By Maryanna Gabriel
"Well," said Pooh, "what I like best-" and then he had to stop and think.
Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there
was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than
when you were, but he didn't know what it was called."
A.A. Milne The House At Pooh Corner
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| I Remove Wax Caps |
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| Honey House |
Travelling in a different sort of way I went with my neighbour this morning on a honey hunting expedition. I put on lots of clothes and followed her into her honey house with a veil on. She opened up the hives and we examined the combs for honey and brood commenting on the state of the blackberry flowers being so much better this year than last and the fact that the honey is on the brink of seriously flowing as a result. She was most appreciative that having bees increased the vegetable and flower output on her farm. Carefully she selected the combs she wished to extract and off we traipsed to do just that. She put me to work removing the wax caps. She told me that this mixture was wonderful for healing sore throats. Bees make something called propolis which has antifungal properties which they collect from the sap of the conifers here. It helps protect them from disease so that may be why this cap mixture is so helpful. Commercial beekeepers discourage the bees from making propolis because a lighter coloured honey is commercially more viable. Antibiotics are given which is one of the many difficulties bees are encountering today. In actual fact, the darker honey is far more nutritious. After we put the combs in a centrifuge the honey flowed on tap.
