|
Join us for a visit to the hives in southern Mexico ...
About the honeybees
Bees are social insects that have co-evolved with nectar-producing flowering plants: The flowers provide the bees with food (nectar) and the bees cross-fertilize the flowering plants. Honey is simply the modified flower nectar, which the bees store in the hives and use to feed the queen and worker bees.
Apis, the honey-producing genus originated in India; Apis mellifera, the honeybee, evolved in subtropical Africa and now inhabits the Northern Hemisphere from the equator all the way to the Arctic Circle. The fossil record shows that bees have been around for 50 million years or so, and that the social structure of bees' colonies have been consistent for nearly half that time.
Bees are among flowers' most important pollinators and it's a symbiotic relationship: both the bees and the flowers benefit. Many of the plants we depend on for food (directly or indirectly), especially fruits, nut trees and vegetables (especially savory fruits like tomatoes, peppers, squashes, beans, etc.) are pollinated by bees, as are many of the herbaceous plants that cattle graze on, especially sweet clover. Cotton is pollinated by bees; so are sunflowers.
Flowers have developed special features to help bees find them, and bees have specialized "landing pads" (laden with the flower's pollen) which are located near a nectary, a small gland in the base of the corolla (where the petals join). The nectary is where the plant stores the nectar (made mostly of sucrose produced during photosynthesis). A bee lands in the flower and uses a specialized proboscis to siphon the nectar from the nectary and while doing so, gathers pollen on its hairy abdomen and legs. When the bee flies on to the next flower, it carries pollen as well as nectar, cross-pollinating as it goes.
Honey's color and flavor is a result of the flowers' nectar. Ours is a multi-floral blend of honey. In early February, the bees in Chiapas and Quintana Roo were foraging on sweet clover, morning glory, lantana, hibiscus and sunflowers, and for one brief week in Chiapas' Sierra Madre Mountains, the bees forage on coffee blossoms, helping pollinate coffee trees deep in the mountains. As the seasons progress, the blooming flowers change and so does the character of the honey, becoming darker and more flavorful by the end of the season. The flowers also determine the honey's sugar content and subsequently its glycemic index.
The bees use their proboscis like a straw, passing the nectar from the proboscis through its esophagus into a honey sac, where the bee stores the nectar until it returns to the hive. While in the honey sac, various glands secrete digestive enzymes (including invertase) into the nectar, which help break it into its component parts: glucose, fructose, amino acids, antioxidants and enzymes.
At the hive, the bees begin making the nectar into honey. The honey bee pumps the nectar in and out of itself for about 15 to 20 minutes to help evaporate water from the nectar, then deposits the honey in a thin layer across the honey combs. In a process called "ripening," worker bees fan the honey for another three weeks or so to further evaporate the moisture to about 20%. (All those fluttering wings are what make hives "buzzzz.") Reducing moisture reduces the opportunity for bacteria and mold to grow and helps preserve the honey until the bees need it.
Besides evaporating moisture, the ripening process allows time for those enzymes that the bee secreted into the honey sac to work. The enzyme invertase converts the sucrose into glucose and fructose (basically, the bees are making an invert sugar; it's more soluble in water than sucrose and can be concentrated without crystallizing); another enzyme oxidizes the glucose into gluconic acid and peroxides. Gluconic acid gives honey a pH of 3.9+/-, making it inhospitable to microbes, and the peroxides account for honey's antiseptic properties. Still other enzymes isolate the amino acids as well as a variety of antioxidant phenolic compounds.
Who's who in the hive
Bees live in a remarkably ordered world. Every bee in the hive has a specific role.
The Queen. Each hive has just one, and it's her job to reproduce and maintain order. The qualities of the colony depend on her ability to lay eggs and produce pheromones.
- She is only sexually developed female. Soon after emerging from her cell, she makes a few mating flights and in that time, collects all the drones' sperm she'll need for the rest of her life (90 million spermatazoa). From that point on, her work is cut out for her: to sustain the hive, she must lay up to 1500 eggs a day (as many as 250,000/year). The number of eggs she lays is dependent on food she receives and the worker force tending her brood.
