Honey at the chateau

Honey at the château

Since June 2017 we have had 3 colonies of bee-hives installed behind the mediaeval castle which are producing honey.

The BEE-KEEPER – DAVID DELAPORTE

«  After some years of bee-keeping in the center of urban Paris and at his hives in the Loire Valley, David Delaporte has created API-PLANETE in order to concentrate entirely on his passion for bees.

Api-Planète undertakes support for organisations which are developing research programmes to safeguard bees.

Our hives will soon be accessible to the public. We will certainly keep you informed on our web-site. With our bee-keeper we are studying ways to make the activities of the hives, open to all.

You can already accompany the bee-keeper when he visits the hives. He has suitable clothing available to you !

At the moment 2 of the 3 colonies are doing well and and have already produced 15 Kg of honey. We can’t wait to taste it. We will be making another collection at the end of august for the summer honey. They will soon be jars of honey for sale at the château shop. Don’t forget that honey is good for your health .

The third hive had lost its queen and so, is late to produce. Nevertheless, the new queen has taken charge and the colony has been at work.

Did you know ?

• One hive produces an average of 20 kg of honey per year.
• One hive have an average of 45,000 bees between may and august.
• The worker bees have an average life of 1month during to honey-making season. The winter workers live longer (4 to 5 months). The length of life depends on the energy spent at work. In hi-production seasons, for example the rape-seed season, the bees can die of exhanstion after only 1 week of intensive work.
• A young queen can lay up to 2,000 eggs per day.
• Bees keep the eggs at 37° to incubate.
• Predators – the asiatic hornet can decimate whole colonies if their nest with perhaps 2,000 hornets in it, is situated not far from the hives. The european hornet, which is fatter, also catches bees, but its impact is less as their nests are less populated.
• The adult hornets, both asian and european feed on fruit and nectar, but also hunt insects, bees, for example, to feed their young larva. They hunt bees as they are flying in the open, but also in front of their hives where the hornets hover in order to catch bees as they are entering or leaving the hive. The hornets take off the head and abdomen of the bee and take the thorax to their nest as this is the part of the bee richest in protein.