Every so often you get the pleasure of meeting people who are completely honest and true to themselves. Robert Anthony is one of those people , a bee keeper from Knockmeelmore Co Waterford , a couple of miles on the Waterford side of Youghal. I first met Robert & his wife Marie at a farmers Market in the Blackwater Garden Centre a couple of years back and often ended up having long chats about this and that and this is where I had my first taste of their honey and my God is this stuff good, so when I say that Robert is honest and true to himself well what I mean is that he's doing something that he truly loves. He's a very modest man. I later found out that he has a masters in criminal justice and has lectured in many collages, but he'd never tell you this himself , Marie , his wife filled me in on this, she also told me that he calls the bees his girls but I don't want to embaress him any further or he might not let me publish this.
When I pulled up the bohereen that leeds up to Roberts yard he was there waiting for me just opposite the entrance to his bee hives, so I got out and said hello and he brought me over to the gate and told me to look at the closest hive and observe the bees going in and out and to pay particular attention to the bees with large clumps of yellow stuff stuck to their back legs and sure enough there was plenty of activity. He explained that this was pollen and that even at this time of year given the right weather conditions the bees will be hard at work trying to keep their Queen happy.
I was fascinated to find out that each bee has a particular job description. All of the bees we saw going in and out of the hive were female and are called workers. They do all the work of the colony.In summer time they only live about 6 weeks. For the first three weeks they are what we call "house bees" They start their duties cleaning and polishing cells for the Queen to lay in, and later feed the larvae and pack and process the nectar/honey that is brought in. Older house bees would be on undertaker duties and their job is to remove any dead bees from the hive, this is quite remarkable when you think that they can carry their own weight in flight. When their stings are developed they take up duties as guard bees mainly at the entrance to the hive where they can be seen stopping and checking out intruders , workers from other hives may be admitted but only if they are carrying pollen or nectar. At about three weeks of age, the workers go on trial flights to orientate themselves to the hive, and then go foraging, usually to locations passed onto them by older bees using a unique form of sign language known as dancing.
In one colony it is normal for there to be one queen whose only duty is to lay eggs , about a thousand per day at the height of the season , about 60,000 workers and 200 drones. The drones are male bees whose only function is to mate with the virgin queens. At the end of the summer, if a colony has a laying queen and the workers feel that they have no further need of drones, any remaining at that time are evicted from the hive to perish from cold and starvation. As Robert put it "they did have a wonderful life up till that point".
Even though the life expectancy of a honey bee is only a couple of weeks especially the summer born ones. The bees born later in the year live much longer, the reason for this is that the summer bee works a lot harder than the winter one and simply works themselves to death. You see the honey bee only works in daylight and in good enough weather conditions so a combination of long days and good weather means the summer bee will end up working themselves into an early grave, unlike the winter bee , who hasn't as much work to do because of shorter days and unkind weather which means she spends more time relaxing then her summer counter part.
I was saddened to hear that there are no natural wild honey bees left in Ireland with the last nine years. They were wiped out by diseases and parasites brought in from abroad. The main culprit was the infamous varroa mite. The only Irish honey bee left in the country are the ones in bee hives such as Robert and other bee keepers around the country. Thank God for people like Robert, if not for them the native Irish honey bee would be extinct from our beautiful island altogether. Robert lives in hope that some day someone will breed a batch of bees that are resistant to the varroa mite and that once again the native bee will flourish.
We can all do our bit to help the bee keeper by thinking about the plants we set in our gardens. Think bee friendly gardening . They love willow, black thorn, white thorn, sycamore, dandelions, ivy, black berry, white clover and the list goes on and on.
This is Robert at his stall at the Lismore Farmers Market where he sells his honey and a selection of delicious cheeses. Nothing is better than buying food off the very person that produces it and now that I know how much work goes into a jar of honey it makes me appreciate every drop that bit more. I feel as though Roberts love of bees has rubbed off on me , I went for a walk today and found myself scanning the ditch lines for honey bees and getting excited by the idea of spotting one. I highly recommend to anyone who has even the smallest interest in honey or cheese for that matter to go to Roberts stall and quiz him about his honey, he's like an encyclopedia of information.
KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK .
