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------------------ Original message (ID=1BDB40) (102 lines) -------------------
From: [log in to unmask]
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1998 19:02:08 EST
To: [log in to unmask]
 
Many thanks to all those who responded to my query on beekeeping in
Portugal, especially Madeleine Pym.
 
We stayed in a resort called Quinto do Lago (Lake Farm) a few miles
west of Faro in the Algarve.  It is surrounded by golf courses.  The
resort has well maintained gardens with plenty of flowers although many
of these were of the large flowered tropical types not much favoured by
bees.  The countryside is mainly dry heathland becoming extensive
saltmarsh on the coastal lagoons.  Clearly the main honey flow from the
heathland plants was long since over.  I did, however, see a single very
black bee foraging on a Rosemary bush.
 
A number of people were selling honey in Loule market including country
folk who were also selling other produce of their ground such as herbs,
fruit and vegetables.  Some honey was produced to a high visual quality
as seen on supermarket shelves anywhere.  Other was clear but in
recycled jars with home made labels and some was very murky and
unlabelled.  Where the jars were of the right size the honey was sold by
the half kilo and throughout the market the price was 350 escudos per
half kilo which works out at A3sterling 1.16 a pound weight.  I bought
one and found the honey to be viscous, fairly dark and strongly
flavoured with probably a good proportion of ling (calluna vulgaris)
 
Upon Madeleine's recommendation I persuaded my family that they would
really love to visit Monchique in the mountains (big hills really).
Isabel in the tourist information office was not able to tell me of a
beekeeper's shop in town, but I noticed on her desk a frame of honey in
a plastic bag.  The shallow frame may have been home made but was well
constructed.  The drone size honey cappings were travel stained.  The
comb had been brought in by the office cleaning lady whose husband,
Senhor Mariauo keeps bees.  He works in a local timber yard and also
makes hives etc but as Isabel thought he could not speak English I
didn't follow this up.
 
We made for the highest point, at Foia where there is a Nato radar
station but as we left the tree line at about 900 metres we were driving
through cloud so turned back.  We went for a walk in the woods. I didn't
spot any hives either cork or conventional but pocketed a handful of
acorns from the cork oak so shall grow my own hive.
 
In the little spa village near Monchique honey as I bought for 350 esc
was on sale for 550 on one side of the square and 650 on the other.  In
a supermarket in the town of Almancil it was 450.
 
I saw one other bee during my holiday, also black and working citrus
blossom.  On our way back to the airport on the road from Quartiera to
Almancil I saw what looked like a line of hives about 50 yards from the
road.  We had a plane to catch so did not stop.
 
Clearly Portugal is a country where a lot of honey is produced.  There
are some large producers (I saw the same name on labels in several
outlets) and many small ones.  The land seems very dry by British
standards.  There is a great deal of unkempt land where wild flowers
should thrive in their season.  There are also many small orange groves.
I kept finding roadside advertising signs for a firm of pest controllers
and my guess is that their job is to spray orange groves rather than to
prevent tourists being bitten by bed bugs.
 
I am still puzzled at the lack of visible bees around.  The temperature
was in the low seventies F.  Butterflies and grasshoppers were abundant.
I just hope they haven't been smitten with the big V.
 
Chris Slade