You open your eyes … It dawned! A sunbeam tickles your half open eyelids. You open the tent and all these sunbeams come in. “Get up,” you are yelling me. We are almost catching the sunrise. “Make a coffee”.
I am thinking honey and I look at the bees that start to come out timidly by their beehives. They are like small houses! It Is where they are having their household. A household superior to that’s of the humans and every alive being.
As soon as the sun shows all of its rays we have already dressed up. Long pants full of pockets and shorts, headband with the screen, scraper and smoker.
This is how our day begins on the mountain.
Ready for “beekeeping inspection”, as we would say in the language of beekeepers. We control all the hives one by one and help them to be strong, clean and healthy.
Basically, we take care of them and they are rewarding this back to us. Hours pass and bees are endless. As time passes, the temperature rises.
Sweating drips from our forehead onto the screen that protects our face, as we are bent over the hives and these wonderful fairies come and quench out of it. How can you not love them and how come they not love us too.
“Ooh! That’s where Argyro is.”… I am yelling out!
It is so as we call them … By their name and every single bee, while others are wondering how we recognize them amongst so many very small and identical insects. We distinguish them! It starts to sizzle and the time comes when all the collecting bees turn back behind their hives. At that time they do not want something extravagantly important.
It is time to leave them in peace, to rest and to enjoy silence. As long as it’s evening, millions of stars appear in the dark blue sky to the heart of a forest!
“You should not count the stars,” my grandmother said to me … “You’re going to make crutches.” I have been counting so many years on so many summers beside our bees.
In our apiary! Either also in our workshop. In our modern and clean place, located in Ioannina (Katsikas, Ioannina), where, with absolute responsibility and according to all hygiene regulations, we place the honey on the jars, seal them and store them. You are always welcome to visit our site and of course to taste the different varieties of honey, we collect every season.
This place we chose. We searched one by one for each herb and tree. We went to live it in sunshine and cloudy, dawn and dusk. And then we carried our bees there.
We have trusted our fortune by giving the promise that we will not hurt him and watch him as our home. But what I say!… Since it is our home! These are our apiaries!
These are the places that nature lends generously to the highest mountains, in the most fertile valleys and in the densest and beautiful forests. Where our bees will enjoy fresh air, and they will pick up food both for them and for us … and for you too!