K AY T EE LE V ER I T T
SWEETEST HARVEST Delicious honey is always worth the risk of a sting
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Farmer and publisher Alan Leveritt inspects a new beehive at India Blue Farm.
“Of the 30,000 or so bees in my hive, all are all female with the exception of a few hundred drones whose only mission is to fertilize the queen.”
y uncle Elzie kept his beehives in amongst the wrecked cars and other metal debris behind his house on Highway 160 outside of Smackover. He was a big, friendly man, always in blue overalls and smelling of sweat, burlap smoke and honey. He had a honey stand in front of his unpainted house on the highway where my cousins and I would sell mason jars full of honey, along with petrified wood from the bottoms. It was always an exciting event when a car pulled into the yard and the stand would fill with customers. A few weeks ago I found myself channeling uncle Elzie, sweating under two shirts and a bee veil. This is honey season, and thousands of bees swarmed around me. Though I have raised bees for three years, I’ve never robbed them out of fear of starving the hive in the winter. But last fall I added two supers (boxes) to my hives giving me a super for brood, a super for capped honey to sustain the bees through the winter and two more supers of honey frames for me. Each super holds 10 frames of comb which the bees fill with brood, pollen or honey with the honey in the upper supers. My smoker was filled with burlap and pine needles which I first aimed at the opening of the hive. Some beekeepers say the smoke calms the bees, others that they move to protect the brood thinking the hive is on fire. Either way, the bees are distracted and a little less determined to find a way to sting. I set aside the smoker and used a hive tool to pop the top off the hive, prying up my first frame filled with golden-capped honey. Bees covered the comb, so I used the smoker and a soft bee brush to remove them. After placing the frame in an empty ice chest, I returned to the hive and repeated this about 25 or 30 times on the remaining hives. I’m always trying to find the queen, a bee twice the length of the other female worker bees, both to confirm she is alive and for just the pleasure of seeing her. Of the 30,000 or so bees in my hive, all are female with the exception of a few hundred drones whose only mission is to fertilize the queen. The successful males disembowel themselves in the process. Those who are unsuccessful might live through the summer, but are either expelled from the hive or killed by the female workers as winter approaches. A screened-in porch is a blessing when extracting the honey from the hive. As soon as the bees find where you have taken the honey, they will come to take it back. This year, the bees covered my screens like an insect version of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds. Last year, I took just two frames of capped honey, opened the honey capsules with a knife and left them to drip into a bucket. Late the next morning I went out to find all of the honey gone with just a few unfortunate bees stuck in the dregs. This year, I used a simple honey extractor, which after punctures the honey capsules with a spiked roller. I spin the extrator by hand, emptying the combs of honey by centrifugal force. By late that night I had extracted over 100 pounds of honey, filtered it of wings and comb wax and filled dozens of sterilized mason jars. Some will be gifts, but most will be added to the inventory of cut flowers and heirloom tomatoes at next year’s farmers market.
Alan Leveritt Publisher, Arkansas Food & Farm Arkansas Times Publishing 8 | FOOD & FARM
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