It’s buzzing here: At the end of June, beekeeper Reimund Saffian gave interested individuals from the OpernTurm community as well as schoolchildren a chance to get up close to bees on the roof terrace. For half a day, the bee expert took smaller groups with him as he went about his work and taught them a thing or two about the bee colonies.
Hands-on beekeeping: How do you use a hive chisel or a honeycomb extractor? And what do you actually need a smoker for? At the OpernTurm’s first bee tour with beekeeper Reimund Saffian, visitors were able to experience working with the bees on an open OpernTurm bee colony and to handle the tools on empty honeycombs to try out the skills required.
Learning about bees
Alongside smaller groups from the OpernTurm community, a school group of 20 children and their teachers also took the opportunity to get up close to the bees. In addition to the skills involved, beekeeper Saffian also emphasized the importance of bees for biodiversity in city ecosystems, where they play an important role as pollinators. Preserving the bee population was also a key topic. Bees need pollen and nectar to feed. The pollen mainly provides protein, which is especially important for rearing the brood. This year’s pollen harvest was good, resulting in a well-developed, healthy bee population.
The honey harvest draws near
Visitors were of course also interested in the approaching harvest of OpernTurm honey. The changeable weather has meant that the 2024 beekeeping season has been one of the most difficult in Germany in recent decades. The early flowering of many plants caused the bees to starve later on, which coincided with cold, wet flying weather that lasted for weeks. Thanks to close feed monitoring with the addition of surplus honeycomb from last season, beekeeper Saffian was able to help the bee colonies to survive the shortage of food. Despite the challenges of the season, harvesting could therefore begin after the blooming of the linden trees on 12 July. According to Reimund Saffian, this time we can look forward to a tasty mixed honey of summer blossoms with a strong note of linden nectar. We can’t wait to try it!
