North Little Rock e-Newsletter Provided by Diane Whitbey, City Clerk and Treasurer
With Spring upon us, let’s talk about honey bees!
Honey Bees Need Your Help! By Tiffany Means
Found at https://www.farmersalmanac.com/honey-bees-need-your-help
March 2025 Bee Kind!
Below is a portion of an article found in the Farmers’ Almanac about honey bees
How You Can Help Honey Bees Survive
The threat to bees is grave, but all hope is not lost. By showing honey bees a few simple acts of kindness, you can reduce their stress levels, which will increase the likelihood that they’re buzzing graces gardens and farmlands for generations to come! Go chemical-free. Many pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers are toxic to honeybees, so it’s best to forego their use whenever possible and try more natural approaches. Build a bee bath. Similar to bird baths, bee baths provide rest and rehydration stations for the hard-working honeybee. (Bees use water to help with digestion and assist with keeping their hives cool.) To create a bee bath, fill a shallow dish with clean, cool water. Then pile stones in the middle of the dish, making sure the tops sit just above the water line. This will give bees a dry landing pad to drink from. (Marbles can work, too). Plant bee-friendly plants. Because flowering meadows and forests are disappearing, there are fewer food sources and natural habitats for honeybees. Planting bee favorites—like lavender, sunflowers, and bee balm—helps ensure bees have more food (nectar for energy, and pollen for nutrients and proteins) to survive the winter. Here is a detailed list of what to plant to attract bees. Buy bee-friendly honey. Bees are often harmed when honey is harvested. For example, if bees aren’t gently brushed off of the honeycomb before honey extraction, their wings and legs can be torn off. If honey is harvested too soon, bees can also starve from not having enough food. Buying bee-friendly honey lets you know your honey was collected with compassion for the bees that made it. Other than asking a beekeeper outright, there’s no surefire way to know if honey has been ethically harvested, but buying it local or from farmers markets, rather than commercial retailers, is your best bet.
Honey Types, Trivia, And Tips
Honey takes its name from the flower its nectar was collected from. Orange blossom honey, for example, is produced by nectar collected from orange blossom flowers. Monofloral honey is mainly made from the nectar of a single flower species, whereas honey produced from a blend of flower nectars (like wildflower honey) is referred to as multifloral. Raw and unfiltered honey is honey in its most natural form. While it has been lightly strained to remove impurities, it hasn’t been pasteurized or filtered. Pasteurization and filtration are great for extending honey’s shelf life, but they strip honey of its health benefits by removing good-for-you bee pollen. If honey is labeled “organic,” it means that the beekeeper raises his bees on a farm of organically-grown flowers and plants. This doesn’t guarantee that the honey is 100% organic, however, since bees can fly as far as five miles from the hive to gather nectar and pollen. Only honey produced from the nectar of the manuka flower—a bush native to New Zealand—can be called manuka honey. That’s why this rare type of honey averages $30-$40 a jar! An ancient cave painting in Spain depicting a woman climbing a ladder to gather honey from a beehive suggests that humans have used honey for at least 10,000 years. Honey’s anti-fungal, anti-inflammatory, and anti-bacterial properties come from bee enzymes, which are made and used by bees to chemically break down nectar. Buckwheat and avocado honeys are great substitutes for molasses and cane syrup. Honey lends baked goods a warm, golden color. To prevent over-browning, bake at slightly lower temperatures (try 25 degrees lower) and for slightly longer times. To keep honey from sticking to measuring utensils, coat them with nonstick cooking spray first; the honey will slide right off! Honey has a great list of healthy benefits including reducing morning sickness and cholesterol levels, reducing bad breath, and so much more! “Where’s Mel”? Be the first person to call 501-975-8617 and tell us where you found Mel hiding and win!
1