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| Di Swales |
Di’s husband, Trevor, has been making honey for 41 years.
Actually, it’s the bees that make the honey, Trevor just steals it from them
and packages it for consumers. Today he generously gave me a tour of his
operation. It’s a one-man operation, but he’s got millions and millions of
employees doing the real work.
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| Trevor Swales and some of his bee hives |
Here’s my understanding of how it all works. Each of queen
and her entourage live in the lower castle (my term, not his) – basically a
wooden box. Trevor moves each castle close to flowering plants so the bees will
be near the flowers he wants them to pollenate. Next week he’ll be moving the
castles to the moors in order to produce heather honey. On top of the castle he
stacks more wooden boxes, each containing racks of honeycombs. Over time, the
bees will fill the combs with honey. In a good year, Trevor can get three
harvests.
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| Honeycomb in rack |
Harvesting the honey involves removing the upper boxes
without disturbing the queen in her lower castle, spinning the racks in a
centrifuge, and draining off the honey. The honey is filtered several times and
placed in jars. It is very good – Di serves it at her B&B, and Trevor sells
the rest.
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| Centrifuge |
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| Honey, before straining |
I had never had a tour of a honey-making facility before,
and by comparison, the rest of the day’s walk seemed pretty ordinary. Despite
the beautiful weather, spectacular scenery and lovely footpath, my thoughts
were on the toast and honey I’ll have with tomorrow’s breakfast.
But for those of you who may never have had a beekeeper’s
tour, and may not be focused on tomorrow’s breakfast, I’ll post some pictures from
the walk.
