[Sca-cooks] the Melipone bee, vanilla

[Wanda Pease]

According to the series Tudor Monastery Farm they were using the common British or German Black Bee  Apis mellifera mellifera for honey prior to the importation of the Mediterranean golden bee.  

Even now the bee keepers of England and Wales are working on bringing back into prominence these old style bees that were once feared extinct.  They give good honey and require less to see them thru the winter.  Work at cross breeding to keep the hardiness of the old strain continues because the Americas aren't the only places where hive collapse is being noted.  Www.bees.me.uk  

Wanda
Sent from my iPad

On Mar 10, 2014, at 6:57 PM, Ana Valdés <agora158 at gmail.com> wrote:

> The Vikings made mead of honey and it must be very early in the Middle Ages.
> Ana
> 
> 
> On Mon, Mar 10, 2014 at 10:27 PM, Stefan li Rous <StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
>> wrote:
> 
>> Bear replied to me with:
>> <<< Many bees produce honey, but only the species that form colonies are
>> of use
>> to humans.  The European honeybee (Apis mellifera) is a prolific producer
>> of
>> honey and it flourishes in temperate climates, but it is not the only
>> producer of honey.  Central and South America, Africa and Australia all had
>> honey before the Europeans arrived, but the evidence suggests it was
>> gathered from the wild rather than farmed. >>>
>> 
>> Oops. Then it looks like I've been wrong in using honey in the Old
>> World/New World food game and telling people honey originated in the Old
>> World.
>> 
>> Sigh. Omitting honey means I can no longer work in how honey was used in
>> the oldest alcoholic beverage, mead, or compare honey and sugar use or
>> about the honey bee die-off. :-( Or that the biggest use of the honeybee is
>> in pollinating imported fruits and crops from the Old World and not in
>> harvesting honey.
>> 
>> Stefan
>> --------
>> THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
>>   Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas
>> StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
>> http://www.linkedin.com/in/marksharris
>> **** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> Sca-cooks mailing list
>> Sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
>> http://lists.ansteorra.org/listinfo.cgi/sca-cooks-ansteorra.org
>> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> http://www.twitter.com/caravia15860606060
> http://www.scoop.it/t/art-and-activism/
> http://www.scoop.it/t/food-history-and-trivia
> http://www.scoop.it/t/urbanism-3-0
> 
> <http://www.scoop.it/t/postcolonial-mind/>
> 
> cell Sweden +4670-3213370
> cell Uruguay +598-99470758
> 
> 
> "When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with
> your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been and there you will always
> long to return.
> -- Leonardo da Vinci
> _______________________________________________
> Sca-cooks mailing list
> Sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
> http://lists.ansteorra.org/listinfo.cgi/sca-cooks-ansteorra.org
> 
>