Wyzga On Words

Q&A Tuesday: How Do You Get The Honey Into The Jar?

Q:    How do you get the honey from the bees into the jar?

A:    Slowly, carefully, step-by-step.

The small frames you see are being readied for extraction.  I choose to remove only the surplus honey from a hive so the bees have what they need for themselves and their brood.

The bees build honeycomb on the frames, fill the comb with honey and cap it off.  The first step is for the beekeeper to go to the beeyard and collect those frames, transport them to the extraction room and remove the beeswax cappings with a hot knife or a pick. 

You can see the difference between a capped frame (the one in my hand) and the uncapped one leaning on the bridge in the capping tub.  There is another example in the opaque tub. 

While we're at it we remove any extra beeswax comb on the outside of the frames to make it easier to slip them back into the hive box.  It's hard, sticky work and bees are buzzing around to keep us company.

The uncapped frames fit longways into a motorized stainless steel tub (which is not in the picture) and the honey is spun out with centrifugal force.  The collected honey is gravity-strained into a bucket and then gravity-strained a second time through a fine mesh cloth sieve to collect any stray bits of beeswax.

This pure, raw, unfiltered (filtration takes out good honey properties), unheated (heat destroys some honey properties like enzymes), untreated (no sugar, high fructose corn syrup, pesticides, mitricides, or antibiotics) honey gets bottled.  The extraction and bottling process takes the better part of a day depending on how many frames one has collected.

The work isn't over then.  The "stickies" are returned to the hive boxes in the beeyard so the honeybees can clean up all the honey the extractor did not spin out.  Since we left the honeycomb intact the bees do not have to build it out all over again; just fill and cap.

In her lifetime a worker bee may supply less than 1/2 teaspoon of honey.  She has to visit millions of flowers to gather the pollen and nectar that goes into making honey.  What the worker bees are foraging on, the time of year, weather, heat, drought conditions and the like changes the look, flavor and fragrance or honey - just like wine.  What you taste in the Spring will be different than another time of year or region.

When you get a treat like real honey - just what the bees bring in - it's a labor of love on the part of nature and beek. Plant a garden and invite the bees.

 

 

 

Suiting Up For The Next Generation.

Saturday last saw me all suited up and talking to upwards of 50 folks who came to The Ecology Center to learn about honey bees (Apis mellifera), pure local honey, and becoming a backyard beekeeper or "beek."

Click here to access the link to the Q&A blog with an observation hive video.

The adults posed many questions showing lots of interest and concern about the plight of honeybees (the canary in the mine of our world), Colony Collapse Disorder, how to distinguish real honey from the store bought fake stuff, and so on.  I felt like I was on "Stump the Beekeeper."

But the real excitement, equally insightful questions and "ah ha!" moments were shared by the young people.  There were eight year old farmer wannabes, ten year old girls taking pages of notes with pencil in spiral bound notebooks so they could prepare for a class report, six year old hands held in the air so long to ask a question that first one arm and then the next and then back to the other were raised.   The teenagers were so engaged they did not text during the hour - well, as far as I could see.

I passed around honeycomb taken from the wild when I rescued swarmed colonies, frames of built-out comb used to raise brood and store honey, frames of old comb where bees had died emerging from their cells, and showed off the beek basics I carry around in my beek box.  The young people were ecstatic when I displayed a photo of lavishly drawn designs painted with wild colors on stacks of hive boxes - no bland white boxes for these kids.  Everybody wanted to get into the act setting up a backyard hive.

Some days despite my Aquarian tendencies I can present a pretty cynical face about the future of the planet.  As I posed for the last cell phone picture and packed up my beek gear I knew that just as we "let bees be bees" the same applies to kids: give them some ideas, support and direction; then let them be as they find their way.  

I believe we are going to be just fine. 

It Was My Own Damn Fault.

 

Thank you to Brushy Mountain Bee Farm for the Master Beekeeper Suit image.

Some of the best stories begin with, "It was my own damn fault."

For a beekeeper ("beek" for short) this time of year can be wildly uncertain.  One day it's 85 degrees and sunny - then overnight cold winds come down from Canada dumping snow in the mountains and rain on the lower levels.  The hives have been quiet over the winter months but now they are beginning to ramp up along with the blossoms.  Swarms will begin soon as the stronger colonies outgrow their homes and look for roomier digs.  We wait and watch.

My plan was just to tend the bee-yard: weed around the hives and add oil to the paint cans that hold the frame stand legs to keep out the ants.  It was too cool to get into the hives. At about mid-40's Fahrenheit the scout bees go out looking for nourishment.  At about the mid-50's range more foragers go out.  And by the time the mid to high 60's hit the foragers can be in full flight swing. 

