of the health benefits of our clients honey is lost due to the cold process of extraction we carry out. Adding the honey to tea or coffee can act as a wonderful, natural sweetner, but in that process alone, a lot of the health beneficial properties of the honey will be lost through the heat of the water. Reaping those benefits is just one more reason to be ever grateful to the bees in our environment.
