01 November 2021
Apiologist Brian O’Toole
“The hum of the bees is the voice of the garden”
Elizabeth Lawrence
It’s hard to know where to start. Torn between concentrating on the beauty, intelligence and human necessity of our bees and the bleakness of the reality of their tenuous existence, it’s difficult to reflect on what was an informative and at times, dismaying lecture. There are no wild honey bees left. Too late to cry.
Brian O’Toole from wild sanctuary has an easy calm sort of presence. After the introductions he lead us through a detailed presentation of bees, beekeeping, honey production and a more general discussion on the devastation of our most needed workers. The details were fascinating. Vague childhood school memories surfaced when Brian spoke of the hierarchy of the Honey bee hive, the varying but equally important roles of the Workers, Drones and Queen. Each knowing their role immediately upon birth. Working symbiotically for the good of the hive, brutal expulsion when your services are no longer required or useful. One could not help but still be amazed at the dancing ritual of the scout, passing on geographical details of where to find food or set up home.
Their raison d'être? The queen. Build her a special cell, (Queens Cup) domed, warm and sealed for protection. Feed her Royal Jelly, make her the centre of their world for the approximate 5 years of her life and then chase her out to die when it’s time for a new queen bee. And, make Honey, their store of food for the winter months when nectar and pollen are not available. Producing much more than they can use, we benefit from their industrious nature. Humans don’t need honey to survive but, they do need bees. Responsible for 80% of pollination worldwide, including 70 of the top 100 food crops, you can thank the bee for 1 in every 3 bites of food you eat (Greenpeace).
The Honey
Sharla Riddle from Bee Culture magazine describes bees as “chemists”. Using complex chemical processes, they turn natures nectar into a “supersaturated power food” (Riddle, 2016). Forager bees collect the nectar through their proboscis and store it in their honey stomach where work starts on enzymatic break down. They pass this nectar to the house worker bees where further conversion happens. The nectar is passed from one to another, the young bees regurgitating and re-consuming over a short period of time, it is worked on until a moisture content of approximately 17 % is reached, then stored in the honeycomb cells. It is this low moisture content and the hygroscopic nature of honey that gives it a very long shelf life.
Lauded for millennia for its healing, healthfulness and taste properties honey is mostly composed of sucrose and fructose, but, also contains macro and micro nutrients, minerals and a host of flavour compounds. Although tempting to talk in-depth about, I believe there is a wealth of information available from multiple sources on the purported health benefits of different honeys, so, as a chef, I would like to reflect on the culinary applications and flavour profiles.
Flavour and Culinary applications
Brian had three honeys for tasting. Floral, Heather and Ivy. The flavour of honey is dependent upon what food sources are available to the bees. The earliest food in Ireland comes from spring flowering trees, shrubs and flowers, producing floral notes. Mono flavours of honey can be produced where only 1 type of food source is available. Irish raw honey (not from EU blends) can have varying flavours from different parts of the country, it’s our most commonly used, fragrant, very sweet with some background flavours. Moving on in the season the much reported on Heather honey comes into play. Deeply aromatic, strong and sweet it is eagerly anticipated for its culinary and health properties each year. Ivy honey was a revelation to me. An almost savoury flavour, ‘tahini’ like in colour and consistency it is the last production of the season.
Where to start with the culinary applications of honey! So many traditional and contemporary applications. Ireland is known as “the land of milk and honey” and has a tradition of beekeeping going back thousands of years. Traditional Irish recipes include the famous Mead, a honey wine popular before the production of cider in monastic settlements, carrageen moss with milk and honey, honey bread. The use of honey as a sugar alternative in savoury and sweet products on a commercial scale adds considerable value to the price, taste and perceived health benefits. I use a local floral honey to make Jun, a hard (alcoholic) Kombucha that is only made using honey. Glazing meats, particularly pork meats, mixed with oils for dressings, honey syrup with winter spices used as a breakfast condiment, the list is endless. Chefs can look to the cultures of the world that use honey prolifically in their cuisine, Moroccan cuisine in particular with a favourite being honey loaded caramelised onions added to tagines, an idea that could be transported to many a dish. I can safely say having taste tested the differences in the flavour profile of honeys I will be looking more closely to see what is available to me locally and how I can incorporate them into my food.
Health benefits
Honeys therapeutic properties are well established and go back thousands of years. It is believed to have been used by the ancient Greeks as an elixir for life and is mentioned in many religious bibles, still today popes wear chasubles adorned with bees, reflecting the hardworking and chaste nature of these creatures (Megatarian, 2014). The health benefits of honey are backed up by science, with a recent DCU study showing Irish Heather honey as having comparable health benefits with the famous New Zealand Manuka honey (O’Brien 2018). The study found that like Manuka Irish heather honey has phenolic compounds (anti-oxidants) useful for treating wounds and preventing cell damage in humans. It is also credited with anti-bacterial, and anti-inflammatory properties, useful to help our immune systems function.
Recipe Fermented garlic Organic garlic crushed (peeled). Raw honey. In a sterilised jar pack the garlic in leaving a couple of inches’ head space. Cover completely with honey making sure all the cloves are covered. Seal the jar (anaerobic process) Flip the jar upside down daily for a week. When bubbles start to appear you know the fermentation process is working, you will need to burp the jar every day to release Co2.Continue this burping until the honey starts to thin out. Once the bubbles stop the garlic cloves will sink to the bottom. You can then stop burping. Store in the sealed jar in a dry not too cold place The honey and garlic is considered most beneficial after 3 months. Often used as a winter protector against colds and flu.