But beeks ideally need a day that's in the sunny 70s with no breeze so the colony does not get chilled when you go inside the hive box.  Even when you get good weather, take care.  If the previous days have been cool and cloudy (as ours were), the bees can be as cranky as toddlers penned up without TIVO.

There's a small gap where my beesuit zippers to the veil.  Just enough for a honeybee body to get through if she's looking.  Then she and I are trapped in there together.  With more of the colony swarming around it's a good idea to just walk away until they lose interest in me - but there is still the matter of getting to the honeybee (or bees) who are inside.  And taking off the veil is not an option.  Having learned my lesson the hard way I slap a small piece of duct tape over the hole when I plan to work the hives. 

This is where I get to: "It was my own damn fault." This day I broke all my own rules:  I left off the piece of duct tape to cover the gap.  I made a spur-of-the-moment decision to quickly work one hive.  I did not fire up my smoker ahead of time.  I don't like using one but it's a nice idea to have it lit and ready in case you want to calm cranky bees.  The weather was not the best.  The bees were cranky.  And they let me know it.

I can't blame them that a few facial stings later I look like a Shar-pei with mumps.  It was my own damn fault.

TIPS: The price of experience: Be prepared.

If you are going to court, be prepared.

If you are going to the hospital, be prepared.

 If you are making a meal, be prepared.

And when you screw up because you were not prepared, the responsible thing to do is admit it, make apologies or mea culpas (if needed) and move on.  Life is short and sweet as honey. 

Our Fate - Like Fruit Trees In Winter.

Standing all raggedy, twiggy and forlorn in my backyard is a peach tree. Its naked form reminds me of a piece by German poet and novelist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe:

"Sometimes our fate resembles a fruit tree in winter.  Looking at its sad appearance who would think that those stiff branches, those jagged twigs would turn green again and blossom and bear fruit next spring; but we hope they will, we know they will."

I believe that one of the most difficult and courageous things we can do for ourselves, our families, friends and clients who look to us for a little encouragement is to acknowledge a time of fearful barrenness, that hum of panicky anxiety.  And only then turn coax an expectant face toward spring.

This photograph reminding me that the honeybees are soon on the local blooms was taken by friend and fellow beewrangler, Janet Andrews of Backyard Bees who creates some of the most remarkable honey creams and lip balms you will find anywhere.  Even my pure honey and beeswax cappings find their way into her luscious product.  Family in the chill mountains of Colorado and the dry indoors of New Hampshire swear by its restorative properties.

Every one of us every day needs a little something good.

Let Me Be Clear: Doctors Practice Medicine; Lawyers Practice Law; Litigation Consultants Practice Removing The Blinders.

I'll be the first to admit it: I'm biased. I'm biased toward two heads being better than one.  I'm biased toward more hands helping the project go faster.  I'm biased toward getting outside objective help that will encourage one to take off the blinders and see things as they are - not as we are.  Especially when it comes to clients and cases.

Over the years as my practice evolved my approach to focus group research has evolved.  I have come to learn that we take literal responses to questions at our own peril.  That's true whether we are listening to deliberations, moderated discussions or reading written responses on a questionnaire.  Yet, I hear this time and again when I am asked to review attorney-run research: "When he said X he meant X because he said X; therefore, X must be true". 

Imagine my professional concern when I come across copies of written questionnaires I prepared time out of mind for cases long since resolved that have been re-used and recycled just as they were written.  And not for the reason you think.  As much as the next person I owe what I know in great part to learning from the work of others.

My concern comes from seeing some lawyers churn out copies of written questionnaires in lawyer-run focus group research with little heed to what is being asked or why.  And compound the problem by not knowing what to do with the information they might have gotten.

I'm going out on a limb here because I believe this.  Yes, I have said: Get trusted, professional help to design, conduct and analyze the focus group research. Do not go it alone to figure out liability and damages.  Work with a litigation consultant to uncover your case landmines, blow them up, walk the decision-maker around them, and incorporate them into the story.

I say this with a measure of confidence because I know that despite my achievements as a practicing lawyer, do I feel I can try a case today?  Not with the same skill set I had when I was a practicing lawyer. 

My professional role has changed and my skill set along with it.  My medical and legal training brings a depth of knowledge to the trial table. What I know I can do is help develop a forensic fact pattern into a real life drama that will persuade the decision-maker.

