Buzzing with Spontaneity

This morning, I had the purest and sweetest honey I have ever tasted in my entire 22 years of life. It might have been due to the fact that I was eating the honey right from the honeycomb. 

I attribute this experience to my live-in-the-moment cousin Giovanni, who took us on a detour from our beach outing (anyone notice a pattern here...) to visit a honey factory last week.

All ready for the beach, but a bee-utiful pit stop was incredibly nice!

August is a slow month for honey factories, mainly because it is very hot for the bees and their peak working season is spring. In fact, the owner of the factory, Giuseppe, was slightly reluctant to let us in for these very reasons. However, he graciously opened his doors to us and we drove through the iron gate and onto the premises.  

As we approached the rows and rows of boxes, which each contained a bee family working on its own honeycomb plates, I had to remind myself that I am not afraid of bees. This thought slipped away the moment that Giuseppe opened one of the boxes and removed one of the honeycomb plates covered with at least 300 bees, including the queen bee. He advised us all to remain calm and quiet, so we would not disturb the busy workers.

For an hour, Giuseppe explained in Italian the entire honey-making process, while he casually rested the honeycomb plate on his knee.

This is the plate with the queen bee, aka La Regina.

Some interesting tidbits I learned:

• The queen bee can lay over 2,000 eggs per day during the spring and summer months, which helps to replenish the workforce.
• During spring and summer, worker bees live up to 4-6 weeks. They literally work themselves to death!
• The women do all the work... not surprising. To clarify, the worker bees who produce the honey are all female. The only purpose of the male (aka drone bee) is to mate with the queen...and then they die. Ha ha.
• If a bee from one family ventures into the hive of another, it is instantly killed.

Giuseppe even took us inside the warehouse and showed us all the machines that he uses to process the honeycomb into honey for the average consumer. 

The more I learned about honey bees, especially their highly organized society with such intricate cooperation and communication, the more I admired and respected these creatures. I mentally thank them for my delicious breakfast of unprocessed and sweet honey to go with my brioche. It's delicious!

Giuseppe even gave us an entire honeycomb plate to take home! Stephanie took this great picture.

A huge thank you goes to Giovanni for taking us to the factory. An even bigger thank you goes to Giuseppe for having a big heart and sharing his expertise with us. 

After the impromptu tour, we stood around talking about various things -- Giuseppe's horse named Stella that hangs out right outside the factory in the shade, the new-born pups that were wandering around looking for their mother, and of course family. Oh yeah, we found out that we are related to Giuseppe. What a lovely surprise. 

Such cuties!!

- Valerie xoxo