Backyard Beekeeping

Beekeeping is a beautiful way for humans and nature to support each other. Here you have an interesting guest blog post from Rocio Espinoza.
We wonder if there are people among you who have experience in breeding bees or intend to become a beekeeper? We would be happy to be able to hear your stories. :slight_smile:

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GREAT article! ONE THIRD of our food production depends on bees. Bees, as well other pollinators are an indispensable part of biodiversity and sustainability. They are vital to a healthy environment & must be protected for the future of our planet.

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Beekeping is definitely on my bucket list. My grandpa did it for 40 years. Sadly the circumstances has not been right yet, but I’ll get there.
What amazes me is the difference in taste of the honey depending on the season and local botanic variety. Last year I got my hands on a few jars where the bees mainly got the nectar from linden trees. The honey had a slight note of mint. Delicious.

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Yes, indeed, real honey tastes much better than “from the factory”.
It is delicate and has different flavors depending on the plants from which the nectar is collected. Personally, I love buckwheat honey and manuka honey.

Generally, honey as a product is bactericidal, heals wounds and contains a lot of vitamins and trace elements. Honey lowers blood pressure, inhibits atherosclerotic processes, and heals liver diseases.

The effect of buckwheat honey in the prevention and treatment of heart and circulatory system diseases is especially appreciated.

In contrast, Manuka honey offers collectively antimicrobial, antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties which studies have shown may offer wound healing capabilities in tissue regeneration, acute wounds and superficial partial thickness burns, diabetic ulcers and eyelid wounds, for example, post-surgery.
I especially recommend the one marked MGO 550+

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Should you ever have the chance try Tasmanian Leatherwood honey. Just perfect😘

As for beekeeping, never taken part but I’ve watched professional apiarists sweep a wild swarm of bees by hand into a new hive. Amazing to watch them happily waltz in to a new home.

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@iota I have to ask my Australian in-laws to send me some :wink: However, Polish honey is not not something to sneeze at: https://culture.pl/en/article/polish-honey-a-nectar-for-both-body-soul

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I am not a backyard beekeeper, but I have seen beekeeping in someone’s front yard. Does that count? :smiley:

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@kirkmahoneyphd as long as you’re a bee :honeybee: supporter :slight_smile: Cheering from the sidelines :slight_smile:

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What’s less known to the public is the importance of wild bees and bumblebees. Where I live 300 different species has been found belonging to this family. They all have different purposes, and some only collect nectar/pollen from one specific kind of herb/flower/plant, which means that they only live/appear during a short period of the season adapting to their “companion” plants lifecycle.
Sadly many of the wild bees are getting rare today, many are requiring open meadows with a mixture of different plants that are allowed to grow freely, or natural soil with high sand content to dig nests. Today’s huge monocultures only benefits pests which are then controlled using pesticides.
It’s sad that big commercial interests have industrialized even nature these days.

I live in a city centre, but my garden is probably one of the most bio diverse spots in the city. I have bumblebees and also tawny mining bees visiting the flowers in my garden. The latter are also great pollinators for my little orchard.

For bees to successfully survive, it is important to have many different flowering plants that blossom at different periods. Right now in spring, bees have a hard job finding enough flowers. This is why it is advised to start mowing your grass only at the end of the May month and let some weeds at least blossom.
I also witnessed the massive honeybee starvation a couple of years back.