Chapter 5555 Old Beehive, There's a Big Stuff
Zhou Huaian cut some wormwood and some dry grass, tied them into three bundles, and handed one to Yang Chunyan, "Wait here for me. When wild bees come, use this to fumigate them."
"Okay!" Yang Chunyan took the bundle of grass and handed him the knife and urea bag. "Use this to store honey. Be careful not to set the forest on fire."
"Don't worry, I do this all the time. I always clear the weeds around the beehive and nothing will happen."
Zhou Huaian walked to the crack in the rock with the medicine hoe in hand. He saw the wild bees flapping their wings and crawling in and out of the crack like ants. The entrance of the cave seemed to have been smoked. "Oh! Old beehive, there's a big catch!"
He picked up the hoe and cleared the weeds around the maple tree. He took out a match and lit the dry grass in the bundle. After the dry grass burned, thick smoke rose.
Wild bees like to find solid stone caves to build their nests. Such caves will not collapse even if exposed to wind and rain.
Zhou Huaian hurriedly stuffed the grass bundle into the cracks in the stone and began to smoke the wild bees, and kept fanning the smoke in with leaves.
Countless wild bees buzzed and flew out from the cracks in the rocks, flying around the forest. Some of them even circled around the hive, but did not dare to get close because of the heavy smoke.
This wild bee is a native bee species in China. It is small in size but has a strong ability to collect nectar and resist diseases.
The worker bees are about ten millimeters long, with black heads and chests, yellow-black abdomens, and yellow-brown hairs all over their bodies. The honey that wild bees collect in this season is all flower honey.
Multi-flower honey is collected from hundreds of flowers and contains the essence of hundreds of flowers. Multi-flower honey is a mixed honey made from nectars of various flowers. The honey is deep in color and sweet and fragrant.
Hundred flower honey is cold in nature and has the effect of clearing heat. It can be used to clear heart fire, treat irritability, eliminate heat and detoxify, and moisturize the intestines and promote bowel movements.
Zhou Huaian stood aside until fewer and fewer wild bees came out of the cracks in the rocks. He felt that it was enough and began to clean up the rubble.
He used a hoe to dig up the soil underneath and removed the stones one by one. After a while, a hole large enough for him to lean his body into appeared, and a rich sweet scent of honey wafted into his nose.
He lay at the entrance of the cave and looked inside. Unexpectedly, it was quite large, with large, flat and long beehives hanging upside down in the cave.
"I've never found such a nice beehive. It's so nice, so nice!" Zhou Huaian waved happily at Yang Chunyan, "Yan'er, come and see, what a comfortable old beehive."
Yang Chunyan came over after hearing the sound. Zhou Huaian pulled her with a smile and asked her to get close to the entrance of the beehive. "Take a look! Gain some knowledge!"
"Wow~" Yang Chunyan exclaimed as she looked at the upside-down beehive in the cave and sniffed, "What a nice smell!"
Zhou Huaian patted Yang Chunyan who was looking at the beehive and said, "Okay, go over there and have a good rest. We'll leave after I finish cutting it."
"Well! Be careful!"
"I know, this isn't the first time I've dug out honey!"
After Yang Chunyan left, Zhou Huaian rolled up the urea bag and placed it at the entrance of the cave. He then looked at the beehive with great joy.
This old beehive can harvest a lot of honey and bee pupae. Bee pupae are good things. Fry them until golden brown and sprinkle some pepper and salt on them. They taste better than lazy cicadas.
He used a knife to cut off a piece of the honeycomb that was covered with a layer of white film. The first piece was about thirty to forty centimeters long and felt heavy in his hand. He estimated that this piece alone weighed three kilograms. He knew from its color that it was new honeycomb.
Because the cap of new honeycomb is convex, the cap of old honeycomb is flatter and slightly concave. New honeycomb is the honey collected by the bees recently.
Old comb honey is brewed repeatedly based on new comb honey. The honey has a higher concentration, is darker in color, and contains only a small amount of pollen in the honeycomb.
