THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, September 25, 1996 TAG: 9609240170
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Coastal Journal
SOURCE: Mary Reid Barrow
LENGTH: 90 lines
The Tidewater Beekeepers Association held its annual cookout in Chesapeake recently and, although the smell of char-broiled hamburgers and hot dogs filled the air, the taste of honey was the palate-pleaser.
Most beekeepers brought samples of their honey to the event held in Woody Harrell's back yard for an informal tasting. In honor of the occasion, Harrell wore a cap with a big honeybee on the bill and his bee hives, lined up on one side of the yard, all had yellow chrysanthemums in front.
Honey samples gleamed in their plastic squeeze bear jars and in between burgers, folks went over to taste and vote on their favorites. If ever you thought the sweet nectar was all the same, the tasting would have changed your mind.
First the honey colors were different, beginning with pale gold and ending in dark amber, all of them lustrous and jewel-like. I found the tastes hard to describe but each was different, ranging from refined sugar, to brown sugar, to molasses.
There were two winners this year, one for light honey and one for dark. Carl and Merry Powell of Hampton won for light and John Butler of Chesapeake won for dark.
Dark honey is found most often in southeastern Virginia, said beekeeper Art Halstead, because in the spring, bees here feed primarily on tulip poplar blooms whose nectar makes a dark honey. Light honey comes from sources like clover and garden flowers.
Most local honey comes from more than one source and that's why there is so much variation in look and taste, Halstead went on. A honey bee's range is two miles and we don't grow acres upon acres of one crop here so the bees forage on everything they find. For this reason, Halstead said, local honey is simply ``wildflower honey.''
``We've found that honey from neighborhoods is as tasty as specialized honey,'' he said.
When I first started buying local honey here, I thought the dark honey with its molasses taste was a little disconcerting because I was so used to light honeys from the grocery store. Now, I like the robust taste and light honey has begun to taste weak.
September is National Honey Month, a good time to celebrate with a little local honey. If you'd like to purchase some, give Halstead a ``buzz'' at 488-7617 and he will give you the name of a member of the association near you who has honey for sale. (Not all of them do.)
Savoring honey and eating hot dogs and hamburgers is the social part of beekeeping, but there are serious aspects, too. One of the most important is educating the home gardener, Halstead said. The 60 members of the beekeepers association, who live from Knotts Island to Hampton, give talks and take demonstration hives to public events to let us know how important honey bees are.
According to the National Honey Board, about one-third of the human diet comes from plants that are pollinated by insects, 80 percent of them being honey bees. Yet the number of honey bees in the wild is declining because of loss of habitat and pesticide use.
``If you are going to use insecticides, read the label,'' Halstead tells the home gardener.
Although insecticides are aimed at the bad insects, they often kill off the good ones especially when they are applied incorrectly. Apply insecticides late in the evening after the flying ones have gone home, Halstead suggested, and don't spray vegetables when they are in bloom. He also bemoaned the fact that folks often think that twice as much insecticide as called for will only work better.
``Double the dose,'' he said, `` won't kill them any deader.''
A honey bee works hard to pollinate our plants and to bring us that taste of honey. The little brown insect may visit more than 2 million plants in a lifetime to make only 1/12th of a teaspoon of honey, so do your best to keep them in business.
P.S. The Virginia Native Plant Society will be holding a pot-luck supper and member plant sale at 7 p.m. Friday in the Norfolk Botanical Garden auditorium. If you are interested in meeting folks in this group, call 464-2590 to find out what you can contribute to supper.
EDUCATION DIRECTOR OF The Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, Joseph Gutierrez, will speak on economic development surrounding the Revolutionary War at 10:30 a.m. Saturday at historic Francis Land House. Call 431-4000 for reservations for the free program.
AN EVENING BEACH DISCOVERY WALK, led by bird-watching expert Betsy Nugent will take place from 4 to 5:30 p.m. Saturday at Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge. Call 721-2412 for reservations. MEMO: What unusual nature have you seen this week? Call me on INFOLINE,
640-5555. Enter category 2290. Or, send a computer message to my
Internet address: mbarrow(AT)infi.net. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by MARY REID BARROW
Mary Carmody, 10, left, and John Carmody, 7, of Chesapeake, taste
the samples of honey at the beekeepers' cookout. by CNB