A Huck Finn Moment

So, I had a Huck Finn moment last week.

A friend sent me pictures of a tree she had just walked past on Wyandanch Lane in Southampton. Wyandanch is classic Southampton estate terrain, lined on both sides with ancient sycamore trees. Sadly, many of those trees are nearing their end, and have gone hollow and rotten on the inside.

The trunk on this tree had a long vertical split, probably caused when one of those wicked windstorms we’ve had lately tore off a large branch. Inside the hollow trunk was an abandoned beehive. Not a bee to be seen, but enormous strips of honeycomb, much of it still full of honey.Armed with a long bread knife for cutting out the comb and a big plastic bag to carry it in, I headed over to see if the honey was salvageable. It looked good, and my inner child said, “Woo hoo! Free wild honey!” Sadly, my inner child is not a candidate for the gifted and talented program.

I thought at first that the bees had absconded only when the tree fell apart, but when I started to look more closely, I realized the residents had been gone much longer than that. The wax comb was dry and brittle, and there was no remaining larvae. A smarter person, at this point, would have walked away. I stayed, optimism trumping logic.

Logically, I should have recognized that a tree full of delicious honey, left unprotected for any length of time, would be set upon by ants, racoons, pretty much anything with a sweet tooth. I didn’t.

Wielding my bread knife, I cut down big chunks of honeycomb, taking about 25 pounds away with me in the end. Of course, I also didn’t plan for what happens to honeycomb when you cut it, and so didn’t bring anything to get the dripping, oozing honey off my hands. And my shoes. And my jacket. And my hair. And, well, you get the picture.

So now I’ve got this trash bag full of honey in my car, the steering wheel is a sticky mess, my shoes are glued to the pedals. But I’m feeling like Huck Finn, living gleefully and triumphantly off the land.

I schlep it home, and do not receive the excited reception I expect. Instead, I get, “What exactly are you planning to do with that? You can’t do it out here, the bees will go crazy. And you’re going to make a mess in the house!”

I sniff indignantly and inform my more rational half that I will clean up my mess, thankyouverymuch, as I drag my prize into the kitchen, sneakers spreading honey-sticky dirt with every step.

The problem with chunk honey like you get from a wild colony is you can’t put it through a spinner as you would frames from a beehive. So you pretty much have to squish the honey out. And I do not have the right equipment for this. But I got out my biggest colander and potato masher, and went to work.

First I sliced the wax coating off one side of a big chunk of comb, put it in the colander and squished. Honey began to drip out, and we were on our way. About five chunks later, I realized I wasn’t smelling that amazing fresh honey smell. I tasted the honey, and it wasn’t awful, but it wasn’t quite right.

It was right about then that I started to put the pieces together and realized that the bees were probably gone because their home had been sprayed, and so the honey I had dragged home would likely be a great source of pesticides, not something I’m looking to add to my family’s diet.

The entire mess is now sitting in a very sticky trash bag, and I’m just a little depressed over the whole thing. This was a well-established colony, probably resident in that tree for years. And somebody who either didn’t understand what they had, or didn’t care, exterminated maybe a hundred thousand honeybees.

On the upside, a lovely man and his two small children came cycling along while I was at the tree. We chatted, and I showed the kids the honeycomb and explained a little about how bees make honey and store it in combs to have food through the winter. They asked good questions, and each took a piece of empty comb with them. Maybe someday, having a Huck Finn moment of their own, they’ll come across a wild honeybee colony and instead of running for the insecticide, they’ll marvel at the wondrous things a tiny striped bug can accomplish.

NOTE: It is swarm season, when bee colonies split and go off to set up camp in new digs. If you see a swarm of bees—it looks like a great big lump of bees—don’t panic. Bees in a swarm are focused solely on getting the queen to a safe new home, they are not interested in stinging you.

If one of those swarms sets up housekeeping somewhere you’d rather they weren’t, don’t panic then either. An experienced beekeeper will be happy to come get the bees and move them someplace safe. And won’t you feel better about yourself if you don’t exterminate a creature that spends its life making honey and pollinating your food?