The new honeycomb looks as crystal clear as crystal. The honeycomb is filled with thick brown and yellow wild honey. When it is broken, you can see colorful pollen in the honeycomb.
After Zhou Huaian cut off the fourth honeycomb, the color of the honeycomb turned yellowish brown, and this piece was old honeycomb.
From the cross-section, you can see that the old honey in the honeycomb is black and the whole honeycomb is very full, surrounded by the rich fragrance of nectar.
The sweet fragrance made people happier. Zhou Huaian's lips curled up as he was immersed in the joy of harvesting honey.
Zhou Huaian recalled that he and Yiding had gone up the mountain to look for wild beehives before, but they had never found such a good hive or cut such full honeycombs. He felt that his wife was lucky and that he could get a lot when he went out with her.
When I was cutting to the end, I saw a nipple-shaped honeycomb on the lower edge of the honeycomb. I suddenly remembered that it was the royal cell of a wild bee queen, so I stopped immediately.
A bee colony may have thousands to tens of thousands of bees, but only one queen bee.
Even if the queen bee is gone, the wild bees will not abandon their hive. They will still fly back and start laying eggs as worker bees. But without the queen bee, the eggs laid by the worker bees can only hatch into drones.
Without the female bees, the population of this colony of wild bees will slowly and slowly decrease until it becomes extinct.
There are also ethical considerations when collecting wild honey. You cannot kill the chicken to get the eggs, and you have to leave the seeds behind so that there will be an endless supply of wild honey.
Zhou Huaian licked the honey on his hand happily, and walked towards Yang Chunyan with the urea bag, laughing as he walked, "Yan'er, I feel very lucky to go up the mountain with you! This nest has at least more than 20 kilograms of honey."
Yang Chunyan, who was drowsy leaning against the backpack, was woken up by him. Seeing him approaching with a beaming face and the heavy urea bag in his hand, she stood up and said, "There are really a lot! Let me see!"
"Most of them are capped honey, so delicious!" Zhou Huaian looked at her with a smile, took a small piece of honeycomb and handed it to her mouth, "Yan'er, try a piece, it's sweet."
Yang Chunyan took a look at the golden honeycomb in his hand, hesitated for a moment and then opened her mouth. Zhou Huaian fed the honeycomb into her mouth with a smile in his eyes.
A rich sweetness and a hint of floral scent mixed with the flavor of Chinese herbal medicine filled Yang Chunyan's mouth, and she hurriedly swallowed a mouthful of honey.
Zhou Huaian looked at her cherry red lips, his throat moved, and he swallowed his saliva involuntarily, "Sweet, right!"
Yang Chunyan nodded repeatedly: "It's so sweet, so sweet to my heart. I didn't expect you to have this ability!"
She thought of her past life and really wanted to ask him, since he could find wild beehives, why did he have to climb up the cliff to collect cliff honey?
Instantly, Zhou Huaian's eyes sparkled as he looked at her. He placed the bag in front of her and said, "I'll seal the hole and come back next year to get it."
Not bad, they also understand sustainable development!
Yang Chunyan suddenly had an idea and recalled the short video posted by a wild honey collector she had seen in her previous life. "Huaian, is the hole in the beehive big? If not, you can help them dig a bigger hole. I think if you make the beehive bigger, you should be able to produce more honey next year!"
"It's because the hive is big that we can harvest so much honey!" Zhou Huaian said, and suddenly realized, "You're right, why didn't I think of expanding the hive a little bit? My wife is smart."
Yang Chunyan looked at him proudly, "Just average, third in the world!"
Zhou Huaian glanced at her sideways, "You should be more humble. I just praised you and you're so proud of yourself!"
Yang Chunyan glared at him in reproach, "You are the one who is cocky! Hurry up, the sun will set soon."
"receive!"
Zhou Huaian turned around and went to the beehive, and put the stones, mud, and gravel back, even leaving the mud and grass that had been dug out. If you didn't get close to the beehive and take a closer look, no one would notice that it had been touched.
(End of this chapter)
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