Post by Joanna on Oct 1, 2014 18:23:12 GMT -5
Liquid Gold of the Vikings
When Viking warriors returned home from raids, they brought with them chests of plundered gold. But when they celebrated, they did so with a golden treasure of their own: honey.
In its most simple form, honey ale – or mead – is produced by fermenting water and honey with natural yeast. The Viking bee hives produced enough honey to keep the warriors imbibing through the long winters, and now traditional beekeeping in the Nordics is helping to rescue an endangered species of honey bee.
Once upon a time the Nordic brown bee was found throughout the region. Specially adapted for the northern climate, it has hairs twice as long as southern bee varieties to help protect it from the cold. With a short summer growing season for flowers, the Nordic bees are hardy, and able to fly in cooler temperatures, and their winter losses in the hives are minimal. They have a low tendency to swarm and in the purest strains are less aggressive than other breeds of bees. But despite once being the world’s most widespread honey bee, the Nordic browns were soon decimated by selective breeding, modern farming methods and genetic variations.
Now, the native brown bee is making a resurgence across the Nordic region, where beekeeping in general is becoming more popular, bringing back that liquid gold with which the Vikings were so familiar. On the Danish island of Læsø, a breeding project has been successful in expanding the numbers of Nordic bee colonies. Parts of the island, which sits off the coast of Jutland, appear to have been stopped in time: timber houses thatched with seaweed and the remnants of salt mines from the Middle Ages can still be seen. The Nordic bee is protected on Læsø – a place where legend says Norse gods came to feast – and while there are non-Nordic bees on the island, the species are strictly managed, and kept apart.
In Sweden, a project to preserve the endangered Nordic brown bee has been underway in earnest since the early 1990s, with initial funding from the WWF. The largest number of Nordic brown colonies are found in Norway, with a few in Finland too. The goal in Sweden is to establish 2000 colonies, with up to 700 breeding queens. Already the geographic range is impressive, with Luleå close to the Arctic Circle in northern Sweden home to a Nordic brown breeding station.
North of the Finnish capital Helsinki, Tuomas Mehtiö keeps a colony in a field on his small farm, a few hectares with sheep, chickens and rabbits. Although he’s not raising Nordic brown bees, Mehtiö is part of a new wave of "hobby" beekeepers who want to set up their own small scale honey production. “My honey is multi-flower honey, typical Finnish honey” says Mehtiö. “When spring comes, willow blossom and buttercups come first. The bees need the pollen, it’s like protein for them when they’re growing up.”
At the start of spring, Mehtiö’s two colonies might have a population of around 20,000 bees, but by the end of summer – contingent on good weather – there could be as many as 100,000 bees inside, producing up to 50kg of summer per hive. ”July is the main season, when the majority of flowers are in bloom. Last year was extremely rainy which means the bees can’t fly. Bad weather for bees leads to a bad yield,” he explains. When all the Finnish flowers are out in July, Mehtiö’s bees will feast on willow herb, rosebay, fireweed, raspberry blossoms and clover.
When winter rolls around, the snow can actually be good for the colonies – Mehtiö explains that it can insulate the hives. The bees also form a protective, insulating ball around the queen, which keeps the temperature inside the hive about the same during winter as during summer. Throughout the winter months tens of thousands of bees will die off, layers after layer sacrificing themselves to keep the queen alive. When the spring time temperatures rise above 50ºF the bees will emerge from their hives to start the cycle all over again. It’s a timeless ritual that kept the Vikings merry for generations, and puts honey on Tuomas Mehtiö’s kitchen table today.
Soure: David MacDougall, LifeStyle, September 30, 2014.