(DF) HONEYBEES IN THE HOUSE WALL (PART 3) Removal

Wednesday morning, having found the entrance the previous day, I put on my protective gear and fired up the bee smoker. then began removing a few pieces of siding from the wall to reveal the underlying boards where the bees were entering.  Within a few minutes, boards were revealed and the first board was removed.  Between the wall studs, there was honeycomb, but the bees were not on it at that location.  Removing boards and occasionally pumping smoke into the hive to keep the bees calm, I worked my way down to the bottom end of the honeycomb which ended within inches of the bottom plate..  There were no bees, brood or honey in these honey combs, so I would have to work upward to find the colony.

Moving higher and higher on the ladder, I slowly removed the outside wall all the way to the top plate.  Yes, the honeycomb reached all the way up the wall, from the bottom of the first floor to the top of the second (sorry I forgot to take pictures of the higher levels).  In the upper half of the comb is where the bees, brood and honey were.  There were far fewer bees than I had expected and much less brood and honey, though I hadn't expected lots of honey this early in the season.

By now, it was mid-day and time to start removing the bees.  Piece by piece, I removed honeycomb, carefully searching each piece for the queen, then placing it in a flat pan.  The pan would only hold a few pieces so it was down the ladder to put brood comb (some were partly filled with honey) into the hive body I had brought for this purpose.  The bees from the non-brood comb were gently brushed into the hive with a soft brush, all the while searching a second time for the queen.  This process was repeated over and over again until all the comb with honey or brood were out of the wall space.  One of the last few pieces of comb was where the queen and her entourage were finally located and were introduced to the hive.  When this was finished, I removed the empty comb from the wall.  All of the honeycomb which was not placed in the hive had been placed in containers with lids so the bees would not attempt to salvage the honey and wax and be more likely to work in the new hive.

As you can imagine, there were bees flying everywhere.  They were now entering and leaving the new hive and defending it, but there were still a good number of bees in the wall space gathering any honey that had been spilled or missed in their old location.  As expected, they could be seen gathering this honey and returning to the hive.  This process would continue for a while.

By late afternoon, with the work done, it was time to let the bees settle into their new home, so I left the hive where it was and made arrangements to come back after dark when the bees would be in for the night.  Sure enough, with darkness, the bees had settled and the vast majority of them were in the hive.  There were a few holdouts who stayed with the remnants of the old comb, but most had accepted their new home.  With a ratchet strap across the top to keep the hive parts from shifting and releasing bees into my Jeep Cherokee during transit and a small wad of green grass in the entrance to keep them from crawling out, I loaded the hive and started the 40 mile trip home.

I had hurriedly cleared out a place for the hive and set up a stand the day before, so upon arrival the hive was placed on the stand, the grass and strap removed and now it was up to the bees.

The next few days were cool and rainy, and with not much in the way of flowers for the bees to feed on, and with them needing to produce honey and wax quickly, I fed them so they could save flight time until they were well established.  As you can see from this photo taken a couple of days later, they were entering and leaving the hive, even though it was cool and damp (when it warmed up, there was more activity but I didn't have the camera with me).  Nothing to do now but wait for the bees to do their work, and to make a decision before the following Friday whether to re-queen. 

PHARMACY FRIDAY - Honey: Raw, Pure or Natural?

As Dave and I are trying to live more and more naturally, we are also using more and more honey in our diet. And honey is simply oozing withe health benefits! One of my favorite benefits of honey is the fact that it has strong, powerful, antibacterial and antimicrobial properties. This, combined with its many healing properties, makes it great for soothing sore throats, abrasions and minor burns. And that is just the beginning of honey's many healthful and healing benefits. It's pretty amazing stuff!

I could easily get very carried away with discussing all the wonderful healing benefits of honey, and eventually I will, but that isn't the purpose of this post, today. If you would like to see some more of the many, wonderful health benefits of honey, have a look here.  Instead, my post today is about WHICH honey is best to use to get those great benefits.

First of all, local honey is best for you. By local honey, I mean honey that has been grown through bees and pollens that are as close to you as possible. Honey that comes from your own environment gives you the best protection and healing you can possibly get. 

Regardless of where your honey comes from, some labels will say that it is 'raw' while others will say 'pure' or 'natural'.  This can be very confusing. The labeling on honey has not yet become very regulated, so even the same word on a label may have a different meaning from one brand to another, and the meaning of the 'terms' used will also vary greatly from country to country. There are; however, some basic rules of the trade that makes it a little easier to decipher and decide. In this post, I will be discussing the most common meanings used here in the United States.

RAW HONEY- Raw honey is just what it says ... RAW. It is straight out of the hive and has not been processed in any way. It has not been heat treated. It has not been filtered. It has not been pasteurized. It does not have other ingredients added. And it has not had it's beneficial qualities killed off. It is exactly as it was as it came out of the hive, sometimes even containing an occasional wing, a bit of pollen or honeycomb, or maybe even some propolis. It has a much higher antioxidant level than processed honey. This is the honey you want. It still holds ALL of its natural healing benefits.

NATURAL HONEY - This may not even be 'just' honey! It says 'natural' so all of the ingredients are probably natural, but there may be other things in there besides honey. It could contain sugar, molasses, or any other number of natural sweeteners or ingredients.... even water. Also, it may have been (and probably was) heat treated and/or filtered, which could destroy most of the benefits you were looking to get from it.

PURE HONEY -  Now this is the term you probably see on MOST of the honey labels. And it is probably the one that is most open to the largest variety of definitions. It leaves all kinds of possibilities for what may be in that jar of honey! It might mean that it is 'raw' honey straight from the hive. But then, again, it might not even be all honey! It could be only a small amount of honey with other ingredients, such as sugar, water, coloring, flavoring, etc, but with all of the ingredients being pure. Regardless of whether Pure Honey is Raw honey or if it is a 'blend' of ingredients honey labeled PURE has usually (though not always) been processed to some degree. Most has been at least heat-treated ... pasteurized. The high heat used for this processing kills most, if not all, of the honey's health benefits. It may have also been filtered, which further removes some of the honey's health benefits.

Why would all of this processing be done? One, it makes it smoother and clearer for a nicer presentation to the customer. Personally, I think it looks pretty appealing just as it is, and I am not willing to give up its many benefits for it to look 'prettier'. Second, if the honey contains 'other' ingredients, the processing is necessary to keep down the risks of food poisoning. But a product like that, I consider pretty worthless. It has no benefit except for a monetary one for the company that is producing it and fooling the customer. And with today's lax labeling, you have no way of knowing exactly how much heat has (or has not) been applied to your jar of honey, nor how much filtering or other processing.

Your best, and most reliable option is to purchase your honey straight from the bee keeper..... purchase it from someone you know and trust to be selling you RAW, UNPROCESSED, REAL honey. If you want your honey to contain ALL of its healing, medicinal, and health benefits, this is the only way to go!


Have a sweet day!