Honey harvest and tropical paradises

There is so much I still have to learn about bee-keeping. I´ve been working with 2 ladies- Victoria and Maribela- since I arrived in the community. We go check on the bees about once a week to tidy up their boxes, make sure no predators are stealing honey and check on their general health. I should be an expert by now, right? Wrong. I am still a peon, but happy to use a heavy smoker to calm down the bees while I sweat and choke on the burning corn cobs or scrap wood. (Photo: Victoria and Me, gearing up)


In the tropics, the harvest takes place in the dry season, when the bees are producing the most honey. We harvest 3 times during this season: ideally once in January, the main harvest in February and the final, smaller harvest in March. We have so far harvested 2x: the first yielded about 15 gallons and the second about 5 gallons of delicious honey. There should be a final harvest coming soon, but the rains came a bit early and so we might leave what’s left so that the population can continue to thrive. As I gather, honey production slows when the rains come because the bees don’t have as much time to gather nectar and pollen from nearby flowers (They don't fly well when their wings get wet?). (Photo: Victoria holds the 'marco' while Maribela uses a fork to break the honeycomb seal, preparing to extract the honey)


I’m not sure how they do it in other places of the world, but my ladies tell me that the harvest has to be done at night. The bees don’t see well so it’s easier to steal their honey in the dark. Even at night, though, they are extremely aggressive and can see enough to find the smallest hole to climb in and sting you like crazy. I wore several layers of thick clothes and even a jacket that I’ve used for snowboarding (in the spring) and I STILL got stung many times! After we stole the honey, we put it in a steal drum that has a handle to literally spin the honey out of the comb. It’s tough. When that was done at about 3am, we had to haul all that sweet bee juice up the mountain and down the street far-far away from where the bees live. If it’s too close, they will come find it and eat it all before morning. I have no idea if that’s a fact or just a local legend. (Photo: Maribela's boys hold down the honeycomb spinner while the older one spins)


So now we’ve got tons of honey to sell and are focusing on selling more of it in small quantities to tourists in David (Panama’s second largest city), rather than the intermediary that buys it all at once at a huge discount. Ounce per ounce, the group's profits are much higher this way. For all their hard-earned, year-round bee-keeping work, they deserve it.

I also recently spent a few days in Costa Rica learning about a green-building technique (anyone else sick of that buzzword yet?) called “cob”. Instead of using wood or concrete for house construction, the cob method takes clay, sand, cow poo and straw to make ¨bricks¨ that are used for the walls of the structure. No, it doesn’t smell like a barn… after it dries! It’s relatively simple, cheap and commonly used around the world. A few old friends from my Charleston days and I bussed it up to Costa Rica to an amazing place called Rancho Mastatal. The couple that owns the Rancho and over 500 acres of land that borders Cangreja National Park met in the Peace Corps several years ago and opened the Rancho as a learning center and sustainable living systems model. Over the years, interns and volunteers have come and contributed their skills and learned in the process. The results are beautiful and inspiring. See photos below and on Flickr.
(Photos: Various cob and bamboo hybrid building designs at Rancho Mastatal)










Back in Cerro Iglesias, the rains have begun! And the ¨honeymoon¨ (as Adam calls it) with my new house is officially over or near it. In the corner of the thatch roof, where it is hard to get a tight seal, water has found a way in. The first downpour came at 1am the other night and woke me up, frenzied, looking for a way to stop the massive leak that was splashing all over my books and clothes. I was up all night with a flashlight, looking for more leaks. The coming of the rain marks an important change in seasons. First, I won't be using the solar oven any more (sad), but more importantly for the village-folk, it means that the slash and burn traditional style of preparing the land will stop very soon. We will be planting corn and rice in the coming 2 months. The aquifers will slowly start to fill up, as water has been in short supply or no supply for several months. The mud boots will come out again soon and the umbrella will never leave my side until December.

This week a friend who just finished Peace Corps Ecuador is visiting and is going to help me build a trial cob oven so the baking can continue even in the rain! Mango season is not far off either, so get ready to see some pictures of delicious mango-baked products coming soon!