THE HONEY Honey is the most famous product of the bees. It is produced in beehives if naturally or in hives if captivity but in both cases it tastes very good and sweet.

The honey is called in different ways depending on the flowers’ pollens, from which it is extracted. So we have the wild- flowers honey, the eucalyptus honey, the chestnut tree honey and others. The honey has to be kept preferably in a cool and dark place in order to save the organoleptic characteristics so the honey can keep even for hundreds of years perfectly preserved.

During its production the honey is preserved in hexagonal cells (which have this shape because the hexagon is the polygon that has the widest area with the smallest perimeter for a lower wax consumption) that make up beehives and hives and where the bees were previously born. Nutrients contained in 100 g of wild-flower honey : Energy 303,3kcal Proteins 0,26g Sugars 82,40g Fats 0,00g Vitamins and Minerals 0,50g The honey gives us mainly sugars so it helps us with the energetic function of our body.

The honey usually accompanies cheeses for a better tasting and in the milk it relieves sore throat and cough; it’s also used like a sweetener for drinks like tea and tisanes. Seeing bees flying is a good sign because it means that place is unpolluted!

The honey’s production It’s spring and the beekeeper removes one of the honey- comb from the hive: it is already full of honey. It’s summer: the time of the honey extraction. After removing a honey-comb from the hive, the beekeeper lets bees fly away with the help of a blower. Before opening the hive he uses a smoking tool, burning a bit of jute in a small combustion chamber connected with the bellows: the smoke calms the bees and makes them less aggressive.

Now the beekeeper moves to a close place that must be very clean with washable walls and insect screen on the windows. Using a knife the beekeeper removes the wax layer the bees had put before to protect the cells full of honey. This operation is called disopercolatura. Then the beekeeper puts the honey-combs into the honey extractor, which is a centrifuge that turns them with a great speed, so the honey deposits at the bottom of it. Honey extraction

The honey stays in the ripeners for a sufficient time so the impurities can come up to the surface. At last the honey can be poured in small glass sterilized jars. Next the honey is collected in big jars and after it is filtered; finally it is poured into big containers also called decanters.

Other bees’ products THE JELLY: it feeds the queen bee and it can used in medicines, mouthwashes etc. THE PROPOLIS: it is used to mummify the dead bees and if there is no wax, it substitutes the wax for the building of the beehive. THE POLLEN: to collect it you can put a grid into the beehive; the bees drop some of it when they pass. THE POLLEN: to collect it you can put a grid into the beehive; the bees drop some of it when they pass.

THE VENOM: it is used for medicines and it can be collected having the bees pass through an electric grid that gives them a mild shock so the bees use their stings and the venom drops on a sheet of glass. THE WAX: it is collected during the disopercolatura phase. To separate it from the honey residues it is put in a container called sceratrice in a sunny place. In fact the heat of the sun solves the wax that drops in a mould. The bees use it to build their beehives but we use it to make candles. THE WAX: it is collected during the disopercolatura phase. To separate it from the honey residues it is put in a container called sceratrice in a sunny place. In fact the heat of the sun solves the wax that drops in a mould. The bees use it to build their beehives but we use it to make candles.

The bees die when they fly near flowers on which noxious pesticides have been used; we shouldn’t use them because if bees died, we could lose lots of our normal food resources like vegetables and fruit because bees pollinate most of our plants!!

Lorenzo Vecchiotti