Hi all,

Just got back from France after attending Apimondia in Montpelier. It was fascinating
to see so many engineering concepts for the making and harvesting of honey. Much of the hive handling equipment wouldn't work for us in our operation, but nonetheless very innovative and clever. 

One can't but observe how passionate beekeepers are from all points of the planet. I tasted all types of honey from the multitude of outdoor and indoor kiosks. The French lavender was very good. I tasted one Greek display of three different Fir honeys (honeydew?) that had a very nice vanilla taste that I found pleasurable. 

Mead from all over the world was available to taste and I indulged frequently. 

Of personal interest to me was exploring Euro honey packing equipment. The French and Italians (and Danes)are very very sleek engineers with attention to top notch execution of technical ideas to the practical, small footprint, somewhat affordable product. Chic.

I thought Bjorn from Swienty had the best machine for us. About 6500 Euros for a nice table with a stopping turntable with electric eye filler. He has refined it and thinks it will work well for our plastic queenline jars. The Euro-dudes all pack glass for the most part, but I did see some very sexy plastics in very cool shapes with top notch labeling ideas that surpass our US generic ideas in sophistication. Overall, the Europeans are very advanced in presentation.  

Thomas was the best equipment manufacturer from France.  They had a very cool unit that you push up to a drum of honey that is crystallized and then lower a rather large cutting knife consisting of three blades with wheels on the outside into the drum. It take about an hour to cut to the bottom and then a four inch auger sucks the honey out. It would be great to pack raw honey with. Pricey though at about 12000 Euros. But top notch stainless and brilliant engineering. 

After the meeting, Sharon and I went to Toulouse to visit with John Kefuss, who worked with Steve Taber. John invited us to the World Varroa Challenge. Our goal was to find mites in his bees which he hasn't treated in over ten years with anything. I worked hard pulling our capped brood with my Swiss army knife and observed adults and managed to find 6 mites, which ranked me quite high in the competition. ;) He paid me one cent per mite. 

The clusters were quite small for fall clusters, but probably normal for south France. The Swedes thought they were small too compared to theirs. But all beekeeping is local. I wondered if the same stock would look different in our operation? Anyway, John was a strong advocate for the "Bond" method of live and let die. Fortunately his "soft Bond" method is also an avenue for us beekeepers. He suggested that we take a small percentage of hives, maybe a yard or whatever, and don't treat those and pick the best to graft from. All the others just treat as necessary to keep the bees top notch and making honey/money. Great idea to promote in my opinion. 

We slept in his 500 year old French farmhouse that has been at a hunting preserve for centuries. The hayloft was very nice and lucky for me, my wife is a country girl and loved it. We drank good red wine and ate wonderful French frommage(cheese) and pain(bread). We ate fresh figs off the trees.  I can't say enough about the ubiquitous, high quality food shops that specialize in all aspects of foods.





Kirk Jones

Sleeping Bear Farms   beekeepers making honey...
Benzie Playboys           cajun and zydeco band........

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