Slow Food apiary visit

 

Like bees round a honeypot, a party from Edinburgh Slow Food clustered round a beehive

 last weekend and learned how bees turn nectar into honey. Slow Food is an international

 movement which “aims to protect the pleasures of the table from the homogenisation of

modern fast food and life” (http://www.slowfood.com).

 

At the apiary of the East Lothian Beekeepers Association the visitors donned veils, gloves

 and overalls and watched as the Association President, George Barton, expertly removed

 frames of comb from the hives. Some combs contained eggs, larvae and pupae: the brood frames.

 Other frames glistened with freshly collected nectar, dazzled with differently coloured pollens,

or tempted the eyes with delicious honeycomb. Some hives contained queen cells in which new

queen bees were developing, a sign of imminent swarming. The visitors were lucky enough to

see a football sized swarm collected from a small tree and poured rather undignifiedly into its

new hive. After half an hour all the stragglers had rejoined the swarm and a new colony had begun

 life (and work). Showers of rain sent everyone inside for tea and honeycake, and to taste heather,

 dandelion and sweet chestnut honeys as well as honeycomb taken straight from the hive.

 

The second half of the visit was to Ormiston Honey Farm where George Hood described how honey

 is extracted on a commercial scale through a process of gentle warming, spinning and settling.

After a final step of straining to remove any fragments of beeswax or bees legs from the honey it

is stored and bottled. Although George Hood gives a “Best before date” of eighteen months after

bottling, he was confident that his honey was stable for many years. A Slow Food member recounted

 how an archaeological find of jars from ancient Greece had revealed edible honey. A very slow food indeed!

 

Thanks to all who helped out and especially George for providing the site and refreshments

 

Click here to see some of the pictures courtesy of Pat