Priceless Honey

As everyone who lives in the West knows, this has been a long, cold, wet, miserable Spring.  There was not a single blossom until the middle of May, so the bees had had nothing to eat since last September (except what we fed them).

Finally we have been rewarded with warm weather and lots of beautiful flowers.  The bees have been going crazy.  The queen lays about 5000 eggs a day and, at that rate, they begin to run out of room and sometimes decide to go looking for new quarters.  We caught a swarm from our neighbours but might have lost a swarm or two from our own bees that we didn’t notice.

The other part of this story is that our little hamlet is being torn apart with the unilateral decision taken by our town council to fog the town for mosquitoes (another result of the long wet Spring).  At the last town council meeting, many of us went down to try to change their minds.  There were 3 beekeeper families, an organic farmer, a woman who has acute sensitivity to chemicals and had a stroke last time they sprayed, families with asthmatic children, and others who didn’t appreciate not being consulted.  We all made our case and suggested alternatives to spraying but it made no difference.  I was stunned.  They said it was up to us to protect our bees by covering them on the evening of each weekly spray and the poor stroke-prone woman should just stay indoors.

So, once it was clear the spraying would happen, we decided to harvest the honey without delay.  Last Friday was the day.  Once we started tasting the honey as it was flying out of the frames, we knew we had something special.  Actually, it’s probably the best honey I’ve ever tasted.  It’s very flowery and fragrant.  We only got 35 pounds from the three hives that seemed to be ready for harvesting and I am determined not to let it all slip through my fingers too soon.  We have so many friends, relatives, neighbours and co-workers who want our honey.

When you have something so precious, the only thing to do is give it away rather than sell it.  Last Saturday at the farmer’s market, I offered all of my customers a spoonful of honey so they would know what great honey tastes like. Some of the other people who will get honey: the family that gave us their excess hens and roosters, the lady who gave us exercise balls when she heard of Ray’s back pain, my friend who was the first one in this town to offer me her friendship,  our pastor who let us put a hive on his property, a young farmer who worked long hours to take care of our hay, a neighbour who noticed Ray’s tractor stuck in the muddy field and tactfully offered to pull it out, and others who have been so sweet to us.  How nice it is to have something beautiful to give in return, to surprise people who didn’t expect anything for their kindnesses.  What a lovely way to participate in this little community.  We are grateful.