Week 34 - learning about urban bee-keeping

We're all raving about coconut.  It is clearly the health food du jour right now.  But lets not let it usurp  something much less pretentious that we've been using since way before we could read about its health benefits on the internet.  I'm talking about honey.  The sweet and divine nectar has been consumed for centuries, not just for its yummy taste but also for its healing properties.   The Greeks, Romans and Egyptians documented the healing properties of honey as early as Aristotle's mention of it in 384 BC.  Honey is a natural anti-inflammatory, a source of energy, an antioxidant, an antibiotic, an immune booster and everything else.  It is quite literally the divine nectar and we all know that it comes from the humble hairy bee.  

Over the last few years bee populations have been massively threatened due to changes in agricultural methods and so urban bee-keeping has become a lot more prolific in an attempt to save our humble bee and also to create lots of lovely local production of honey.  The fact that bees make honey is one of those things that we all know but maybe don't quite appreciate and marvel at the intricacies and skill and sheer dedication it takes to make honey.  So obviously I wanted to do a workshop in urban bee-keeping.  Hiver beer is a gorgeous craft beer fermented with honey, that I discovered last year.  The brand sponsors and uses the honey from several hives at Bee Urban in Kennington and so they've come up with an ingenious idea; a workshop in urban bee-keeping and craft beer tasting.   

Bee Urban is a little oasis of life and growth in the middle of Kennington Park, with lots of fruit and vegetables and of course, plenty of bee hives.  A group of us gathered there and were met by Hannah, the owner of Hiver Beer and Barnaby, one of the beekeepers at Bee Urban.  They began by taking us through some of the theory and actually how honey is made.  

Bees collect nectar from pollen and when they deposit it in the hives, the worker bees chew on the nectar for a long time, mixing it with their natural enzymes.  It is then spread across the honeycomb cells that they make and after fanning the deposits, the nectar dries and turns into honey.  It all sounds simple enough for the bees but in human terms, a group of about 12 bees will produce a mere teaspoon of honey between them, in their entire life.  Put another way, it takes 23,000 bees to produce one jar of honey.  No wonder then, than in any one hive there will be between 40,000 and 60,000 bees.  Best get suited up then.

Barnaby started off by getting the smoker going.  This basically pacifies the bees and triggers them to gorge on the honey, therefore keeping them from flying around.  Its actually a rather calming experience considering, although of course, I don't think I would have been as relaxed had I not been wearing the veil.  

The bees produce something called propolis which they use as a kind of glue to seal up any gaps or crevices in the honeycomb, so beekeepers use a hooking tool to prise open the roof and the crown of the hive.  The brood box is where all the separate frames are, each one covered with thousands and thousands of worker bees busying away on top of their honeycomb. Each of the frames can be quite different depending on how many of the cells have been filled and also whether a bee has just returned from collecting nectar: some of them have very yellow legs!  So, we inspected all of the frames.

Whilst gazing in wonderment at the hordes, Barnaby told us that over the course of a year, a good yield is around 60lb of honey per hive.  They should be checked about once a week but they are only ever harvested once a year between around July to September.  

As we were making our final inspection we managed to spot the grand dame herself, the queen bee.  She has been marked with a little white dot so you can see her quite clearly.  She's a lot bigger than her multitude of sproglets.  

It was all terribly thirsty work so it was very satisfying to see a delightful spread of beers and snacks when we returned inside to disrobe.  Hannah took us through a brief lesson on how to taste beer and what makes a good quality beer.  There should always be very small bubbles that rise to the surface slowly.  This means that the fermentation process has been long and that the gas has been properly absorbed, rather than rushing to get out in big bubbles like with something such as Coke.  Thats why you get so gassy from drinking fizzy drinks.

Hiver beer is delicious and you can really pick up on the honey.  Its used as an alternative to hops and the natural sugars help to invigorate the yeast.  This then helps to give the beer a depth of flavour and increases the alcohol content.  We've actually been making alcohol with honey for centuries, in particular mead and Hannah ended by telling us a rather lovely, little anecdote that I can't believe I didn't know.  In England around the 1500's it was customary after a wedding for the newlyweds to drink mead for a lunar month in order to encourage fertility because it was renowned as an aphrodisiac......it took me a while to even pick up on it....honey drunk during a moon month...this is where the word "honeymoon" actually comes from!

This was such a brilliant experience, only £32 and so much to learn in a nice, short amount of time that wasn't drawn out. Hannah and Barnaby were both lovely and helpful and it was just great.  Make sure you check the Hiver website to book.   Bees good.  Beer good.