So, far I haven't found anything online about beekeeping in the Azores, but, that doesn't mean they don't. In fact, there is not a lot online about the Azore islands at all, so I am not suprised. I suspect that since there is grapes growing in massive quantities on the islands..Bees are integral to the wine process.
I personally, grew up with bees in my life and I am convinced they are magic. How can they not be? No pun intended. They take something as small as pollen and turn it into honey and royal jelly and make wax.
Honey and beekeeping goes back pretty far. Bee's and honey are supposed to have a history dating back 10 to 20 million years and that actual jars of 2000 year old honey have been found uncorrupted in Eqyptian tombs, and it was edible. They used honey for medicine and sacrifices. Honey wine is the oldest fermented drink, the vikings, my ancestors made it and enjoyed it, a lot.
Honey never goes bad. Comb can, but not honey. The only thing that destroys this is adding hot water. It kills the natural enzymes in it. Luckily, I only do that when I am about to consume it in a cup of tea with my friends. Many people think that crystallised honey, or powdered honey is bad or usable. In fact, that is simply not true. Put your jar of crystallised honey in hot water (don't add the water too the honey, it can handle heat) and it will soften and clear up again and taste just as delicious as it did in the first place.
Honey is technically, in a measurable sense, sweeter than sugar. Many people don't realise that, but in a scientific sense, it really is. Personally, the different variations in the flavor of honey is what fools my taste buds.
Honey doesn't have just one taste. People think it does because they are used to the clover honey you get in the stores. DON'T FOR THE LOVE OF GOD EAT THAT!!! Many commercial company's pasturize and add sweeteners to the honey, this keeps a consistent taste and kills any of the health benefits of the honey. KILLS THE BENEFITS OF HONEY! You are basically eating corn syrup flavored as honey. FAIL.
Honey tastes like the flowers, or combination of flowers that the bees ate. They eat a combination of pollen and honey for their food...the make honey from the pollen as a way of putting away food for the winter. Man just figured out a way to steal. So, if you have a field of poppies....and you bees just eat that pollen and make honey from it, you will have poppy honey. Don't worry, its not opium honey...thats a human process of the sap...I wonder what poppy honey would taste like?
Generally, at farmers markets and such, you will find what ever is more prolific. In my part of the world (not the Azores) we get fireweed, blackberry and raspberry and sometimes pear and apple, depending on the time of year and exact area. My father's bees had a lot of fireweed, so that's the honey we are when I was a kid. My bees will have a lot to choose from, roses (nom nom) and various flowers that my amazingly green thumbed Mother in Law grows as well as her garden and the farm land near the hive.
Here are some photos from the building process.
My father in law loading the kit from Ruhl Bee supply
the black comb is for the brood boxes and the white is for the honey box.
This is the boxes and frames done. All I have to do is paint and insert the foundations
This is me applying water based glue to the box joints.
This is the honey comb base for the honey box. It smells AMAZING
Thanks for viewing my blog. I look forward to chronicling the ups and downs, joys and sorrows of beekeeping. Stay tuned for more information, painting pictures and in April, when the bees get here....the beginning.
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