Robin Ellis

Alice–our mushroom supplier earlier this week–just arrived with a hive full of displaced bees.

“You’d better stay inside, Robin, you might get stung!”

I’m happy to continue having my honey-free breakfast in the kitchen.

Meredith and Alice, dressed in their protective costumes, carry the box of bees out to the end of the garden.

!

Alice seems confident they will be happy in their new setting–and she is often right about things.

Yesterday she’d brought round another bag of morel mushrooms–‘miffed’ perhaps that I had not followed her advice about using creme fraiche in the cooking of the first lot. (I didn’t have any.)

“Has he bought creme fraiche?” she asked. Meredith nodded in the affirmative.”Eh voila!” and left the second bag for supper last night. She was right–they taste good with a tablespoon of cream amd a twist of fresh ground black pepper added to the pan.

morels with cream

She thinks the field across the road will be a rich source of nectar for them this year, with much buzzing contentment.

“The fascinating process of making honey begins when the bees feast on flowers, collecting the flower nectar in their mouths. This nectar then mixes with special enzymes in the bees’ saliva, an alchemical process that turns it into honey. The bees carry the honey back to the hive where they deposit it into the cells of the hive’s walls. The fluttering of their wings provides the necessary ventilation to reduce the moisture’s content making it ready for consumption.”*

Happy bees would be better than discontented bees when I’m working in the tomato patch close by, in a month or two.

The danger zone?

“The vexed question”

Honey promoting web sites are keen to be positive about the vexed question of honey and diabetes, pointing out that it is a better option than sugar and sugar substitutes.

Because honey is generally thought to be health promoting, a little everyday is a good idea–even for people with diabetes, they argue.

* more than you need to know perhaps about HONEY–but useful nonetheless.