Under attack
Bees are under attack. We hear it all the time, but, do we really take it in? Humans are mostly to blame for a lot of bee problems, pesticides, drought caused by global warming, air pollution, nutritional deficit due to mono-agriculture are just some of the problems bees face. They are dying at a rapid rate. Beekeepers in America reported a loss of over 50% of their hives in 2020 (Greenpeace, 2020). A particularly nasty threat to bees is the Varroa mite, a tiny parasite that as I understand it, attaches itself to the honey bee between the exoskeletal plates, break these plates open and releases digestive enzymes into the bee. These enzymes breakdown the cell tissues and turn them into a slurry, effectively liquidising the bee. Alongside collecting nectar from plants, bees collect pollen. This is a source of protein used to feed their young. The pollen they collect needs to be diverse, from a range of different flowers and plants, our increasingly mono- culture way of growing is not offering this and as a result bees are undernourished and at times starving. Pesticides can be absorbed by the seeds of plants and flowers, as a result of bees foraging they bring this back to the hive where it is systematically passed through the bee colony. Other chemicals such as herbicides and fungicides are all being used widely, the cumulative effects of all of this is believed to be a major challenge to our bee friends.
It’s all very sad and hard to fully understand. Beekeeping is an ancient tradition and practised by thousands of people all over the world. The majority of beekeepers are guardians of the bees, they respect them and do everything they can to protect and ensure their survival. But these problems and challenges are mainly out of their control.
Big business
Worth an estimated 9.2 billion US dollars in (2020) honey is big business. A Netflix documentary Rotten: Lawyers, Guns and Honey aired in 2018 and details the murky world of fake honey. Food fraud. Honey diluted with rice syrup and other products to make it look and even taste similar to honey often illegally imported to countries, mainly from china. As quick as the pollen analysts (mellisopalynologists) figure out new ways to test honey the fraudsters find new ways to adulterate. The losers? The bees and the consumers. The demand of honey is increasing but the production is declining, but there is still a surplus of honey out there, cheap honey. Not honey.
The learning
This lecture for me was an important one. I feel I have not done justice to either the lecture or the bees, because it all makes me very sad. And, it’s too late for tears. Beekeepers are important. The potential of honey as a food and medicine is important, but the bees are the most important of all. The amazing intelligence, the work ethic, the structure and military precision of the colonies and the community they build is mind boggling. There is a lot to know, and a lot to research. The National Biodiversity Data Centre in collaboration with NUIG, Native Honey Bee Society and the Federation of Irish Beekeepers are studying the ‘wild’ bees in Ireland in order to develop conservation strategies. We can all be part of this by recording and reporting when and where we see honey bees. It’s the least we can do surely? The information is out there as are the beekeepers, in a village near us all. There are no wild honey bees left.
References
News at DCU (2018) Irish heather honey buzzing with health benefits comparable with Manuka [online] available at: https://www.dcu.ie/news/news/2018/08/irish-heather-honey-buzzing-with-health-benefits-comparable-with-manuka-honey09 March 2018 [accessed] 5 November 2021.
Woodworth, Paddy (2019) The Irish Times, more to bees than honey, hives and dancing. [online] Feb 23, available at: https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/travel/ireland/more-to-irish-bees-than-honey-hives-and-dancing-1.3797863 [accessed] 5 November 2021.
O’Brien, Tim (2018) The Irish Times, Irish honey among world’s healthiest, study finds, [online] September 03 (2018) 00.07 available at: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/irish-honey-among-world-s-healthiest-study-finds-1.3615937 [accessed] 06 November 2021.
Crowley, Ciaran (2019). RTE, Brainstorm; To bee or not to bee: can the law save the bee? [Online] May 3 available at: https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2019/0502/1047133-to-bee-or-not-to-bee-can-the-law-save-the-bee/ [accessed 7 November 2021.
Trinity News and Events, (2019). Value of Irelands insect pollinators greatly underestimated. [online] available at: https://www.tcd.ie/news_events/articles/value-of-insect-pollinators-to-irelands-ecosystems-and-economy-greatly-underestimated/ [accessed] 6 November 2021.
O’Byrne, Willie (2021) Irish Farmers Journal, Honey: food of the gods [online] available at: https://www.farmersjournal.ie/honey-food-of-the-gods-642423 [accessed] 7 November 2021.
Jukes, Helen (2020). Aeon, the accidental beekeeper [online] available at : https://aeon.co/essays/why-keeping-bees-means-thinking-about-landscape-as-a-system [accessed] 5 November 2021.
Greenpeace USA (2021) Save the Bees: Be the solution to help protect bees in crisis [online] available at: https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/sustainable-agriculture/save-the-bees/ [accessed 5 November 2021.
Baer, Boris (2018). Australian Academy of Science, What it takes to make a queen bee [online] available at: https://www.science.org.au/curious/earth-environment/what-it-takes-make-queen-bee [accessed] 6 November 2021.
History of Honeybees, [online] available at: [https://historyofbees.weebly.com/bees-and-catholicism.html [accessed 5 November 2021.
All- Ireland Pollinator Plan, [online] available at: https://pollinators.ie/record-pollinators/wild-honey-bee-study/ [accessed] 7 Novembers 2021.
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