Honey essence

Beekeeping for honey has long been a popular economic development model for many farming households in Dak Lak. To create products from bees, beekeepers have to put in a lot of effort…

Taking advantage of the loophole in the process of creating a new queen bee, beekeepers have intervened to make worker bees secrete royal jelly to serve human purposes.

Ms. Tran Thi Phuong Hang, who has been involved in beekeeping for more than 40 years at Chi Toan bee farm (Ea Kao commune), shared: “In a bee colony of tens of thousands of bees, long-time beekeepers can distinguish the queen bee, the male bees and the worker bees at a glance. Each bee colony has only one queen bee and the remaining bees are all her offspring.”

All worker bees are female bees and as larvae they all have the chance to become queens. But the worker bees decide which one will be queen! Even though they know that the colony only needs one queen, they create several queen caps and feed these larvae exclusively on royal jelly. The larvae that are fed royal jelly develop into queens, while the other larvae that are fed pollen and honey become worker bees.

A beehive full of ripe honey.

Understanding the characteristics of worker bee colonies when creating new queens, they often make more than one queen cap, so beekeepers will trick the bee colonies by hiding the queen bee and replacing it with many artificial queen caps to harvest royal jelly. In each beehive, people will place one or two wooden bridges on which about 200 queen caps (the queen caps are made of plastic, as small as the tip of the little finger) are attached, depending on whether the bee colony is strong or weak. The beekeeper will move about 2-day-old bee larvae into the queen caps. Worker bees will release milk to feed these bee larvae. “The larvae fed with milk by worker bees will become queen bees. The larvae not fed with milk will become normal bees. After 4 days, the beekeeper will move the queen larvae outside to scoop and collect milk from those tiny queen caps. A bee colony at its most populous can give the beekeeper a pound of royal jelly. And the queen bee fed with this miraculous milk can live 4-7 years, while the life cycle of a worker bee is only about 6 months,” said Ms. Hang. For that reason, royal jelly is considered very good for health: it has anti-aging, anti-inflammatory, vitality-enhancing, health-enhancing effects for both mother and baby, and beautifies the skin…

To be able to collect quality royal jelly, bees must be raised in the raw flower area to collect pollen and produce milk. The best source of royal jelly is often in areas specializing in growing tea and coffee such as Dak Lak , Bao Loc (Lam Dong)...

Put the ripe honey balls into the honey pot.

Except for the queen bee, all remaining female bee larvae will develop into worker bees and all of them are inhibited, unable to reproduce.

From birth, worker bees have been industrious, devoted, and work tirelessly throughout their lives. Nectar is brought back to the hive in liquid form by worker bees and transferred to the bees "at home". The bees that receive the honey continuously release and suck in the honey drops hundreds of times so that the enzymes in their salivary glands can convert the natural nectar into honey, condensing the honey drops before being transferred to the honey cells. When the honey is "ripe", the bees will cover each honey cell with a layer of white wax. Honey covered by bees is called ripe honey. This honey can be stored for many years while still retaining its nutritional content and quintessential flavor.

Honey from coffee flowers refined by bees is one of the precious natural specialties of the Central Highlands.

Many consumers see that the price of coffee flower honey sold on the market is only about 200,000 to more than 500,000 VND/liter, so they think that coffee flower honey is not of good quality. Many people follow the mentality of "hunting" for wild honey at sky-high prices and then fall into the "trap" of fake honey without knowing it.

With over 40 years of beekeeping experience, Ms. Hang's family - owner of Chi Toan beekeeping farm - always adheres to the principle: Let the bees fan and dry all day and all night until they seal the honey cells themselves. Only when 90% of the honey cells are completely sealed with white wax by the bees, will her family turn them to collect ripe honey, sometimes with a density of only 17 - 18 degrees. With ripe honey fanned, dried and inspected by the bees themselves, no matter how long it is stored, the coffee nectar with its characteristic aroma cannot be mistaken. Ms. Hang affirmed: “Coffee flower nectar is truly the most special type of honey, not available anywhere else. Coffee flowers are very fragrant, the honey collected is like being infused with the scent of flowers, so the whole farm is fragrant. The honey is thick, has a beautiful yellow or amber color and a characteristic light sour taste. To have a source of high-quality coffee honey, beekeepers must stay away from areas with lots of rubber, cashew, avocado... because honey is also made by bees, but honey collected from these plants is thin, quickly loses color, is dark black and after a short time will crystallize sugar. Many types of honey from flowers and grasses, collected by bees, also foam, we must know to avoid it.”

Pure beeswax is collected for export.

After many years of raising bees for honey by hand-cranking, wholesaling, and retailing, Ms. Hang's family also sells whole honeycombs according to customers' tastes. In particular, to serve VIP guests, high-class restaurants and hotels that use honey in buffet parties, the family has created honeycombs. These are high-quality, ripe honeycombs that are sealed by bees. Each small, neat, square honeycomb weighs from 0.2 to 0.5 liters and is often made by farmers during the main coffee flower season to have beautiful honeycombs with the characteristic flavor of coffee flowers.

Foreign tourists are very fond of this small, fragrant honeycomb with coffee flower scent. They often eat it with bread, or as a dessert. What is special is that they also eat beeswax because bees also eat pollen, collect nectar and then make beeswax, so it has all the nutrients and minerals like honey.

With over 40 years of beekeeping, Ms. Hang's family now has many quintessential bee products such as: honey, pollen, royal jelly, beeswax, propolis... and some honey-based products such as: honey tablets and black, yellow, white turmeric, scorpion turmeric... Ms. Hang confided: "To be a beekeeper, you must be persistent and have love for the little bee, dedicating its whole life to making drops of honey for life. Bees are both pets and teachers in life, so that our whole family can stick with the profession...".

Source: https://baodaklak.vn/xa-hoi/202509/tinh-tuy-mat-ong-0931540/