City Bees Fly Miles to Produce Golden Nectar

By Jonathan Farrell

Honey! The golden ooze has been a part of the palate of humanity for many millennia. Long before refined table sugar, it was the most common sweetener.
Made by countless brand names in supermarkets worldwide, the public often forgets that bees must fly collectively about 24,000 miles and visit three- to nine-million flowers to make one pound of honey. It is a fact that is not trivial to beekeepers like Robert MacKimmie, who made a presentation about honey at the Exploratorium Oct. 12 and Oct. 13.
"All the commercial honey you see in the stores has been heated and filter-processed," he noted. "This takes away the pollens and enzymes which gives honey nutrients and diverse tastes."
MacKimmie was at the Exploratorium to share with visitors different varieties of honey that bees make.
"Like wine tasting, I presented a honey tasting with over seven types, each one different than the other," MacKimmie said. "People are amazed that honey has such variety and that it can have different flavors."
Pleased with the turn out of people at the presentation, Leslie Patterson, of the public information office at the Exploratorium, said the honey tasting was part of an event to celebrate "Traits of Life," a new exhibit. Patterson, who works with Director Linda Dackman in the public information office, talked a bit about the new exhibit.
"It's a permanent exhibit and it was unveiled on Oct. 5. It also has a collection of artwork," Patterson said.
Visitors who attended "City Bees: Tasting Honey from San Francisco Neighborhoods" were surprised to sample honey from different neighborhoods, including the Presidio Heights, McLaren Park and Cow Hollow.
"It's San Francisco's unique micro-climate weather. With the marine inversion layer created by the ocean and the bay, plants rarely experience hard freezing," MacKimmie said.
The good news for plants makes San Francisco and the surrounding Bay Area a wonderland for bees. And the honey they produce reflects that.
"Bees memorize a map of where they are," MacKimmie noted. "An individual bee is very intelligent and will fly up to five miles on each honey-gathering trip from the hive, returning to the hive at night."
Presently the president of the SF Beekeepers Association, MacKimmie mentioned that the Varroa Mite, a pest that invaded the USA about 18 years ago, wiped out about 80 percent of bee keepers hives and almost all of the hives in the wild. Apart from Africanized "killer bees," the eight-legged parasite is one of the greatest threats to the honeybee industry. The blood-sucking mite has also decimated hives in Europe.
However reports on the Internet say the USDA's Agricultural Research Service at Tucson Arizona is trying to help bees become tolerant to the mites. Researchers in the United States and Europe are optimistic in their efforts.
Regarding the other threat, MacKimmie said the reason "Africanized bees" have not yet invaded Northern California is because they are a tropical bee and seem to have slowed their migration at about the latitude near Bakersfield. MacKimmie believes that helping the honeybee survive and thrive is very important.
"Bees are challenged and they need our help. Bees pollinate one-third of all the food we eat," he said. Fellow beekeeper Joe Giuliani, who serves as vice president for the SF Beekeepers Association, elaborated: "The bee is a major pollinator," he said. While it is true that all insects help in the pollination of plants, bees are the only insects that live exclusively for the task.
"Bees take the nectar from the flower or plant to make food," Giuliani said. But he pointed out that not all bees are honeybees.
"People often think of yellow jackets or bumble bees when they think of bees and honey. Yellow jackets, the type of insect (related to the wasp) that keeps stinging, are actually protein eaters," Giuliani said.
"That uninvited pest at picnics and barbecues is not really interested in sweets. Yellow jackets want the protein at the table," he said. Most stings that people get (about 75 percent) are from yellow jackets.
"As for bumble bees (who have smaller colonies in hives), like yellow jackets, they have to go out every day for food. Only honeybees store their food for winter," Giuliani said. "This is how we are able to enjoy such a delicacy."
A delicacy that has been treasured since the days of the pharaohs.
"Honey has even been found in the tombs of the pyramids," Giuliani said.
The SF Beekeepers Association has been educating the public for more than 30 years. It was started because founders Fran Barron, Louis Dubay and his wife Lenore Bravo wanted to share their hobby with others. That is how MacKimmie, Giuliani and others got involved with the task of keeping bees.
For more information about the SF Beekeepers Association, contact Robert MacKimmie at (415) 346-6398 or visit the website at www.sfbee.org. For details about the "Traits of Life" exhibit, go to the website www.exploratorium.edu.