NEWSLETTER #26 (English) from Urs & Izzy: Spring Honey!!!....(finally)
- Izzy the busy bee....
- Jun 10, 2024
- 4 min read
May & June 2024 (Issue #26)
Dear honey lovers, Yes!!! finally! the spring honey is here! This year's harvest was good, despite the last month of continuous rain. And, our bees, again have made a very rich and tasty spring honey! Read on, to learn some curiosities about what was called ' the food of the Gods' by the ancient Greeks
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News from the Beehives
We harvested honey the 5th and 6th of June -- those were the first 'dry' days after a non-stop 3 weeks of rain. And we can tell you that the bees were absolutely not happy with it. Why? If temperatures drop below 15 degrees, or if it rains heavily, the bees cannot fly to gather nectar, so they have to eat the reserves that they collect for winter. And they get very defensive, if at that point they feel the rest of the reserves are being taken from them; they defend the honey, and fly against anything that moves around - human or animal. Every year, we put signs on the perimeter of the hive, warning runners or passers-by of the presence of bees - but this year it seems the bees were angry for longer than expected. Next year we will ring-fence the area around the bee with ' do-not-trespass' police tape to avoid more problems.
Where is my Honey...?
Your honey is ready to be delivered (if you order, of course). Why so long from the harvest?. It takes about a week from collecting the honey frames (see photo), to having the finalized pots ready for you. The honey needs to be extracted from the frames, through spinning at low temperature, so it maintains all of its flavor. Then coarsely filtered to remove the wax (but not the pollen!), then it needs to stand for several days in a cool, dark place, to 'curate' it, before it can be weighted and filled in glass pots. Pure raw honey....Ah, and then it needs to be labelled, according to the law -- and, all, made by hand, like in the old good times! So...it takes some time -- but we are sure you agree it is worth the waiting.
Facts & Figures
You can see on the map the 2023/2024 country producers of honey. China alone dwarfs the rest of the world, when it comes to honey production - It produces 25% of the global honey production; 500K tons of honey per year. China exports about 30% of it (140K tons, or about 267M US$). They export mainly to UK, Japan, Belgium, Poland and Saudi Arabia. Chinese honey exports to US are totally banned due to price dumping and fake honey issues. The largest exporter of honey to US is India, who has doubled production in 10 years, and is now also having the same quality issues than the Chinese.
The European Union produces, each year, about 280K tonnes of honey, from about 20 million hives. During the last 10 years, the production has experienced ups and downs, of up to 30%, due to bad weather conditions, the arrival of the Chinese bee-pest (varroa), and COVID - which affected...the beekeepers!
How strange.... China's production is each year stable and growing, despite the climatic change, COVID or their pesticide problem. Europe imports about 190K tonnes of honey from non-European countries, and 1/3 of it comes from China. Please, buy only honey from reputed sources, and look carefully at the label!
Did you know that...?
Honey, like salt or smoke, can be used to preserve food. And it actually works better than salt or smoke -- the food maintains its taste and colour! Recently, an offering pot filled with honey-preserved wild berries, aromatic, sweet and brilliant red, were recovered from an archeological site in Georgia, dated 4,300 years old! And not just berries; hazel nuts, chestnuts and other fruits were found. A real treasure, that helps us understanding how botanic species have also been domesticated along millenia. Why honey is such a good preserving agent? It has a very high level of sugars - which acts like salt, sucking water from bacteria and microbes, drying them to death. Additionally, it is also acid, which kills part of the microbes, and contains small amounts of hydrogen peroxide, which is a natural antiseptic. But this is not just history...today, you can also buy (or make) preserves and jams with honey - much healthier than with sugar...but also mor expensive!
Swiss Bees
World Bee Day is celebrated each year on 20 May to raise awareness of the importance of bees as pollinators, the threats they face and their contribution to sustainable development. In Switzerland, Geneva heads the activities around this emblematic day; why? Because a large percentage of international organizations engaged in the protection of biological diversity, are based in the city; CITES (Convention in International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora), IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature), FAO, UN, WWF, WTO, TEEB (Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity), etc. Worth mentioning the initiative by the FAO. Check their beautiful video here!
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