- An equally important role is imposing control: to do this, the Queen produces pheromones that restrict the sexual activity of the other bees, and help stabilize swarming activity, stimulate foraging and brood behavior and control development of the rest of the hive.
- Her average productive span is 2 to 3 years. When the queen's egg production begins slowing down, another queen is cultivated from within the larval group. New queens develop from fertilized eggs [or young worker bees not more than 3 days old; sometimes in emergencies, such as when the older queen dies or is removed]. The cultivated queen is fed nothing but "royal jelly."
Drones: Every hive has several hundred drones. They are the males and their only purpose is to mate with the queen on her initial mating flights. Except for that, as one noted bee biologist said, "they do no useful work for the hive."
- Drones are the largest bees in the colony. They have big heads, but no stingers or wax glands.
- They can sometimes feed themselves, but rely on the workers for food--eating as much as four times more than the workers. Researchers have never observed drones taking food from flowers.
- Drones have a very short lifespan. They reach sexual maturity a week after emerging and die immediately after mating with the queen.
Worker bees: In the summer, an organic hive will hold as many as 60,000 bees (to make best use of available flora for honey); in winter, just 20,000 (to sustain the hive). These are the bees we see out and about the hives. These are also the bees that sometimes sting us... they're just doing their job. They have short, but productive lives. Their life span is 6 weeks in the summer and up to 6 months for those reared in the fall--they help the hive sustain and rebuild after the winter.
- The worker bees are the smallest bees in hive. They are sexually undeveloped females. (Under normal conditions, worker bees do not lay eggs. However, if the hive becomes queenless, the ovaries of several worker bees will develop and they will lay unfertilized eggs.)
- Rather than developing ovaries, the worker bees develop barbed stingers and venom pouches. In addition to all the other work these bees do, they are responsible for protecting the hive. Honeybees don't usually sting unless provoked or defending the queen and the rest of the hive. But when they do attack, their barbed stinger stays in the intruder and the bee's abdomen rips open. They die instantly.
- Worker bees have progressive assignments. When they emerge from their cells, (21 days or so) they begin cleaning the hive and feeding young larvae and the queen. As they mature (42 days old), the move on to more important jobs ... maintaining the hive's honeycombed structures and tending to the ripening nectar, then finally the bees dedicate themselves to food production, foraging for nectar, pollen and the materials used to make propolis (plant sap that's used as glue in the hive).
Bee biology
All bees pass through three distinct stages before emerging as adults: egg, larvae and pupa; the pre-adult stage is collectively called the "brood stage." Unfertilized eggs become drones; fertilized eggs become workers or queens. The larvae destined to become workers receive less royal jelly and more honey and pollen while the larvae destined to be queens are fed copious quantities of royal jelly.
The length of the brood stage varies depending on the bee's role:
- Queen: 16 days
- Worker: 21 days
- Drone: 24 days
The average ratio at any time in a healthy hive is four times as many pupae as eggs and twice as many larvae.
The hives
Besides the bees and their honey, there's the wonder of the hive itself. In nature, bees establish hives in a hollow tree or another good nesting place (sometimes between the walls of homes...).
Bees are also happy to settle in man-made hives comprised of a series of frames and boxes. These are designed to accommodate the bees' social order and encourage honey production.
From the top down: Outer cover: The lid. It helps provide protection from the weather.
Inner cover: Helps prevent the bees from building honeycomb in the outer cover. It also helps insulate the hive.
Frames & foundations: These wooden frames hold sheets of beeswax that have been imprinted with the shapes of hexagonal cells. These imprints help the bees build straight combs. (The beekeepers help by saving the organic beeswax and casting it though a roller that creates a paper-thin wax sheet with the honeycomb pattern pressed into it.)
Honey chamber (or super): This is where the bees' surplus honey is stored. The 10 frames are in vertical slots. In some hives, two honey chambers are stacked on the larger brood chamber.
Brood chamber (also called a "super"): This chamber holds the frames in which the bees raise the brood cells and store the honey for their own use. The brood chamber holds 10 frames.
