In this blog, we follow the journey of different fruits and vegetables alongside their farmers, listening to their advice on how to preserve, eat, or make the most of each product. This time, we're going to delve into the process of honey production. Within agriculture, beekeeping involves raising bees to produce honey, wax, pollen, royal jelly, and propolis. But today, with Raquel, we're going to learn in-depth about what it's like to accompany bees as they produce honey.
There's a lot of family history surrounding agriculture. For instance, at Campos del Abuelo, Eduardo, the founder and farmer of this project, has followed his family's legacy by cultivating Valencian oranges and also persimmons on his plots. In Raquel's case, her grandfather had beehives, but it wasn't until 2017 that she reconnected with beekeeping once again:
Many years ago, my grandfather had an old apiary. But I didn't follow his path with the beehives or anything. What happened was that I used to live in Madrid, in the capital, and I moved to a small village in León where there were no job opportunities because they are rural villages, and the idea of buying a beehive from my husband's cousin came up, and we tried it. We bought it in 2017, and we've been expanding every year, adding more beehives and producing more honey.
In the process of making pure and artisanal honey, there's a lot of flying, traveling from flower to flower, nectar, and pollen. To better understand, we have Raquel's words, speaking to us against a spectacular backdrop of mountains and ranges in León:
Bees collect pollen, but pollen is not honey. Bees make honey from the nectar of flowers, which is different. To understand it better, a flower gives you pollen and nectar, depending on the type of flower. Sometimes, the same flower gives you both pollen and nectar, but there are also those that only provide pollen and those that only provide nectar.
It's important to understand this difference because pollen and nectar are not the same, and there's a difference in when the nectar is collected, which our fellow beekeeper explains very well:
So, when making honey, the bee goes to the flower, collects the nectar, absorbs it with its very thin tongue, and carries it to a crop it has, which is like another distinct stomach. Then they go from flower to flower until they fill the crop. Once it's full, they go back to the hive, where another bee awaits them to exchange the nectar, adding enzymes that transform it into honey.
Yes, it is a rather incredible process. In addition to being very hard work on the part of the bees, it is a team effort. But the nectar still has a process to go through to transform into honey:
They deposit that nectar in the cells, and once it's deposited in the cells, they have to remove the moisture because nectar has a lot of moisture. So, once they consider that the nectar has transformed into honey because they've removed enough moisture, they seal that cell with a layer of wax.
This wax, Raquel tells us, is called an operculum, and it covers each of the cells where the honey is. You can see it here:
When it's time to harvest the honey, what we do is bring those frames, which already have the cells sealed, i.e., capped, to the warehouse. And once in the warehouse, we simply cut that seal, the operculum, to open the cell. Once it's cut, what we do is put it into a centrifuge.
So, to recap: the bees go from flower to flower collecting nectar. Once in the honeycomb, they pass it to another of their bee companions, who deposit it in the cell, remove the moisture, and seal it with the operculum. Once that's done, Raquel and her husband collect these sealed frames, open the cells, and spin them around and around:
Since the centrifuge spins very fast, the honey in those cells falls out. It then falls into a tank, and in that tank, we let it filter for a few days, to mature, to decant, because it might have some bits of wax or some bits of pollen or propolis. We let it settle so that the impurities rise to the top and the honey stays at the bottom, and we bottle that honey. It is an artisanal product; it contains nothing more than pure honey as is. All we do is cut the seal to leave those cells open so the honey can come out.
And bees don't just produce honey. The operculum that Raquel talks about is also used in cosmetics. Nature produces not only for food consumption but also for cosmetics, not only in the case of the operculum but also orange blossom, the flower of orange trees. In this article, you can learn about the derivatives, uses, and stories of orange blossom.
