Page 14 - North Haven Magazine Issue 9 Summer 2019

Honey Bees
Honey Bees

Produce Honey for Food and Medicine

by Sally Brockett

Ancient History
Ancient History

ees are one of the oldest forms of animal life, preceding humans on Earth by 10 to
B20 million years. When humans appeared, they did what animals were doing at the
time, stealing the bees honey to feed themselves.
In the beginning, bees were wild, building their hives in trees and other crevices. Hu-
mans had to look for the hives and climb trees to reach the nest and honey, often
risking their lives. Later, humans discovered how to keep bees in hives, which makes
collecting honey much easier and safer.

Honey was not only valued by ancient man as a sweetener, but it was also used for me-
dicinal purposes. A Mesopotamian clay tablet dating from 3000 BC contained a pre-
scription written for treating wounds with honey. It was also used during that period
to treat eye and ear disorders. A honey and butter paste was often used after surgery, or
to help the healing of stretched or pierced ears. Today, honey continues to be a favorite
sweetener used in recipes for beverages and foods, and many people recognize its val-
ue for health and healing. Honey does have antioxidant properties, and dark honey is
reported to have more antioxidants than light honey.
Beekeeping Today
Beekeeping Today

Beekeepers are busy today, maintaining honey bee hives and har-
vesting the honey for food and health purposes. Ray Sola, a North
Haven beekeeper, has been raising bees for 10 years. He was intro-
duced to bees 11 years ago and spent one year studying and visiting
beekeepers before starting his own hives. Ray has more than 70
hives in 8 different towns. He has 80 queens right now, so he needs
to split some into new hives in order to avoid the bees swarming to
form a new colony. Tom Anderson, another North Haven beekeep-
er, started his hives as a hobby about 4 years ago, and maintains 7
hives.
about 30 lbs. of honey per colony, however, North and South Da-
It requires a lot of bees to produce a pound of honey. Producing a kota honey bees average about four hundred pounds of honey per
pound of honey is the life’s work of 768 bees which involves visiting colony. Connecticut has a lot of woodland now, which means less
2 million flowers to collect the nectar. Connecticut bees average foraging land for the bees. They need acres of plants that bloom so
they can gather nectar.

Some honey may be advertised as organic, however Ray explains it
is difficult to really control this. The hives may be placed in an area
where there are fields of organic crops, but the bees can also travel
up to 3 miles to locations which may not be organic.
While the bees are busy working to make the honey, the beekeeper
is also busy with maintenance of the hives. Depending on the time
of year, it requires about one hour per week to maintain one hive.
Spring and fall require more time for opening and winterizing the
hives. Careful inspection is important in order to watch for mite
infestations, which can quickly kill the entire colony.

Tom uses organic oxalic acid to help control for mites. This is tox-
Ray Sola ic to mites but does not harm the bees. The honey frames are re-
moved when this treatment is done, even though the oxalic acid is
14 North Haven Magazine - Summer 2019