Bottom board: A wooden stand on which the rest of the hive is built. The bottom board has a framed edge with a narrow slot. The bees use this slot to move into and out of the hive. It's their only access as the other edges of the hive are sealed with propolis.
Hive stand: In Chiapas, the hives are set on leveled ground; in Quintana Roo, the hive stands are set over a water trough to prevent climbing critters, like ants and millipedes from climbing in and contaminating the honey. You may have noted the changing color schemes on the hives. In Chiapas, where the hives stand in clusters deep in coffee plantations, the hives are brightly painted--with water colors, of course--so the beekeepers can find them. In Quintana Roo, where the terrain is flat and the hives are easy to find, the hives are untreated wood.
The honeycomb: The central feature of the hive is the honeycomb. This marvel of insect engineering consists of vertical panels of six-sided cells made of beeswax. Why six sides? It simply the most efficient design: Engineering studies show that this six-sided, hexagonal shape is the strongest possible structure in nature and uses a minimum of materials.
Beeswax is produced from glands on the underside of the abdomens of worker bees when they are between 12 and 15 days old. Worker bees take the beeswax and form it with their mouths into the honeycomb. The cells within the comb will be used to raise young or to store honey and pollen.
The combs are perfectly uniform in shape and built a precise distance apart depending on whether they are meant to contain food or young bees. (The nursery area of the hive is called the "brood comb"-it's where the queen lays her eggs.)
We often just see the honeycomb filled with honey from the end, but if you looked at a side view, you'd see a wax tube. In the brood cells, the queen deposits an egg, then, with care and feeding from the worker bees, the egg goes through the brood stages and emerges as an adult. During the pupal stage, the worker bees seal or cap the cells with wax. When the adults emerge from the cells, they simply chew the caps off the cells and literally go to work.
To protect the hive's honey and other food sources, the worker bees also cap the honey and pollen cells. While honey is the carbohydrate that fuels the hive, pollen provides the proteins and amino acids essential to bees. Pollen is between 6 and 28% protein. Bees store pollen in specialized cells as well, and mix it with honey to make "bee bread," which is the food source for most of the larvae and bees.
"Royal jelly" is similar to bee bread, but it has a much higher concentration of honey. When a worker egg has been selected as a queen, it is moved to a larger cell and is fed royal jelly. The queen larvae is fed royal jelly until she emerges as an adult.
Collecting honey
In Mexico, the harvest season begins in December and continues through April. Beekeepers begin by removing the bees from the frames. Not surprisingly, this upsets the bees, who recognize only that their hive is under attack and their queen is in danger. To help "calm" them, the beekeepers pour smoke into the hive using a small smoker with a hand-pumped bellow. Inside the smoker's fire chamber, the beekeepers stuff nearby dried forage and wood a light a fire. The bellows help get the fire started and once started, helps the beekeeper pour the smoke into the hive. (In conventional honey processes, the burning materials include antibiotics and other synthetic chemicals ... this method is also used to medicate the hives. In organic hives, this is prohibited.)
As the bees settle down, the keepers, clad in light-colored clothing and veils, carefully pry the hive's lid off. The honeycomb-covered frames are arranged on edge in the hive boxes. When the frames are lifted out, they are covered in bees tending to the honey and brood cells. With a little smoke and a gentle brushing with a soft brush, the bees will leave the frame. (This is when most stings occur ... even with smoke, the bees are protecting their hive from danger.) While still in the field, the beekeepers gently cut away both sides of the honeycomb frames. The caps are put into a container called an uncapping tank that has a mesh screen on top. Honey drains through the screen in to the bottom of the container, while the caps and any other debris are collected in the screen.
The frames are then put into an extractor, a stacked series of containers and screens topped by drum that contains a rotating wire basket. The frames are placed in the basket and the basket is turned by hand. (It's essentially a centrifuge.) Centrifugal force pushes the honey out of the combs onto the sides of the tank. The honey drains through a small hole in the base of the drum into another strainer that filters out large debris such as wax and dead bees. The filtered honey then drains into the base drum, a large tank with a spigot, or "honey gate," at the bottom. As honey settles in the tank, air bubbles and small debris rise to the top and can be skimmed off. When the frames are emptied, they are replaced in the hives and the bees settle quickly, going right back to work.
