Queen Esther Honey honors the biblical character, Queen Esther, in the Old Testament book of Esther. Pressed into a life or death decision before King Ahasuerus by the sovereignty of God and her confidant, Mordecai, Esther exhibited the courage and conviction that changed the course of history for the Jewish remnant in her time. Said Mordecai, “And who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this,” (Esther 3:14). Enjoy Queen Esther honey “for such a time as this.”

Honey is the only agricultural product produced by insects that is worthy for our table. Honey production is a fantastically complex bee process that has flourished since time began. Properly harvested, honey will last decades and many claim—with solid clinical evidence—that it reduces the impact of allergies and other associated ills. For me, it’s the extraordinary taste that you’ll never find in the grocery store, but more so, the joy of cultivating a bee population . . . and learning more every day about these amazing creatures.

This is a “frame” . . . one of eight that is in every hive box. Generally, there are three to four hive boxes stacked on one another. The lower two are “brood chambers” where the queen lays eggs and produces new bees . . . and the upper two are generally restricted to honey production and storage. Honey bees produce and “cure” the honey to a precise moisture content within perfectly symmetrical, hexagonal cells. There, full honey cells are “capped” and can serve two purposes. First, it’s honey that can be periodically harvested and then re-stocked by the colony . . . and second, the stored honey is eaten by bees over the winter. Beekeepers must assure that honey harvests don’t deplete the food supply for the winter or the bees will perish.

A mature hive can have upwards of 50,000 bees! Honey bees are not inherently aggressive, but they can sting when disturbed or panicked. A bee suit is standard fare, but many functions of beekeeping can be done without it.

To produce an 8 ounce jar of honey, it requires about 500 bees to visit 1 million flowers and travel about 3,000 flight miles. Each bee in her life time (which is about six to eight weeks) will produce only 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey. Honey production . . . and the healthy management of the hive is truly a collective team effort!

Ha! Not surprisingly to some, all the “work” in a bee hive is done by females through a miraculous division of tasks and labor. Some fly-off for pollen, nectar, and water . . . some tend to the brood cells and larvae . . . some keep the hive clean . . . some “cap” mature honey cells with a thin coating of wax . . . some build new cells in which the queen lays eggs . . . and some are called to just fan their wings to keep the hive cool. And note this! If the honey reserves run low during the winter, strong-willed females push the lazy drones (males) out in the cold where they perish. You gotta earn your keep in a bee hive!

Harvesting honey is a LOT of work! Only full frames of honey are selected from the upper hive boxes, They are then “uncapped” by a heated knife. The uncapped frames are then placed in a centrifugal “extractor” that spins the honey from the cells. (It’s a vigorous manual process for the hobbyist beekeeper!). Honey in the extractor is then carefully strained to remove wax and any debris from the frame, and then bottled. The frames that were removed from the hive are then returned to the hive box . . . wherein the bees restore them to perfect condition . . . and the process begins again.

Fresh local honey maintains all the heralded health benefits that you don’t often find on the grocery store shelf. Local bees ”forage” (collect flower pollen and nectar) from flowers that are generally within a two-miles radius of their hive . . . and close to where we live! Local beekeepers never combine local honey with imports from other parts of the world which is the practice of many commercial honey producers. In the grocery store . . . be sure to read the honey sourcing label!

I describe a swarm as a honey bee “town hall meeting” gone bad. Bees need a healthy egg-laying queen, sufficient room in the hive for growth and honey stores, and a host of other factors known only to them. When these conditions are not met, the “noise” and activity of the hive increases markedly and “Bingo!” . . . about half the bees elect to leave, and in this case, attach themselves to a neighbors tree. (Yup! It really happened!) The renegade bees usually take their queen with them, forcing the bees left in the hive to produce another, or the parent hive will perish (see below). While hanging out in the tree—or wherever they choose to dilly-dally—“scout” bees try to find another suitable location for the hive. Swarms can be recaptured and used to start another hive (as was the case here). In short, swarms ensure multiplication of the colony . . . but it’s often a beekeepers woe.

Whereas worker bees (females) and drones (males) live only a few months, queen bees can live two to three years and produce upwards of 500,000 eggs in her lifetime. A strong egg-laying queen is foundational to a healthy hive, though other factors can compromise the health of a hive.

There is only one queen per hive; if another emerges in the hive, she will instantly challenge her rival and a fight-to-the-death ensues. The reigning queen can also sense other “queen cells” in the hive and will sting through a queen cell to eliminate future challengers. Nonetheless, the hive “knows” when a new queen is necessary for survival . . . and they will over-produce queen cells to replace her . . . or organize a swarm.

Queen bees can be genetically weak or fall prey to other health perils in the hive which is why a beekeeper is always looking for evidence of a strong queen. If she dies or is rejected by the colony, beekeepers can buy and introduce a new queen to a queen-less hive. They cost about $45 each and are sometimes “marked” with a red or green dot on their heads to make them easier to find in the hive.

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