I promise; I promise, this will be my last post on behalf of Amelia who will return back home tomorrow. However, I could not resist sharing with you all, my visit today to the Fête des Abeilles – The gathering of the members and the friends of the Association of Apiculture of the department of Charente Martitime, where we live. By this time of the year, that is to say the summer solstice, we should have really nice weather, and we have had two or three days when the temperatures soared to about 30 C [that is about 86 F]. But sadly today was not one of those and although it was not cold at all, we had a drizzle most of the day. But it did not deter the people and they came to see the main attraction which was the extraction of honey. For me, however, the great excitement was something else that I had never seen at close quarters.
They had chosen an interesting location which is a center recently opened to study and shelter wild birds along a corridor of the busy motorway A10 which runs between Bordeaux and Paris.
On one side is a forest and the several acres of land was purchased partially because it has a lot of lime trees, in full flower at this time of the year.
Those perfumed flowers produce some of the best honey I have ever tasted. For that reason, different members of the association of apiculture have left some of their hives in that center.
The extraction was demonstrated by one of the members who had opened one hive and had removed a few of the elements. He first showed how with a special knife the waxy coating was to be removed.
They were very keen to encourage and educate the participants, specially the curious young children.
Several children participated in the preparation of the elements for extraction. They even placed the elements in a transparent extractor and were in a practical manner taught how the centrifugal force works.
But as I said for me the absolute excitement was being able to see her majesty the queen bee in her court. She is not normally removed from her hive, but this day when Michel had removed one of the element for transport in a glass hive, he had not noticed that he had also transported the queen. She is in the middle, larger than the others with a prominent back – may be it is there she wears her crown!
Michel assured me that a separation of a day should not disrupt the harmony of the hive. I was so absorbed by the events of the day that I did not notice until I was leaving that there was another queen bee amongst us.
And so, or as they say here “et voilà”, I thank you for all the encouraging comments that you wrote for the last few blogs and I leave you in the good hands of Amelia. Au revoir – K
a french garden 