The beekeepers take the honey to the organic processing plant where it is filtered again and any excess moisture is evaporated. In the case of the RAW honey, evaporation occurs by simple exposure to warm dry air; in the case of the amber, the honey is gently heated to hasten evaporation. (Too much moisture in the honey encourages molds and bacterial growth--an unwelcome situation in the hive and in the honey we consume.)
Wholesome's honey is then transported to our 3rd party processor, where it is filtered for the final time, lab tested to be sure that it falls within National Organic Program and Wholesome's quality standards, and bottled.
As a rule, organic beekeepers leave 10% of the honey in the hive each year to help feed the bees during winter when there is no forage. (In conventional practice, the bees are fed sugar water or are just allowed to die and the hive is started anew the following spring with store-bought bees.)
Organic honey
There are very precise requirements for USDA Organic honey. Although our producers are in Mexico, they follow these guidelines as well.
- Honey must come from organic bees. Hives that have existing honey in them are prohibited in organic areas. The Mexican hives are in designated "Organic Zones."
- Organic honey must be produced from naturally foraging bee colonies that are located at least 2 miles (straight-line flight) from any source that could cause the honey to contain herbicides or pesticides. Within this 2-mile radius no pesticides or herbicides may be used, and must not have had any chemical application in the previous 3 years. oWholesome's suppliers keep their hives as much as 15km from a paved road in coffee plantations and tropical rainforests.
- Feeding bees is prohibited. If feeding is necessary to prevent starvation, the honey produced is not organic.
- Hives boxes etc. need to have all of their parts numbered to prevent accidental use in non-organic hives. All hive parts must be made of wood and if painted, they must be painted with non-toxic paints in a color appropriate for the climate. (Plastic is prohibited.)
- Comb foundations must be made from organic beeswax.
- Organic honey processors are specifically prohibited from "economic adulteration"--adding sugars, syrups or water to the organic honey.
- The extraction facility must be certified organic, with specifically isolated areas designated for organic honey.
- All organic honey must be certified by an approved organic certifying agency. Wholesome uses QAI, who are certified by USDA's NOP (National Organic Program). Note: The fine for calling it "organic" but not working to NOP standards is $10,000 (and may the bees sting you right on the nose and the tops of your ears. For shame!)
- Our 3rd party supplier is further certified by local organic certifiers and only accepts honey from areas that are certified by a USDA NOP certifier. The certifier must also physically inspect the organic producing area.
- Organic honey is processed only after all of the equipment has been completely flushed according to NOP standards.
- Wholesome Sweeteners is able to track 100% of our organic honey-from the hive to the store's shelves.
Organically raised bees don't have the opportunity for any exposure to chemicals, which makes for a healthier and hardier hive. Moreover, because organic certification is an expensive commitment to NOP standards, the beekeepers are dedicated to maintaining the character of the hive AND the bees' local environment.
Protecting the bees forage helps more than the bees, it helps sustain bio-diversity and healthy ecosystems.
Bees, bugs and predators
Bees are susceptible to a variety of diseases and pests. In Mexico, the predators are mostly other animals (although in some places, molds are also a problem). The hives are set on short pedestals in shallow troughs of water to prevent ants and other climbing critters from getting into the hives and contaminating the honey. If hives do become infested or infected, they must be destroyed.
Other dangers include weather-related disasters: In 2007, Hurricane Dean decimated Quintana Roo's rainforests and the hives suffered terribly. In Chiapas, high winds in the coffee plantations damaged the pollen-bearing flowers, which in turn disrupted the bees' nectar-gathering activities (and often killed any bees outside of the hive when the storms began).
- Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) is the name that has been given to the latest, and what seems to be the most serious, die-off of honeybee colonies across the country. It is characterized by, sudden colony death , but honey and bee bread are usually present and there is often evidence of recent brood rearing. In some cases, the queen and a small number of survivor bees may be present in the brood nest. It is also characterized by delayed robbing and slower than normal invasion by common pests such as wax moth and small hive beetles. According to Wholesome's cooperative partners, honey bees in the Yucatan and Chiapas have not experienced CCD.
