All About Honey: Interview with a Beekeeper

photo: Merdal (tr.wikipedia)

Honey is easily available and it tastes great, but what do you really know about it? Since I happen to have a Medical Doctor-Biochemist-Beekeeper in my family, I went to ask her a few questions...

ASMM. How did you come to become a certified beekeeper?

C.M. My parents decided to buy a country house close to our apartment to avoid too much time commuting on weekends. We bought a piece of land near a large farm and came up with the idea to making our own honey. The beekeeping school, run by Monsieur Lasalle, was right by our apartment. Lasalle had beehives on a large terrace there and on a piece of land in the middle of France. He was a very respected old man teaching with a very worldwide knowledge of what was honey. My father decided to take the course and ask me to register with him. I wanted to be an MD at that time and was thinking that I could learn something of interest for puplic health, since honey's worked as part of remedies for quite some time in different cultures and parts of the world.

ASMM. How long did it take and what was the process?

CM. The course was 2 years. We attended weekend classes from November to Easter with other classes during the week to listen to special guests. In the Spring we learned the experimental work with some videos in the classroom, and practice on the roof.

ASMM. Anything you'd like to share about bees that fascinates you?

CM. The first thing that caught my attention was how the bees make a queen. It really made me see that we are what we eat.

ASMM. I hear that bees are disappearing, is it true? If so, why do you think that is?

CM. Here in Texas last year I had the visit of paraplegic bees and no visit at all this year which made me very sad. Insecticides, pesticides and other chemicals kill all insects, from bees to mosquitoes. We can imagine these treatment are not really safe for humans either.

ASMM. What makes a good honey?

CM. There are different types of bees, with few differences in making honey. The real difference is brought by the pollen from the different flowers they harvest and the pure water they use.


ASMM. How come honey can keep for thousands of years?

CM. Honey has a very acid PH that prevents it from being contaminated. When the honey is not pure (e.g. diluted by the manufacturer) we can see mold and fermentation. Honey also contain traces of different element said to be antibacterial and antifungal.
ASMM. What are the health benefits of honey?

CM. Honey has been used for nearly since 3000 years, it can be older than that. The number of benefits are numerous:

• Used externally, the low water activity liberates a osmotic force when in presence of the body fluids, the antibacterial can be liberated as well as a healing process for wounds (cleanses and brings minerals);
• Internally, it's very famous for treating ulcer, colitis and other digestive diseases relevant of infection and inflammation.

ASMM. Is it true that we should use local honey if we want to fight allergies to pollen?

CM. Yes raw honey, the one with low water activity, not the diluted one. Local honey gives the patient a sort of desensibilisation by inducing a tolerance to the local flower pollen by ingestion.

ASMM. Are there negative aspects to honey?

CM. Honey is a mixture of glucose and fructose so diabetic people have to be careful when eating Honey.

ASMM. Are there minimum and maximum doses? And "healthy" doses being different to how much we might take when we're ill?

CM. There's no specific dose. It's a sweetener and a kind of candy. There is no toxic limit more than common sense. In external usage it is as any ointment.

ASMM. Can we take it everyday, or do we need to take "breaks"?

CM. The composition delivers glucose, fructose, minerals and disinfectant, I remember having a tablespoon before going to school after lunch, every day…I do not know of accidents eating the family's reserves of honey

ASMM. And how do we choose a good and healthy honey?

CM. First  try to be familiar with the maker to be sure it is 100% pure raw honey, with all guaranty to have no additives and coming from a region with flowers that are not treated with chemicals. I take a non watery form, and depending of the moment I choose an origin depending of what I have at hands
 

ASMM. How easy and hard is it to make your own honey? What would one need?

CM. It is a very simple clean thing to do. You need:

• a little space in a chemical and pollution free area with a clear sun light to let the bees recognazive their place;
• around 5 beehives each having a slightly different orientation; some like to give them different colors;
• a room to keep the instruments (veils and fumigens to visit the beehives to check the vitality, the instruments to make the honey, and dark containers to store the honey.

ASMM. What are your favorite kinds of honey?

CM. I like the fresh harvest honey full of flavors and different each time. Any good quality honey is something for me.

ASMM. Can you also tell us a little bit about Pollen?

Pollen is the male gametes of seeds plants. It is as varied as the plants. Bees are using it to make honey, as a medical use it is advised to not eat pollen because of the different contaminants possible. When bees transform pollen they clean the possible contaminant.

Propolis Propolis is used by the bees to protect the beehive from any foreign insider, depending of the trees around them, the composition changes. Recently scientists have tried to find the properties of the different components, revealed to be essentially desinfectant and immunomodulating properties. The bees use it to mummify the intruders.

Royal Jelly is the food of the queen bee, and the larva becomes a queen having a larger honey comb filled with royal jelly to maturation. This gives the quee reproductive capacities. The queen is also 3 times the size of a worker and lives 5 years when a worker live 30 days in summer time and 6-9 month in winter time.

ASMM. And could you leave us with a favorite honey based recipe?

CM. French pain d’epice was one of my my favorites as a child. I also loved almond cookies with buckwheat and honey.

Here's a recipe for a Pain D'Epices with buckwheat flour:

Buckwheat Pain D'Epices (French Gingerbread)

Ingredients for 4

1 pasture egg

100g buckwheat flour

75g chestnut flour (if you can't find it, replace with 50g rice flour and 25g mesquite flour)

50g ground almonds

50g organic unsalted butter (european style. My favorite is Isigny)

150g honey

1 small glass organic milk

1 teaspoon sodium bicarbonate

1/2 teaspoon of the following ground spices: anise seed, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cardamon.

Mix flours with ground almonds, spices and sodium bicarbonate. Melt honey and milk  until you have a smooth and fluid paste. Melt butter and whisk in beaten egg. Mix both wet batters, then gradually mix the wet and dry ingredients together. Place in a  buttered loaf or  cake pan, and put in an oven preheated at 150 celsius (320 Farenheit) for about 15 minutes. Cover with baking paper and put back in oven for 20 minutes or until a knife stuck in the middle comes out clean.

Dr. C. Mondiere has a Medical Degree and a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Paris, France. She has numerous medical publications in various fileds including neurology and nutrition.  She is a certified beekeeper and a contributing writer at SNH.