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Sweet Thing Honey Plantation |
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Henry Parker Henry is a Florida Native from Taylor County. He settled further south, in Lake County to raise his family. Always close to nature, he manipulated the earth in some fashion, whether it was mining for sand and clay with a dump truck and a dragline, or reclaiming land at the bottom of lakes with a dredge. One day, he was asked by a beekeeper for help in moving some bee hives. He literally caught the bug ever since. After meeting Henry, you will carry away fond memories and a sweet taste in the mouth. His southern charm is obvious, as is his expansive knowledge of honey and bees. His humor and good will towards mankind is as refreshing and pure as the honey he sells. Sweet Thing Honey Plantation is Henry's passion. |
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How Does He Do That? Many of us marvel at the abilities of beekeepers. Basic tools of the trade may include; a flat bed truck for easy loading and unloading of supers and hives, a special hive tool to open the cover, a smoker to calm the bees, and a steady hand to remove and inspect the combs. The trained eye takes over studying the health and wealth of the bee hive. Henry uses dried pine needles for smoker fuel as it is a natural local source. |
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Henry Loves His Work Firing up the smoker, Henry is now ready to inspect the inside of the hive. He says he loves his job because all of his "girls" show up for work every day, . . . even if he does not. Worker bees are all females, although they do not lay eggs. This job is reserved for the queen bee. |
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Inspecting the Bee Hive With a light mist of smoke, Henry is able to manage the hive. He checks the queen's progress of egg laying which ensures the advancement of future generations. A strong hive is vital for it's overall health and for excess honey production. This is why we in America 'manage' our hives. A managed hive will live long and prosper, with gentle bees providing beneficial assets to man including excess honey and pollination. One could write a book on the value of raw honey, and everyone is familiar with the value of pollination for agriculture. There is a long list of assets provided by the honey bee, and Henry knows them all.. |
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The Brood Frame 
A good queen's best quality is laying a nice consecutive pattern of eggs from frame edge to frame edge. This is important because it takes a lot of bees to fill a "super" of honey. A super is a man made collection box in which the bees store the excess honey. Structurally honey frames look the same as brood frames. Managed hives generally use a "queen excluder" to separate the brood frames in the bottom box from the honey frames above. The queen excluder prohibits the rotund queen from traveling upwards, laying eggs from top to bottom of the entire hive, supers included. The rest of the bees can navigate the entire hive body at will, depending on the job function they are performing. Bees advance through specific functions as they age. In the wild, bees are termed "feral", meaning not domesticated or cultivated, and hang combs from tree branches or other natural structures. Honey bees are the only insects which will store excess honey. |
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The Honey House After the flowers bloom and the honey flow is over, the supers which contain the honey are delivered to the honey house for extraction. The supers are taken inside the honey house where Henry gently uncaps the frames. Inside is a centrifuge which is a stainless steel devise that holds the combs and spins them very quickly in order to sling the honey out of the comb. The aroma begs for a biscuit. You know, that mouth watering sensation! |
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Henry's Stamp of Approval Finally the pure raw honey receives Henry's stamp of approval, is bottled, labeled, and consumed by happy individuals in far away places. His efforts are further rewarded when he receives feed back through his guest book praising his honey flavors. Here's to your health! |
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Henry would love
to receive your stamp of approval too. |
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