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Posted by Lani on Tuesday, April 8th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
We harvested honey for the first time from our month-old apiary on Saturday and to mark the occasion, a nasty little buzzer left its stinger in my arm, and she probably died in the process - serves her right, ha-ha! But that’s getting ahead of the story. How I came to be involved in the apiary business is one of those in-God’s-own-time stories. I first met Mrs. Maxima Ines (our consultant who did her dissertation on beekeeping in Israel) at a trade fair in Vigan in 2006. I took interest in her produce immediately. Since then, I’d planned to visit her apiary to learn more about beekeeping but never quite found the time; neither did I know how to locate her place as I had lost her business card. Then one Saturday, Feb. 23, I think, we (some relatives and I) went to Mino’s in Badoc, a home-based canteen that we frequent and that serves Italian snacks cooked by Manong Mino, an Italian who is married to a lady from Badoc. Unfortunately, they were getting repairs done on the canteen, so we had to leave without getting our fill of the usual pasta dishes and pizza. On our way home, I broached the idea of looking for Bona’s Garden in Sinait, that’s Mrs. Ines’ apiary and, after asking around, we found the place - after two years of planning to do so on my part, and all because Mino’s place was closed on that fateful Saturday and we had time to kill. Now, don’t you just see God’s hand in all that?
We bought some bee products from Mrs. Ines that day - honey cider vinegar, honey, bee pollen, propolis wine - and also looked at her colonies and had a crash course on the site about beekeeping. We expressed our interest in having our own apiary but she said we needed to undergo a seminar on the process, and that we would have to go to MMSU (where she is a professor) for it. A few hours after we left, however, she called to tell us she’s willing to come give us the seminar since she saw how enthusiastic and interested we were. She gave us the lecture on the Monday after our visit and got our colonies a week after. Now, our apiary is a little over a month old and what started as four colonies are about to become eight.
Interest in beekeeping is growing in these parts of the country. Mrs. Ines relates that she gets requests for seminars from people from as far away as Abra and Cagayan. And why not? Beekeeping is one of the most environment-friendly activities. Through pollination,
they prevent the extinction of wildplants. Bees are highly valued by farmers for their role as pollinators, helping plants be more productive. Some beekeepers even lease their bees to pollinate farms. Indeed, experts acknowledge the importance of bees in the food chain and the economy: without these buzzers, harvests would decline and prices of commodities would soar. One recent report even describes the potential impact of the declining bee population worldwide as “worse than global warming.” Fortunately, research is underway to look into the problem and find some solutions and, through, our small-scale apiary, we hope to contribute to the effort.
I am so happy for you! Congratulations!
1 | Joy April 8th, 2008 at 3:27 pmWhat a coincidence…I was just talking about a homemade honey with a coworker yesterday. She said she was told by a doctor friend that a cure to an allergy is a teaspoon of honey - a local homemade honey, it has to be! Well…I don’t know about that, I said, but I sure could try it. It doesn’t hurt to try new things right? A report about a bee says: “In winter the bees only leave the hive if it’s 48 to 50 degrees or warmer outside. Inside the hive they cluster for warmth - they have to keep the hive at 90 degrees to ensure the young survive.” It is so interesting to see you keep bees and even more so interesting to hear from you that your group of hives are growing. Manang, can you please tell us more about it? How did you determine the increase in hives and the bees total (?), if you know it…there are so many of them… By the way, last year I got a bee-sting on my left arm which still shows mark on it…ah…bees…also reminds me of a friend trying to kill one bee with her shoe and instead a 150-year old glass window broke…those were the days… I must mention as well that I was so lucky to taste a lot of honeybee brands there…they, our local people, said before, it is good for someone who has asthma…my parents bought all kinds of goodies incredibly delicious made from honey, I mean all kinds, just to cure my constant asthma attacks. And of course, I now figured, honey cures - and very natural treatment by the high mineral content of the honey itself! I long to hear more news….
2 | Jane April 9th, 2008 at 9:38 pmThanks, Joy, and thank you, too, for your interest, Jane. I am new to this myself and I am still learning and I surely will be posting more about our apiary in the future. When we got our colonies, they came in small boxes with four combs each, and each colony contained 10,000 to 15,000 bees. We transferred them to larger boxes (will post pics of boxes in the future) and since then, there have been new bees hatched; we have had to add combs (the rectangular wooden frame in the first picture above) and one box on top of the original to give them more room because the first box had become too crowded, but we don’t really know the exact percentage increase in the number of bees.
3 | Lani April 10th, 2008 at 10:04 amGood day kabayan, I also long want to try a business, I love nature and pets, beekeeping will be ideal for me. Would you be kind to share more information specially about Mrs. Ines, please email me her contact details. Congratulations for the success with your bee-sy friends and good luck! Cheers!
4 | Akino May 22nd, 2008 at 5:22 pmThanks for visiting, Kabayan. If you’re here in the area or your associates are, Mrs. Ines should not be difficult to find. Just go to Sinait and look for Bonna’s Garden, it’s right along the highway, just before the town cemetery.
5 | Lani May 26th, 2008 at 12:00 pm