Surviving with bees!

Wow I had no clue honey stayed like that, nor did I know it was that good for you, very cool.
Good Post
Think I'll make me some white tea with honey right now.
Yep good stuff. I 'll have to try and find some of the fancy honey you guys are talking about, but for now Mel-O will have to do.

Thanks
Helle
 
Coldwood said:
Old folks up here say they used to give a baby a peice of honeycomb to chew on when they were teething...health departments today would have a fit about that, the baby might swallow the wax...well, yes.
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I've seen a bunch of references to honey containing botulinum spores (the thing that causes botulism). From the CDC website:
Because honey can contain spores of Clostridium botulinum and this has been a source of infection for infants, children less than 12 months old should not be fed honey. Honey is safe for persons 1 year of age and older.
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Hillbilly.223 said:
Either that or they were looking for a place to "swarm". This happens when the beekeeper does'nt do his job and put another super frame on top of the full or near full hive. This is almost always when the weather is hot. The queen takes off and half the bees follow her to protect her. They swarm around her for protection. Usually they stay put for 2-3 days then take off and start a colony somewhere else. Was it warm or hot when this happened?
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IIRC it was about 75-80 degrees out, so not too hot. I figured the ol' lady of the hive might have gotten into my garage or something, but I guess not (Maybe she was there and left, I dunno).

I was kind of concerned they might have been of the "Africanized" variety. I don't know much about bees. I guess I should, considering my wife's family used to keep them for three generations on their ranch in Escondito, CA. I still have a giant block of grungy-looking beeswax from them around here somewhere as well as some ancient honey sealed in mason jars.
 
Lots of information about honey here - http://www.honey.com/

Around here, along with many of the usual varieties, the "local" specialties are Sourwood (which does not granulate) and Tulip Poplar. In both cases, when these trees are blooming there is not much else blooming at the same time, so you end up with a relatively pure variety.
 
Joel Stave, thanks for your comment...the old folks up here never said anything about babies dying from chewing honeycomb.

IMHO, I think exposure to natural bacteria things like that immuned them and kept people of that generation living longer.

My mother has stories of me getting caught playing in the chicken coop around the age of 4. Later, I was know to eat spoonfuls of dirt. Doctors have anecdotal stories about pregnant women eating spoonfuls of dirt, probably because they were starved for minerals and roughage.

It makes one wonder about all the hype we get on TV about having a totally bacteria-free household. IMHO, kids today don't develop natural immunities. my .02
 
Hey Guys...

Sassafrass Illegal in Canada ???

Interesting..Never heard such a thing..
We have Sassafrass growing Everywhere here...

$hit if theres an underground market for it,, I could make Millions!!!

Isn't Sassafrass root what is used to make Root Beer ??

Maybe it's all the illegal root beer stills we have in the woods up here!!

LOL

ttyle

Eric
O/ST
 
Coldwood said:
It makes one wonder about all the hype we get on TV about having a totally bacteria-free household. IMHO, kids today don't develop natural immunities. my .02
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We're getting a little off topic, but I've seen studies that link the rise of childhood asthma to the overuse of disinfectant. They speculated that the immune system in children is helped to form by things like dirt and bacteria -- sort of like exercising muscles -- you don't do it, or don't do it enough, the muscles become weak. Essentially, its healthy for kids to get dirty.

RE: root beer -- it used to be made from sassafras root. I'm pretty sure these days that its all made from synthesized ingredients.
 
Back in the 1600s sassafras was said to cure all ailments .Ships coming to America from Europe returned filled with sassafras. ...There are poisonous honeys .One that I can remember is mountain laurel .
 
I believe Coldwood and Joel Stave are right about the immune system thing. If you keep a child in a bubble, how the heck is their system going to get used to environmental factors?

For an example, go to the doctor next time you have a bad cold, and ask him for antibiotics. He will tell you he's got nothing to give you, because antibio's were over-prescribed for so long, that the nasty bugs just mutated and now none of the drugs work.

George Carlin has a great bit about this, where he talks about his immune system being strong, because it was "tempered in raw shit" from swimming in the Hudson when he was a kid.
 
Crazy Ed and I were hammered and returning on back roads from a fishing trip. We'd stop to drain snake, and on one stop our little pickled brains decided to toss one of those wooden bee hives into the bed of the truck. We got stung multiple times and there were probably hundreds of bees on the truck bed when we got back. It was a dark buckwheat honey, obviously unpasturized. We got A LOT of honey from the slats. It still say it was the best honey that I'd ever tasted, but I have no other reference other than the store bought stuff. I'm not proud that we stole some guys hive, but then I did a lot of so/so things in those days.
 
GibsonFan said:
For an example, go to the doctor next time you have a bad cold, and ask him for antibiotics. He will tell you he's got nothing to give you, because antibio's were over-prescribed for so long, that the nasty bugs just mutated and now none of the drugs work.
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What you're saying is true for a number of bacterial infections but cold/flu, specifically, is caused by a virus and antibiotics have never worked on viruses -- only bacteria (and fungal infections? I'm not sure).


Speaking of honey (remember? That's what the thread is about) -- do all the different flower-specific varieties really taste that different? I know buckwheat tastes different, but I've tried clover, orange blossom and raspberry and I really couldn't tell the difference -- do I just have blind taste buds?
 
Joel - A lot of honeys have similar flavors, but there are some that have distinctive flavors. Some of my favorites are distinctive - cotton and star thistle (the western star thistle, when pure; it is often blended, and there is an eastern variety of star thistle that is different, and I haven't tried that one) being two examples. Others that you can tell are different are varieties like cantalope and eucalyptus. I'm sure there are eastern varieties that are distinctive; I just got some Tupelo that seems to have an interesting flavor, but I haven't really tried much of it yet.

A strong honey that is probably a little different from most is Macadamia. My daughter brought me some from her honeymoon in Hawaii (is there a pun in there somewhere?).

I still regret not buying some of the saguaro honey that I once saw for sale, I wonder what it is like.
 
With over 70 hives to manage (I eat sleep live bees) , I'm up to my ears in it. I help judge honey for the NC State fair every year. I really like sourwood, but am always in a battle between it and tupelo.

I don't like cotton honey because it crystallizes so darn quickly.

want to get over $6million dollars in research grants with bees,
do what Haarrman did
http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/11/28/bombsniffing.bees.reut/index.html
1159982712-aknife.jpg
 
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