My bees produce the best honey in the world.

    Hi everybody.

My name´s Joaquim Santos and I live in Setúbal - Portugal. 

Setúbal is Portugal 4th biggest city and is located 40 Km south of Lisbon.

This region is very well known for its gastronomic wonders. Sea food here is king and grill sardines are the top. Wines here are excellent. The most famous is Moscatel, a sweet wine with nearly 20% alcohol that we take after the meal.

Today I'm starting this blog to tell the world about my beekeeping hobby, my beekeeping procedures and to inform everybody that my bees produce the best honey in the world.

I started this hobby 30 years ago when I was 17. Everything started when a cousin of mine gave me 3 hives made out of cork. With those hives I caught a swarm and since than I didn't stop any more. I've been learning about bees behaviours, producing queens and swarms, helping them to face diseases, saving swarms without queen and producing honey.

Nowadays I have arround 60 hives. My main apiary is located ~30Km south of Setúbal, in a region known as Vendas Novas.

Here some pictures of the apiary as it is now in spring.

Partial view of Vendas Novas apiary

Partial view of Vendas Novas apiary (another)

Partial view of Vendas Novas apiary (another)

This part of the country still free of pollution and the vegetation that grows in the fields arround is wild. Main plants to supply nectar and polen to bees now in spring, are the following:

Rock-rose (source of polen)

Rosemary (souce on nectar)

Blueweed (source of nectar)

Thistle (source of nectar)

Honey bee collecting nectar on a thistle flower

It's in this vegetation that my bees collect the nectar to make the finest and most delicate sweet honey. 2016 spring has been very wet. During April and May the rain was frequent. The result was, fields full of flowers and hives supers full of honey. See the pictures.

Comb frame full of matur honey

Comb frame full of matur honey (another)

Comb frame full of honey still in the hive ready to be harvest

Comb frame full of honeystill in the hive ready to be harvest

And this is why I say my bees make the best honey in the world. A natural sweet very good for people health.

After spining the combs on the extractor, the honey will get like this.

Flask of pure honey 

In portuguese the word "Mel" means honey.

And that's all for today. I hoppe you enjoy and come back, you're welcome.
Please let your comments, doubts, suggestions, ... related with beekeeping. I will reply.
Thanks.