Honey

 

September 25, 2020

It’s been twenty years since I’ve last smelled that sweet pungency which greeted me as I entered the driveway today. I hadn’t realized how much I missed it. The bees are making honey, and I’m a bit closer to heaven tonight. This morning I brought home a colony I took out of a barn. Being so long since I last did this, I made a few mistakes along the way, and I’m not sure I managed to save the queen. I fear not, in which case, this colony probably won’t make it. They haven’t made any queen cells, and the colony is too disrupted to start any this late in the game. It’s too bad; I hate to see a colony die, especially if I’m responsible for it. 

We’ll see. I may get lucky, but even if not, the other colonies are doing fine, and the honey flow is on. In the meantime, I understand the richness of the Biblical description of the Promised Land as a land “flowing with milk and honey.” Even with all the sweeteners available to us today, nothing quite matches the delicacy of honey fresh from the comb. The processed stuff you can buy at Walmart or even Wegmans is to the real thing like a Big Mac compared to filet mignon. 

A few facts about honey. Its sugar content is so high, it cannot spoil. I have honeycomb in my freezer that I took from my hives twenty years ago. It is almost as fresh as that which I cut from the barn yesterday. It is antibacterial. Again, the sugar content prevents bacteria from growing. Slather it on a burn or a cut to speed up the healing process. Just don’t sleep in a tent where there are bears nearby. Local honey can help alleviate pollen allergies. Some of the pollen the bees collect gets into the honeycomb, acting as a sort of inoculation against the allergens. The last trivia concerns the bees themselves. Honeybee stings have been proven to help alleviate the symptoms of arthritis and even MS. The honeybee is a marvelous creature; just one more reason to praise the wisdom and glory of the God who created them. Tonight, I am thankful for my bees. They are worth every single sting, and tonight’s airborne aroma is heavenly.