Let me be clear: I am not averse to lawyers practicing as litigation consultants or even testing their own cases - as long as they do it with thought, care, consideration, objectivity, and arm's length dispassion about the subject matter with carefully chosen research participants who are not off the "been there done that" assembly line.  Know what you want to know, what you are asking, how you are asking, and how to interpret the response.  "It's not what we say - it's what they hear." [Frank Luntz]  And it's not what they say - it's what we hear.

A Focus Group Is Like An Observation Hive.

For folks who do not get the up close and personal experience of working honeybee hives as I do, there is the observation hive to see the inner workings of bees going about their daily lives.

I love the focus group research process for the same reason: it gives me a way to look inside the inner workings of a group of community members to learn what matters to them about a particular story.

In my experience, two key elements stand out:

1.    Gaps.  In ways unimagined and in directions unforseen focus group research participants will take your story and create their own because of gaps in what they heard the lawyers say.  When they say, “If only....” then we know they are well on their way to telling their own stories.  Remember, "It’s not what we say; it’s what they hear." 

Now that we know what they heard we can re-write the story.  This is also our opportunity to corral what I call "sidebar stories" by clarifying and emphasizing what we want the decision-maker to focus on.  Think of what you are doing as akin to herding cattle down a chute and closing off the gates to the eventual exit.  

2.    Questions.  The other thing I welcome are the questions.  Often you will hear, “What I want to know is....”  “How come....”  "Don't you think that...."  "What if...."  Their questions are clues to the gaps in the story which must be addressed or answered so we don't run the risk that the decision-maker will apply their own answers to fill in the gaps for themselves and come up with a different story.

What's been your experience?

There's Something To Be Said For Resilience, Research, and Self-Reliance.

What a dismal year this has been.  Retirement portfolios (hah!  the very idea) continue to hemorrhage, able-bodied workers have been cast aside, 20% of our children live in poverty, we are being over-taken by relatively poorer and less democratically adept countries like China and India, and no one who is supposed to be leading us - or would like to lead us - has a clue about what to do. 

I am reminded of an old cartoon.  Picture a man in a business suit, briefcase in hand propped up like Flat Stanley against a city building.  The caption reads, "Paralyzed by the fear of success."

No one is going to do it for us - we may as well do what we can with what we have.  More and more Americans are taking matters into their own hands - and what began reluctantly may end up being preferred.

Read and be inspired by Susan Gregory Thomas writing for the NYTimes, "I Went Back To the Land to Feed My Family," as she adds one more story to the stack of those being written by Americans who have taken it on the chin but refuse to go down.  Excerpt.

"I’m not interested in being hip or a hippie. Nor does my happiness particularly hinge on artisanal cheese. (Odd, perhaps, given that I grew up a stone fruit’s throw away from Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Calif.)

As a 42-year-old Brooklyn mother of three, what I care about is lunch, and feeding my family on a tenuous and unpredictable income. And so I have 20 fresh-egg-producing hens and a little garden that yields everything from blackberries to butternut squash to burdock root.

My turn with spade and hoe started a few years ago when I found myself divorced and flat broke. My livelihood as a freelance writer went out the window when the economy tanked. I literally could afford beans, the dried kind, which I’d thought were for school art projects or teaching elementary math. And I didn’t know how to cook.

Luckily, my late father had hammered into me that grit was more important than talent."

In that spirit, there are people spading gardens on rooftops, in backyards, and in weedy, over-grown patches in the neighborhood.  Others are discovering the healthy thrift of Community Supported Agriculture and farmer's markets.  Chickens share yard space with the household pet.  And bees are coming back into their own with a hive or two squirreled away, humming, helping pollinate those gardens and producing honey as a result.

Is it all rosy?  Heck!  Not by a long-shot!  In this household we have slashed, burned, eschewed, and are now down to shaving any and all expenses.  As my mother reminded us for decades as she and my dad raised 7 children on a shoestring, "We're rich - we just don't have a lot of money." 

Maybe part of this coast-to-coast churn is realizing that "America Is #1!" may have worked in the past.  But it does not today.  What does it mean to be "#1" when our economy is in shambles, we cannot educate our children, what prosperity we had is squandered on foreign wars, industries hibernate, factories rust, and in an effort to gouge every little red cent the banks once again want to extort fees for using the debit cards they promoted as a cost-savings to check writing? 

It's a mess. More and more of us are turning away from "America Is #1!" to ask what do we want as a country?  Is being #2 really so bad?  It doesn't hurt AVIS who capitalized on the ranking.  How do we measure ourselves?  In Gross National Product?  Goods consumed?  Landfills topped off?

