Goldenrod Honey

Honey Bee,

pollen baskets almost full

The most industrious visitors to Halibut Point's goldenrod plants right now are Honey Bees. In exchange for their  role in cross-fertilizing the flowers they are collecting two main staples of their sustenance, pollen and nectar. Pollen supplies them with nutrition, nectar with caloric energy. 

A neighborhood hive
in the back yard of Mike and Amy Longo

The foraging worker bees, all sexually undeveloped females, may fly several miles to harvest food for the colony. They also perform diverse tasks in the hive, building beeswax combs, feeding the brood and queen, keeping house, guarding the entrance, ventilating and air-conditioning the hive. A small number of male drones keeps the queen fertile so she can place eggs in the honey cells.

Mike Longo this spring
transferring newly arrived bees to the hive

Mike and Amy Longo recently were stung with an interest in beekeeping through their friend  Joe Gaglione  who operates Crystal Bee Supply & Apiaries in Peabody.

Emma Longo with smoke pot

Their daughter Emma helps check on the hive's progress in building and filling honeycombs.

Success for all

In their first season as beekeepers the Longos were rewarded with 27 pounds of honey.

Across town, David Wise has kept hives for almost fifty years.

David and Enid Wise, right rear,
at Governor King's dedication of
Halibut Point State Park
November, 1981

David has been a member of the Friends of Halibut Point since the organization was founded as a citizens support group for the State Park. In that time the quarry site has re-vegetated considerably.

Honey Bee on goldenrod

In good years as a beekeeper David has been able to harvest honey as late as mid-October, "absconding with their golden treasure," as he wryly puts it, so long as enough is left to sustain the colony through cold weather. The goldenrod honey is flavorful and dark amber in comparison to the light amber of spring. 

He and the bees appreciate goldenrod as "an essential late-season plant before they curl up and form a ball in the winter hive....They move in and out from the center to the circumference of the ball in a constant cycle. They surround the capped honey cells which they can open for food." At the center of the ball the queen is protected at a constant temperature of 92 degrees through the winter.

David Wise