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The sweet taste of success

The sun was already low in the sky when the Nuevas Esperanzas team reached the end of the climb to El Ojochal del Listón for the first ever honey harvest.  There was much excitement at what might await in the two bee hives installed in July as the team passed fields blanketed with flowers from which the Africanised bees were busy collecting pollen.

On arrival at the school where the beekeeping apprentices had already gathered, Nuevas Esperanzas’ resident beekeeper Erika Pérez provided a training session for members of the community on the ‘dos and don’ts’ of a successful harvest, including what to do should you be stung – a real and fairly painful possibility!  The harvesting team assembled the centrifuge machine which would be used to separate the honey from the honey comb once the wax had been removed.  Once the machine was ready, Erika demonstrated the best techniques to ensure maximum honey yield with minimum disruption to the rightfully protective colonies of bees.

Training completed, it was time to load up and set off to the staging location, 50 metres from the hives. On the way, the team was joined by Nelson, local custodian of the protective clothing and ‘fumador’ or smoke machine, which would be used to calm the bees. Suited and booted the team were ready to approach the hives and extract the honeycomb panels. Although darkness had fallen, enough light was provided by the half moon.

Under Erika’s expert guidance two teams of three put their training into action and within 20 minutes they had extracted 20 honey comb panels from two hives with minimum disruption to the colonies and having suffered only a few stings. With the initial ‘fear factor’ overcome, the work to extract the honey from the combs could begin.

Quickly but carefully two teams began by removing the beeswax using combs and a specially designed spatula knife. The honey comb panels were removed by one team before being passed to the second team to insert into the centrifuge machine. The handle was cranked and the drum inside began to spin. The honey is separated from the comb by centrifugal force, which pushes the liquid honey to the sides of the drum from where it drains through a tap. The sight of the rich golden honey running freely from the tap and into the waiting bucket was greeted with palpable excitement and marked a fantastic moment for the community and the Nuevas Esperanzas team.

Once all the honey had been collected and the panels, together with any straggling bees, safely returned to the apiary, the team packed up and headed back to Nelson’s house to wash and return the kit.  An impressive 15 kg of honey was gathered which according to Erika is better than expected for a first harvest and with future harvests promising increasing yields, the team’s efforts have so far been well rewarded.

The only thing remaining was to leave the honey to settle for two days before deciding what to do with the finished product. This will be determined by the community with advice from Erika.  It may be too soon to expect enough of a yield to realise the obvious commercial potential of the honey, but at least anyone in El Ojochal del Listón with a sweet tooth will be satisfied this Christmas.

16/12/10