What about beauty?  What about resourcefulness?  Imagination?  What do we really want to be best at?   And, do we need or even want to lead?   As Thomas decided, all you need is a little hunger.

"It is a lot of work. You have to be organized and able to improvise on your feet. But, frankly, it’s awesome. Before we embarked on this Waldenesque life, the only thing I had ever used my hands for was picking up a book or typing on my keyboard; today, my family and I are living our own scrappy take on President Obama’s promise of “Yes, we can!”

Even if things turn around financially, I don’t think I could stomach going to Whole Foods (except maybe for olive oil) because my biggest revelation in terms of self-sufficiency is this: It is no big deal. You can tell yourself anything is too difficult, or you can just do it. And you do not need to reconstruct your worldview or take issue with others.

You just need to be hungry."

In the spirit of "less is more," what changes are you and yours making?  What 365 small steps are you taking to get you to next year in some way better than you are today?

 

FDA Knows About Asian Honey-Laundering & Does Little To Keep It Out Of The USA & Off Our Grocery Shelves.

The very first thing anyone says when they taste real, untreated, unheated, unadulterated honey made from what the bees bring in is how different it tastes.  Like a garden grown, sun-drenched tomato instead of the insipid things masquerading as produce in many grocery stores, real honey is rich and flavorful with a whole host of sensory delights.

Each jar of real honey tastes different season-to-season depending on the weather and what the bees are foraging on.  For this reason I can say that a jar of my Beach Blossom Honey extracted in May will be different from what you will get at the Fourth of July.  It is unique.  Much like an exclusive small press of grapes that becomes a once-in-a-lifetime bottle of wine.  In fact, some beeks hold honey tastings to compare the various tastes, among other sensory features.

What you are buying off the grocery store shelf may be far removed from real honey, adulterated with antibiotics, heavy metals, leads and other banned substances.  Much of the unsafe honey flooding the US is coming in large drums from Asia - it has been banned in Europe. 

Andrew Schneider writing for Food Safety News, "Asian Honey, Banned in Europe, Is Flooding U.S. Grocery Shelves," reports on an investigation that has documented that "millions of pounds of honey banned as unsafe in dozens of countries are being imported and sold here in record quantities."  Excerpt.

"Experts interviewed by Food Safety News say some of the largest and most long-established U.S. honey packers are knowingly buying mislabeled, transshipped or possibly altered honey so they can sell it cheaper than those companies who demand safety, quality and rigorously inspected honey. 

"It's no secret that the honey smuggling is being driven by money, the desire to save a couple of pennies a pound," said Richard Adee, who is the Washington Legislative Chairman of the American Honey Producers Association. 

"These big packers are still using imported honey of uncertain safety that they know is illegal because they know their chances of getting caught are slim," Adee said.

Food safety investigators from the European Union barred all shipments of honey from India because of the presence of lead and illegal animal antibiotics.  Further, they found an even larger amount of honey apparently had been concocted without the help of bees, made from artificial sweeteners and then extensively filtered to remove any proof of contaminants or adulteration or indications of precisely where the honey actually originated.

An examination of international and government shipping tallies, customs documents and interviews with some of North America's top honey importers and brokers documented the rampant honey laundering and that a record amount of the Chinese honey was being purchased by major U.S. packers."

What does that mean for you?  "Honey" is found in many products: salad dressing, breakfast cereal, bakery products, processed foods, and the like.  You could be eating this junk even if you are not buying "honey" off the shelf.

The FDA knows about adulterated honey.  The FDA knows other countries have banned "honey" from Asia and India.  Why is the US a dumping ground?  Excerpt.

"Much of this questionable honey was officially banned beginning June 2010 by the 27 countries of the European Union and others. But on this side of the ocean, the FDA checks few of the thousands of shipments arriving through 22 American ports each year. 

According to FDA data, between January and June, just 24 honey shipments were stopped from entering the country. The agency declined to say how many loads are inspected and by whom. 

However, during that same period, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that almost 43 million pounds of honey entered the U.S. Of that, the Department of Commerce said 37.7 million pounds came from India, the same honey that is banned in the EU because it contained animal medicine and lead and lacked the proper paperwork to prove it didn't come from China.

"There are still millions of pounds of transshipped Chinese honey coming in the U.S. and it's all coming now from India and Vietnam and everybody in the industry knows that," said Elise Gagnon, president of Odem International, a worldwide trading house that specializes in bulk raw honey. 

