WInter Park Honey on local News: ...... "Treating Allergies with Honey"

2011-03-18T04:22:00.000-07:00

Treat allergies with honey: MyFoxORLANDO.com

Click here to see a Winter Park Honey Fan's Art Blog

2011-03-14T11:18:00.000-07:00

Please check out this Art Block by a Winter Park Honey "satisfied customer"
Thanks Lori

An excerpt from my upcoming book.

2011-01-23T09:37:00.000-08:00

One early afternoon, not too long ago, I trudged outside to work my hives; checking on the bees, which I do once a week. Almost instantly, I heard a tremendous roar. I looked skyward and saw a solid wall of black. My bees were swarming. I was in a cloud of bees. The beehive had gotten too large and part of the hive was moving out. The queen had been starved for several days and was now light enough to fly. Today she would leave with a large number of bees, her worthiest workers, up to forty thousand, to search for a new home. I knew she would leave behind several new queens in the old hive, queens who would soon hatch and fight for the right to her abandoned throne.
During all the years I have kept bees, I had never been privileged to witness the sight of a swarm. It’s like seeing a falling star or witnessing a toddler’s first step, you have to be lucky enough to be there at the right moment. They’ve chosen a beautiful day for their move, I thought. The orange blossoms are blooming, the petals spilling onto the path we made for our strolls to the lake. Moments later, the bees spun into the shape of a basketball and settled atop my neighbor’s oak tree. As quickly as it had begun, it was over. I realized that what I had seen was a defining moment in my life.

* * *

It was a fluke that I found bees. My brother, Dan, an aeronautical engineer with a PhD, was the first to get involved. He had gotten hives in an effort to bond with his children after his divorce. I visited him in Oklahoma where he showed me his hives. At the time he was working with pesticides to maintain the hive as well as killing unproductive queens, and I thought, “I just can’t kill anything. No way would I ever get involved with anything like this.”
A year later, Dan called me.
“Jean,” he said, “Would you like a beehive?”
“Sure,” I said. The phone went dead. The next thing I knew, he had driven with seven children, ages 12-20, from Oklahoma to Florida with my first beehive. And apparently, even though the bees had gotten out of the hive during the 1100 mile trip and had flown around the beat-up van, none had stung any of the children a single time.
I had my first beehive. For a long time, I never touched it, except to pile supers, honey collecting boxes, on top. My brother would come for vacations and take care of it.
It wasn’t until I got sick and spent long times at home that I began thinking. I’m home, sitting around all day, you know, I’d really like some honey out of that beehive.
My brother was far away, so I got on the computer and located the beekeepers’ blog, trying to find someone to help me extract the honey out of my beehive. I got one response from a man named Mike H., who came over in his rusty, dented white truck. His white hair was Einstein-like, and he had no front teeth. But, I was under the impression that he knew everything about bees. It turns out that he did not know everything.
First, it was almost dark. This was a foolish time to extract honey, which of course I did not know at the time. The bees would be coming back to the hive.
Then he told me, “We need to split this hive.” This would prove to be an unfortunate decision for me as well, because I did not have the first clue about how to reestablish them afterward. Both hives were destroyed by my ignorance. I had to go out and get new hives.
But Mike had buckets and strainers, and he brought with him a giant honey extractor. He gave me a bee suit, and we pulled the hive apart. We got fifteen gallons of honey. While we were filling five pound containers with honey, Mike was also filling my eighty-seven year old mother’s head with interesting facts about bees.
“Bees all have different faces,” he told her. “They’re all like people. I take pictures of them.” I later found out that Mike makes videos and lectures about this topic as well as other topics little known about bees.
That day, I gave Mike H. half the honey. And the rest, I gave to my friends or kept for myself. I had not been a fan of honey before I tasted my own. There was something about it. It tasted so good. I was hooked.
The next time the honey needed to be extracted, I called Mike H. again. Then I called again, and again. He refused to respond. He was going to force me to do it myself.
I made myself a cheap bee suit. I already had a bee veil from my brother, and he helped me to come up with the other ideas. For my hand protection, I wore gardening gloves. I used a long light colored shirt. If you wear a dark shirt, then the bees will think you are a bear, and attack you.
I took a pair of socks, which I slipped over my gloves and long sleeved shirt to keep the bees out. I pulled the socks on my feet up over my pants. I was hotter than blazes. And, I was terrified. But, I was on my way to doing this bee thing by myself.

Welcome to the Winter Park Honey Blog

2010-10-26T07:56:00.000-07:00

BeeLine

WInter Park Honey on local News: ...... "Treating Allergies with Honey"

Click here to see a Winter Park Honey Fan's Art Blog

An excerpt from my upcoming book.

Welcome to the Winter Park Honey Blog