When in summer and we relax in the sun or when we are busy in some exhausting activity,
we often happen to be terribly annoyed by the frantic whisk of some hymenoptera.
Whether it’s a wasp, a bumblebee, a bee, the idea of being stung, especially for allergy
sufferers, is not too reassuring. No blame, it’s perfectly normal.
However, the important role of these insects and particularly of bees is now widely
recognized in the scientific community as well as in popular culture. The reason is very
simple, we might say primitive. These little creatures are responsible for the flowering
cycle of a substantial portion of the plants on the planet. It seems that on 100 crops that
constitute nearly the 90% of the world’s food production, about seventy are linked, directly
or indirectly, to the pollination activities of our workers friends. All the traffic, the
uninterrupted comings and goings, which we sometimes get in the way, is absolutely
indispensable and blessed. And this is a fact.
In the world of beekeeping, men carefully supervise the spontaneous and indispensable
work of bees, without stressing and exploiting them, which give precious raw materials in
return. This is another concept that we know well, so let’s try to say something “new”
Have you ever seen, at night, on the motorway as in some country road, vans, trucks,
carts, loaded with hives? Yes or No? Well, not everyone knows (neither did we) that many
beekeepers practice what is best known as the transhumance of bees. You read it right. At
night, the entire apiary with these little friends, is loaded on board for a journey of tens or
even hundreds of kilometers. The aim of this small migration is to find some suitable
places to take the bees to pasture, when maybe the fields of origin are bare or to follow the
seasonal trend on the territory of certain flowers.
What a special attention! A real holiday. Arrived at their destination, the following morning,
the foraging bees immediately become familiar with the new host environment and fly from
flower to flower. This nomadic beekeeping is becoming an increasingly widespread
practice among those who make beekeeping for profession or passion. A way to maintain
standards of taste and quality in honey, which obviously provides us with refined and
controlled products, gourmet honeys!
This is the case of our friend Nazario Fania, well-known producer of the Honey of Molise.
Based in Montagano (province of Campobasso) has been a field transhumant hunter for
several years. Who would have ever thought that Molise, the center of the ancient
transhumance of herds, would have been, centuries later, the protagonist of transhumance
of bees?… Fingers crossed for Nazario and for his ambitious dream and project.