I was chatting to a fellow beekeeper earlier in the month and he told me this great story:
Back in the Sixties, there were no restrictions on beehives, honey or basically any sense of bio-security. So, this old fellow was transporting a semi-trailer of beehives from the East Coast, back to Perth across the Nullarbor. More than 200 hives on the back of this truck, summer and stinking. And if you've seen a beekeepers truck, the 'modern' ones you see now are all from the 70's - old, faded, farting and rusty buckets held together with tape and cable ties. It is hard to imagine what the truck was like in the 60's!
(Photos Source: Wikipedia and Tourism Australia)
The hives had been emptied of all the honey, except what the bees needed to eat for the week's journey across the desert, because when hives are full they can weigh more than 60kg each! Honey is 1.3 times the density and weight of water. Millions of bees would have been on this truck as it set off into the horizon.
Almost two weeks later, he finds his way back to the truck. Dusty and pretty cranky from all the messing about with truck parts, he's glad to find his truck and hives untouched. Waving the truckie who gave him a lift 'goodbye' he plods over to his truck, only to find...ALL his tires, EVERY one was flat!!
(Photo Sourced: http://blogs.sun-sentinel.com/crime-and-safety/2011/04/05/coping-with-a-tire-blowout)
Who would risk the stings from the bees to vandalize a broken down truck?! Why would someone be so petty and stupid to slash 18 tires?
At least his ladies were still buzzing around the truck. He wandered about, looking for more damage, and realized he could smell something...something familiar...honey...Scratching his head, puzzled, the beekeeper looked again at the blown out tires, looked at the hives, smelt the honey in the air and realized...
No-one had vandalized his truck. There had been a honey flow, IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DESERT, and his ladies had laid down full supers of honey! Remember how heavy honey is? Those bees had laid down so much honey, that the weight of the hives had blown the tires of the truck out!
So the beekeeper turned back to the road, and, stuck out his thumb again!
Mil, Looks like different flaorl sources, or that the honey from last year has crystallized (the color changes when that happens). We typically get blackberry, fireweed, and then knotweed in the Puget Sound. Often you can see all three on a singe frame, with the fireweed being the lightest colored, and the knotweed being almost black. I try to pull our honey supers before the knotweed starts blooming as it has a strong flavor. I like it on pancakes, and such, but on toast, or as a sweetener it’s a bit strong.Managing the colonies for single source honey can be fun, and a challenge, and it seems that for a few exceptions, folks aren’t willing to pay more for variety’ honey.
Loved your recent posts. Keeping my feingrs crossed that you have lured a swarm. That would be so cool. Yes, I love the lettuce from the garden. Praying for rain
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