But back to honey. Today, Raquel has 200 beehives, but they plan to continue expanding the quantity to have a larger production. Currently, they produce around 7,000 kilograms of the purest and most artisanal honey. However, as with any agricultural activity, much depends on climatic conditions:
Production depends on the year. This beekeeping depends on the weather; if the year is suitable, if it rains as much as it should, if it doesn't freeze... It depends on the climatic conditions. There must be conditions that are good for it. For example, if it rains a lot, water is very good because it needs to water the fields, but if it rains too much and is constant, it washes away the flowers, and they don't produce nectar. So, the bees cannot go and collect it. At the same time, if it rains little, the flowers come out half-dry and also have no nectar. So, it has to be a symphony of the climate, of conditions that are adequate for production. That is why production can vary each year.
In the area where Raquel's honey is produced, frosts occur because it is a mountainous region. She told us that shortly after starting, they almost gave up because they couldn't harvest any honey. This happened because there was a ten-degree below zero frost that froze all the production. But they persevered, and today their honey is a pure and totally artisanal product.
How to help these tireless travelers?
Bees are of vital importance in the world: they are responsible for pollination. Without them, flowers could not set fruit and transform into produce. That's why it's important to ask ourselves, What can we do to take care of them in our daily lives? And to get a good answer, we asked Raquel, a beekeeper:
I always say that bees are superheroes because they are responsible for pollination. So, every plant, all ecosystems need bees or some other pollinating insect, which also exist, to pollinate them to reproduce. For example, well, speaking of you who deal with oranges and all that, if bees don't pollinate them, the tree won't thrive. So, what bees do well is that they help ecosystems to sustain themselves because they are the ones pollinating from flower to flower.
These superheroes live alongside us farmers every day, and they are cared for by beekeepers like Raquel and her husband. But we can all help them continue their vital work:
We take care of them because we have beehives. But people, when they see a bee, their first instinct is to try and kill it. We can recommend, first of all, not to kill it, as it won't harm you. You might be afraid of being stung by a bee if you are in the apiary and walking among them, because there's a possibility it might defend itself and sting you. But a bee that is pollinating, collecting pollen, or gathering nectar, for people to just go and kill it? That's not right, because it's just working, simply working. So, I'd tell people not to be so afraid of bees and to help. For example, they can help by planting flowers that produce pollen for them in their gardens.
But it's not the only way. Sometimes, Raquel tells us, bees travel many kilometers and have to stop to rest before they can return to their hive. So, another way to help is that, when you see a bee that looks somewhat dying, you can give it a little sugar water so it can drink, and that will give it the energy to return to the hive. It's a good way to be a superhero for these superheroes.
However, it is a small way to contribute, just a drop in the ocean. The real problem, the beekeeper tells us, are the large companies dedicated to agriculture that use strange chemicals that kill them. Or also the large industries that have factories and generate a lot of smoke because, in the end, all that settles on the flowers or trees. It is a kind of pollution that bees suffer from. They still work, but it's not good for them.
So, another way to take care of them is by trying to lead a more ecological life. Raquel's honey, however, comes from an environment very well protected from any type of contamination:
For my part, I live in a village with fewer than fifty residents, and, of course, we are free from pollution. We don't have agricultural fields that spray sulfates; we live in the mountains, there are no factories, we have a quality environment. In the area where we have our beehives, there is no pollution. Furthermore, we have water that originates here, in the Sierra del Teleno, which is pure water, because bees also need water to make honey and feed their young. So, if the water is healthy, in the end, all of that will impact the products you get from the beehives. The truth is that we are in a very privileged area, and that's why we can produce quality honey.
What's the best way to store honey?
Honey is a very noble product that lasts a long time and doesn't cause major problems, but we still asked Raquel to give us some tips for optimal preservation:
Regarding our honey, which is artisanal, pure, and not subjected to any process... Our honey eventually crystallizes; that is, it forms crystals, which is its natural way of being consumed.
Honey doesn't spoil because it is preserved in a crystallized state. So, all you need to do is keep it in a jar and consume it. It's true that it loses properties over the years, but it will never spoil. What's important is to store it in a place where it doesn't get direct sunlight.
At Campos del Abuelo, we not only take care of our great pollinators, the bees, but we also offer seasonal fruits and vegetables starting from one kilo in our online store. Remember to visit our website to place your order for healthy, quality products grown 100% on Spanish soil.
Until next time and thanks for reading!
