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 Early next morning, August 28th, we observed a total lunar eclipse over Taos! Very auspicious timing for connecting with visitors who bring their good medicine from the Mediterranean coast of Spain . . . . .. VALENCIA . . . .hmm . . . I recalled that the ancestral honey hunters had left rock paintings from thousands of years ago at certain sites in the province of Valencia. When I showed the photos to my new friends, they lit up. Yes, these villages are still reknown for the honey that comes from there! They didn't know about the rock paintings of the honey hunters. Upon returning home, they intend to see these for themselves. They comment that their patients from these villages love to bring them jars of their honey!  
 Delving deeper into the story of honeybees in Valencia
led to the current situation there ~ where large valencia orange groves and fields of melons have provided flowers of abundant
nectar for hundreds of years.
>>HONEYBEES DISAPPEARING IN SPAIN
There are reckoned to be some 720,000 million domestic bees in Spain, the largest bee herd in Europe, which pans out at 18,000 bees per inhabitant. These are divided among 2.4 million hives -around 30,000 bees per hive. Total honey production is around 30,000 metric tons a year (2003 figures), the largest producer in Europe. Multifloral (milflores- a thousand flowers) is the most common type. Orange blossom, thymes, rosmary and heathers are typical local single flower varities, some which are protected by 'Denominaciones de Origen' . There are some 26.000 beekeepers of which 6,000 are professional Unfortunately these figures have been decimated between 2004 and 2005 by a mysterious diesease, excellently known in Castilian as desabejación or desabejamiento (de-beeing) which has wiped out 40% of Spain's bee flock. In parts of Spain 70% of hives have been affected, though the strange geography of epidemics means that there are areas where just 10% of bees have died right next to pockets of 90% mortality. Adapted from this excellent article with much more details on bee disappearance here. 40% of Spanish bees die in unknown circumstances (FAPAS- Spanish). Beekeeping is also increasingly beset by rock bottom honey imports from China, selling at 1 euro a kilo, well below anything Spanish bee-keepers can compete with. bee: abeja; abella (Cat.) bubble bee : abejorro; borinot (Cat) honeybee : abeja melera drone: zángano; abellot (Cat.) honeycomb; panel; bresca (Cat) beehive : colmena : truébanu (Ast.); rusc (Cat.); arna (Cat.) place with beehives : colmenar bee-keeper : apicultor (Cast and Cat) bee-keeping : apicultura (Cast and Cat) cortines (Gal.) : dry stone walls built around beehives to protect them from bears. nurse bee: obrera nodriza; obrera dida (Cat) carpenter bee: abeja carpintero; xilocopa (Cat) bee-eater: abejaruco común : abellerol (Cat): Merops apiaster >>> more about honey bees in ancient worlds
Interestingly, a 1973 Spanish movie had just shown in Taos. I asked my new friends from Valencia about "Spirit of the Beehive"
and they smiled. No lack of bee medicine in the air these days!
>>>click here for report of UN Climate Change panel November 17, 2007 |
