Organic living
During our first two weeks in Australia, we lived with Anna and Alf. They run an organic farm and apiary in Upper Beaconsfield. It was an education in sustainable living. We learnt how to irrigate the farm (with buried drip feeds running from a rainwater tank) and how to grow everything from raspberries and kiwi to squash and lemons. Nearly everything that Alf and Anna ate was home-grown or home-baked. Upper Beaconsfield contains many wealthy, environmentally conscious baby boomers, and is an area ripe for experiments in resource-efficient technology.
Alf showed me how to cold-extract honey. The honey combs are taken out of the hives and put into boxes. Then, one-by-one, they are removed and a hot knife is used to slice off the wax which seals each side of the comb. The unsealed combs are spun inside a drum and the honey drawn off through a tap at the base. The honey is then filtered and decanted into jars and pots. On average, one hive produces between 30 and 45 kilos of honey per year. Not surprisingly, the boxes of honey are quite heavy and so bee-keeping is fairly hefty work.
Commercial extraction uses heat. This denatures the enzymes in the honey and makes it permanently runny. Fresh honey is always runny but, if it “candies” or goes hard after a week or so, this only means that it is cold-extracted and is of superior quality. You only need to run the jar under warm water to soften up up the honey. Hot water will denature the honey -as heat extration does. Cold-extracted honey contains enzymes and particles of pollen. Pollen particles are full of protein and, Alf reports, can alleviate hayfever symptoms.
Honey is different colours depending on many factors including the tree nectar available to the bees. Yellow box honey is the best (very light and golden). Honey bees cannot survive away from their own hive. As bees identify one another through certain chemical signals, foreign bees will be killed.
While we were guests at the house, the phone was ringing off the hook with enquiries about hives, swarms and pest control. Swarms occur when the bee population is too large. The bees create a new queen and half the hive swarm around and leave to start a new colony. To avoid swarming, apiaryists must change their queens reguarly.
Honey bees are ruthlessly efficient. If a queen becomes less productive and stops laying eggs at a satisfactory rate, the other bees will “ball”. They surround the queen completely so that she eventually starves to death. Meanwhile they feed royal jelly exclusively to selected bee larvae -thus creating the new queen. The first to hatch becomes queen and stings the other competitors to death. If two hatch simutaneously, they will fight to the death. However, in a bizarre evolutionary twist, the two combatants will not sting at the same time. Otherwise, they would both die and the colony would perish. If the queens have stings facing the same way they will back off and try again.
More interesting information available at www.vichoney.com.au where you can buy Alf’s honey as well!
[...] Try this healthy version of chocolate brownies, which is much lower in sugar and saturated fat. Dark chocolate has been shown to lower blood pressure and provide a good source of anti-oxidants. Cold extracted honey is rumoured to combat hayfever - but only if you eat the local stuff! [...]