bees – Francois et Moi

The Great Labor Day Honey Harvest + 4 Easy Ways to Help the Bees!

francoisetmoiblog@gmail.com — Fri, 22 Sep 2017 18:51:39 +0000

Over Labor Day, we spent the weekend at my husband, Ken’s family farm in Manchester, Iowa harvesting honey from my father-in-law’s bee hives. Every year it’s a collective effort gathering the hive frames, using heat to open up the wax honeycomb, spinning the honey from the frames, and bottling it up. Being this close to the harvesting process, has given me such an appreciation for the honey bees. Their social hierarchy, the work they do pollinating flowers, and collecting nectar & turning it into honeycomb is just all around fascinating. And I was surprised to find over the years, that unlike wasps, the bees are actually incredibly gentle and unlikely to sting. My husband, Ken, even got a bee in his bee suit one year and wasn’t stung! Bees make it possible for us to enjoy a variety of foods as they help with the reproduction of upwards of 75% of flowering plants and crops. Unfortunately, our honey bee numbers were down this year at the farm, and it’s part of a larger trend due to a combination of stress factors including loss of habitat, parasites and diseases, and pesticide exposure. Without the bees many of our crops and flowers […]

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The Great Labor Day Honey Harvest

francoisetmoiblog@gmail.com — Thu, 17 Sep 2015 13:44:47 +0000

Honey bees are quite the extraordinary creatures, and we’re reminded just how extraordinary they really are each Labor Day, as we, the Francois Family, gather down in Manchester, Iowa to harvest the pure and sweet overflow honey from my beekeeping father-in-law’s 7 hives. A weekend I look forward to all summer long! After one honey harvest under my belt, check out last year’s harvest here, I felt as if I had a solid understanding of the amazing process: the bee colony teamwork, the formation of the honeycomb, and the transformation from flower nectar to honey, but I couldn’t help but find myself a little star struck again this year by the honey bee’s handy work. It’s just so cool, you guys, the way these self-sustaining, micro bee metropolises transform wildflower nectar into a healthy overflow of decadently sweet, non-perishable, all-natural honey! In case you’re not familiar with how honey bee hives operate, here’s a little on their M.O.: Each colony, which consists of about 50K-60K bees (a queen bee, 3000 male drone bees and 50K female worker bees), work together in tandem to produce honey (their food source) by gathering nectar from flowers and mixing it with enzymes in their […]

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