The FDA says it has regulations prohibiting foods banned in other countries from entering the U.S. However, the agency said last month that it "would not know about honey that has been banned from other countries ..."

Adee called the FDA's response "absurd." He said the European ban against Indian honey is far from a secret.

"Why are we the dumping ground of the world for something that's banned in all these other countries?" asked Adee, who, with 80,000 bee colonies in five states, is the country's largest honey producer."

Know where your honey comes from.  Excerpt.

"Import Genius, a private shipping intelligence service, searched its databases of all U.S. Customs import data for Food Safety News and provided a telling breakdown: 

- The U.S. imported 208 million pounds of honey over the past 18 months.

- About 48 million pounds came from trusted and usually reliable suppliers in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Uruguay and Mexico.

- Almost 60 percent of what was imported - 123 million pounds - came from Asian countries - traditional laundering points for Chinese honey. This included 45 million pounds from India alone.

"This should be a red flag to FDA and the federal investigators. India doesn't have anywhere near the capacity - enough bees - to produce 45 million pounds of honey. It has to come from China," said Adee, who also is a past president of the American Honey Producers Association."

Know what makes adulterated honey dangerous.  Excerpt.

 "Chinese honeymakers began using various illegal methods to conceal the origin of their honey beginning in about 2001. That's when the U.S. Commerce Department imposed a stiff tariff - as much as $1.20 a pound -- on Chinese honey to dissuade that country from dumping its dirt-cheap product on the American market and forcing hundreds of U.S. beekeepers out of the business.

About the same time, Chinese beekeepers saw a bacterial epidemic of foulbrood disease race through their hives at wildfire speed, killing tens of millions of bees. They fought the disease with several Indian-made animal antibiotics, including chloramphenicol. Medical researchers found that children given chloramphenicol as an antibiotic are susceptible to DNA damage and carcinogenicity. Soon after, the FDA banned its presence in food.

"We need imported honey in this country.  But, what we don't need is circumvented honey, honey that is mislabeled as to country of origin, honey that is contaminated with antibiotics or heavy metal," said Ronald Phipps, co-chairman of the International Committee for Promotion of Honey and Health and head of the major honey brokerage firm CPNA International."

Check out the beekeepers in your community.  Buy from those who sell untreated (no Apistan,  Fumigard, antibiotics, and the like), unheated (it breaks down the healthy enzymes), raw honey.  Don't be fooled if someone says their honey is "organic".  Currently, the US has no standards for organic honey, unlike produce, dairy and the like.  Many beeks sell what we call "treatment-free" honey.  If the seller is not the beekeeper, ask where the honey comes from and what they know about its source.

Be willing to pay for a good healthy local product - a heck of a lot of work goes into a pound jar of honey.  Each honey bee contributes less than 1/2 teaspoon to the collective amount in her short lifetime.  The work I do to keep them healthy, disease-free, warm, dry, fed and watered before I can rob some of their honey pales in comparison to the miracle they pull off.

One Good Turn Deserves Another: Make Sure Your Money's On Real Honey.

My dear friend and fellow blawger, Stephanie West Allen, is known to many for her astute observations on her highly acclaimed and well-circulated blog, Idealawg.

Did you know she has another blog called "RawRag" where she posts quite dee-liciously about her journeys into raw food?  For anyone interested in what we put into our bodies and those of our loved one's West's RawRag blog deserves a visit.

And you can start today with our guest blog on honey.

Eat in good health & make sure some of what you eat is real honey.

 

Perseverance In The Face Of Deadly Odds

Honeybees live for 6 weeks: 3 weeks in the hive and 3 weeks foraging for nectar and pollen.  It's a brief life lived in service to the colony.  I have hundreds of thousands of honeybees in my apirary.  And yet when I watch one on her last legs I feel a sense of loss.

Yesterday afternoon I was watching a newly captured swarm getting used to its hive box.  The hive boxes are kept off the ground on a wooden hive stand.  The legs of the stand are sunk into paint cans filled with vegetable oil to keep the ants from invading the hives.  You can only imagine the ant problem on an organic farm!

Every once in a while a honeybee returning to the hive will fall into the can. Yesterday I watched as one made a slow crawl out of the oil with the pollen baskets full on her legs like egg-yolk yellow legwarmers.  I lifted her off the wooden hive stand leg and laid her body near the hive entry.  The perseverance in the face of the overwhelming odds of ever reaching the hive reminded me of all the times we struggle because we are driven or we believe or we need to accomplish or just because it's what we do. 

Perseverance is "like so many other things in life to which you must say no or yes."  Say yes.