Coming soon: Nutrient Values
Typical analysis for 100grams
Moisture 18.6%
Total calories 286
Calories from fat 0
Total fat (g) 0
Cholesterol (g) 0
Total carbohydrate (g) 81
Dietary fiber (g) 0
Sugars (g) 81
Proteins (g) 0
Cooking with honey
When substituting honey for granulated sugar in recipes, begin by substituting honey for up to half of the sugar called for in recipes. When baking...
- Reduce any liquid called for in the recipe by 1/4 cup for each cup of honey used
- Add 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda for each cup of honey used
- Reduce the oven temperature by 25 degrees F and add a few minutes to the timer.
- Because of honey's high fructose content it has more sweetening power than table sugar. Less is more!
- When measuring honey, coat the measuring cup with non-stick cooking spray or vegetable oil before adding the honey. It will slide right out.
- A 12-ounce jar of honey equals a standard measuring cup.
Storing honey
Store honey at room temperature--a kitchen counter or pantry shelf is ideal. Storing honey in the refrigerator accelerates the honey's crystallization. Crystallization is a natural event in the life of honey. To dissolve the crystals, put the opened jar in a bowl of warm water and stir gently to dissolve (never microwave the container or put it into boiling water).
Honey, did you know ....
It takes 556 worker bees flying 35,584 miles to produce 1 lb of honey. In its lifetime, a single bee will contribute 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey to the hive (one-twelfth)-every teaspoon of honey represents the life's work of a dozen bees.
For every pound of honey taken to market, eight pounds are used by the bees to sustain the hive.
Bees don't see red, but they do see ultraviolet light (which we can't see without special filters).
Bees maintain their hives at a constant 89°F 32+/-0.6°C no matter what the weather is doing outside the hive. Bees control their own body temperatures by expanding or contracting their muscles and so help control the temperature of the hive as well. (Temperatures in the hive also influence the honey's color and flavor.)
Swarming honeybees are nothing more than a new queen and her workers looking for a new home. Because they haven't settled in a hive yet and have nothing to protect, they are very passive.
Bees are attracted to dark colors, but not to light colors. Bees will not generally attack light clothing, that's why beekeepers often wear white coveralls and white veils.
Honey appears to have nearly unmatched medicinal qualities. We respectfully defer to the National Honey Board's web site, www.honey.org for health claims and conversations. That being said, we must reiterate that children 12 months or younger should never be given honey.
Fair Trade and the beekeepers …
More to come on the beekeepers ... Mayans, heritage, traditions, language groups, political and labor concerns, economic opportunities, etc.
- In Chiapas: working with 5842 individual hives owned by 12 cooperative members
- In Quintana Roo: working with 7200 individual hives owned by 250 cooperative members
The hives are tucked deep in the jungles of Chiapas and Quintana Roo, and have been tended by Mayan communities for generations. Although there is a centuries-old beekeeping tradition here, honey production has only recently been recognized as a viable and stable income opportunity in the global market.
In years past, middlemen, or “coyotes,” took a majority of the beekeepers’ income. With Fair Trade Certified, the middlemen are removed and the cooperatives work autonomously and directly with Wholesome Sweeteners. “The beekeepers are able to improve standards for their families, their communities and their honey, and protect precious rainforests and habitat,” says Pauline McKee, Wholesome Sweeteners Marketing Director. “While they look forward to business opportunities and a new sense of stability, the Co-op members are inspired by their past … the Mayan beekeeping culture is surviving and thriving in the early 21st century.”
Sources
The Biology of the Honey Bee, Apis Mellifera; by Ross E. Koning, 1994 http://plantphys.info/plants_humans/bees.html
Mid-Atlantic Apiculture Research & Extension Consortium [MAAREC] at Penn State University; http://www.maarec.cas.psu.edu
The National Honey Board; www.honey.org
McGee, Harold. On Food & Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen
QAI website
USDA Nutrient database web site
|
