Hidden Honey Geographies
An old image from the Utrecht Archives of Beekeepers selling woven hives and bees at a country market in Vleuten, close to where I met Elbert today
Last, scorchingly hot Saturday I went to visit Elbert Hogendoorn, secretary of the Utrecht Beekeepers Association (Utrecht Bijenhouders Vereniging) whilst he was giving a demonstration about beekeeping at the orchard de Groen Ham in Haarzuilens (a suburb of Utrecht, 5 km west of Utrecht city centre). Elbert happily enlightened me about the honey geography of Utrecht. He told me that there are in fact small-scale beekeepers in Utrecht who keep hives on their balconies and roofs, as well as hives that are maintained for educational purposes. But all the beekeepers are, at this point, still waiting for the bees to digest and transform the lime flower nectar into next batch of honey. With Utrecht’s predominance of lime trees the inner city harvest contains a high percentage of lime flower honey. In the past Elbert had tried to exploit the lime flower along Utrecht’s longest lime tree avenue (the Maliebaan) by asking the nuns to be able to put his hives in their neighbouring convent garden.
A tall luscious lime tree along Utrecht's most stateliest of promenades, the Maliebaan
Elbert Hogendoorn with 'looking glass' hive showing the domestic hierarchy of bees
Beekeeping is touted by the Utrecht beekeeping association as a life skill, they give courses which sets one in good stead as a beginner beekeeper. An interesting reference I came across recently to the propriety of beekeeping as a life skill and also to Elbert’s anecdote of keeping the hives in a convent garden: which was a convent-run school for girls in Buckinghamshire offering beekeeping courses as a ‘homecraft’ by. Beekeeping may have been especially attractive during this period of wartime shortage. (Source: Bee, by Claire Preston).