Wednesday 15 February 2012

Out of the roof came forth sweetness...


Have lived below a colony of wild bees for the last five years who have kindly created all this honeycomb (4.5 cubic feet) ready for some seriously local honey to be extracted. East Mersea's bee man Peter Inson both supervised opening up the roof and safe removal of the bees which will now be under his care. He estimates this haul should produce around 80lbs of honey with a shelf life of ~4,000 years!



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4 comments:

Chris Hall said...

Looks fantastic! Haven't eaten any honeycomb since I was a kid.

James and Maggie said...

..."There's room enough for two
Up on the roof (up on the roof)
Up on the roo-oo-oof (up on the roof)
Oh, come on, baby (up on the roof)
Oh, come on, honey (up on the roof)"
Sorry Pete I couldn't resist it, seriously though, breathtaking, is this your roof? and did you know they were there? Jim

nevell said...

This is your roof, Peter? Did you realise they were there? I'd have thought you'd have heard them humming, or are there lots of noises off anyway, chez Banks? You might miss your departed neighbours now - it might be colder without them.

Peter Banks said...

Cheers folks!

Yes, knew the bees were in residence, just not the huge amount of honeycomb they'd stored up.

They arrived in an impressive swarm and withing twenty minutes had disappeared into the roofspace. Could hear them 'humming' away at night, in the summer, which is the noise of their wings flapping as a cooling process.