Romania THE HONEY OF BOHEMIA

Romania

THE HONEY OF BOHEMIA

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The rural landscape of Maramures attests to the mountain civilization of northern Romania, with its wooden churches, its deep forest. Here, time seems to have stopped and farming is still like that of Western Europe before mechanization.

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Like everywhere in Romania, they make hay in the old-fashioned way, using horse-pulled carts. This stereotypical representation nonetheless reminds us that mechanization is not possible for small family farms depending on self-sufficiency. Many Romanian farmers have another job in the small industries that dot the countryside.

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Since the beginning of migratory apiculture, the Romanian beekeepers have taken to the custom of installing their hives on the trailers, which they call the “lodge”.

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The comings and goings of the bees at the entrance to their hive is constant on this beautiful summer’s day and the particular arrangement of the hives in the “lodges” increases the impression of a multitude.

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On the road to Braila, we come across the son of a beekeeper who sells his family’s honey to motorists.

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The comings and goings of the bees at the entrance to their hive is constant on this beautiful summer’s day and the particular arrangement of the hives in the “lodges” increases the impression of a multitude.

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The comings and goings of the bees at the entrance to their hive is constant on this beautiful summer’s day and the particular arrangement of the hives in the “lodges” increases the impression of a multitude.

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Night has fallen and Onéa Dinu Calin, a beekeeper, inspects one last time his truck and precious cargo before the departure.

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On the Babadag Plain, a few yards from flowering linden trees, Onéa Dinu Calin and Paolo Balasa have set up their “lodges” for three weeks.

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On the Babadag Plain, Onéa Dinu and Paolo Balasa talk with their beekeeping neighbors in front of the lodges where the colorful hives are lined up.

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On the Babadag Plain, Onéa Dinu and Paolo Balasa talk with their beekeeping neighbors in front of the lodges where the colorful hives are lined up.

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On the Babadag Plain, Onéa Dinu and his 17 year old assistant, Lorin. Lorin is a student. In the summer vacation he helps Dinu during the migration. For two years now he has been initiating himself in beekeeping. In the center, Andreï, Paola’s assistant. He arrived three days before and sleeps in Paolo Balasa’s “lodge”.

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Onéa Dinu Calin, 35 years old, and the young assistants share this moment of communal life. They work out amongst themselves the tasks of collecting water and food by bike.

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In the early morning, in the sleeping quarters set up in his “lodge”, Onéa Dinu Calin, 35 years old, prepares breakfast. A third-generation beekeeper, he lives in the Maramures and migrates during four months, from April through the end of July.

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Onéa Dinu’s team set up a table for their meals near the trailer. The bees of the Carpatian species are gentle and a simple parasol at the right height guarantees the tranquility of the beekeepers as they share their meals.

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On the road to the village of Ciucurova, farmers enter the village on a cart loaded with hay. They greet in a neighborly manner the beekeepers who settle for three weeks every year by the side of the road. In Romania, the road network is old and the streets for going further into the countryside are better adapted to horse-drawn carts than motor vehicles.

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Gheorghe and his son on the frame hives, inspecting them before the harvest.

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Ionel Farcas Cozmin’s family from Mures are all here. Women, children, baby and the grandfather spend several weeks on the road camping. More than 600 km from their home in the region of central Transylvania, they take advantage of the summer. It’s a bit of a vacation because Iulian, Ionel’s son, works as a civil servant the rest of the year.

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Ionel Farcas Cozmin, 54 years old, from Mures in Transylvania, with his grandson Catalin in front of the hives.

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Ionel Farcas Cozmin, 54 years old, from Mures in Transylvania, with his grandson Catalin observes a hive on a scale and thus determines the nectar harvest for the day. When the quantity of nectar is no longer sufficient, it’s time to break camp.

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Ioan Victor Cornea, 48 years old, from Fagaras near Brasov in the region of Transylvania, has traveled 400 km to set up his 30 hives in the forest of Ciucurova. A teacher the rest of the year, beekeeping is for him a passion and an income supplement.

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Ioan Victor Cornea and the couple Ioan and Elisabeta Borda have set up their hives a few meters from each other. Ioan and Elisabeta Borda also come from Transylvania, but farther to the north. They share this moment as good neighbors would and enjoy meeting up for a drink at the end of the day.

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At the campsites, mutual aid is common; the beekeepers get together by affinity or because they come from the same region. The majority comes from Northern Romania.

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On the road to the village of Ciucurova, a farmer, Costantin Banui, has stopped his cart near the beekeepers’ trailer to buy a jar of honey.

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On the road to the village of Ciucurova, a farmer, Costantin Banui, has stopped his cart near the beekeepers’ trailer to buy a jar of honey.

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On the road to the village of Ciucurova, a farmer, Costantin Banui, has stopped his cart near the beekeepers’ trailer to buy a jar of honey.

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On the road to the village of Ciucurova, Francise Gadri, 52 years old, and his 17-year-old son Gheorghe proudly pose in front of their 152 hives in a brand new fitted truck.

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On the road to the village of Ciucurova, Francise Gadri, 52 years old, and his 17-year-old son Gheorghe proudly pose in front of their 152 hives in a brand new fitted truck.

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On the road to the village of Ciucurova, a beekeeper takes a nap. Apart from the times in the month for harvesting, extracting and storing, the months of migration are organized around life on the campsites. The bulk of the work, preparing the hives, is over: the beekeepers still practice the dividing up of the hives to create new colonies, but their main activity remains the caretaking of their stocks.

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On the road to the village of Ciucurova, a beekeeper takes a nap. Apart from the times in the month for harvesting, extracting and storing, the months of migration are organized around life on the campsites. The bulk of the work, preparing the hives, is over: the beekeepers still practice the dividing up of the hives to create new colonies, but their main activity remains the caretaking of their stocks.

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Onéa Dinu Calin, 35 years, a third-generation beekeeper, lives in the Maramures and migrates during four months, from April through the end of July. He is a musician who never travels without his guitar. He cannot wait for mid-July when he plays with his band in the clubs of Neptune in the South of Constantia on the Black Sea. His assistant will keep watch over his stock during that time.

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Onéa Dinu Calin on his truck surrounded by hives and the barrels in which he stores the linden flower honey to sell to his customers in Maramures.

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In a lodge, a beekeeper has opened a hive and looks at a very nice comb.

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Paolo Balasa from Salcioara and Gheorghe Cazan have opened a hive and show, at the back of the hive, a frame of bees.

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For this couple of amateur beekeepers who only possess a few hives, the harvest takes place outside next to their old Logan.

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Constantin Cazan has come to help his father Gheorghe during the two days of harvesting and extracting. The extraction takes place in the cabin of the converted caravan.

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Constantin Cazan has come to help his father Gheorghe during the two days of harvesting and extracting. The extraction takes place in the cabin of the converted caravan.

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Babadag. The couple Andrei and Laura Stefania, from Pitesti to the north of Bucharest, in the middle of harvesting in their caravan. They are professional beekeepers and tell me that they sell their honey in Germany. They keep apart from the community formed by the other beekeepers because they own a car. Laura Stefania in the neat and tidy cab, plies the extractor while her husband opens the hives to take out the frames full of honey.

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Babadag. The couple Andrei and Laura Stefania, from Pitesti to the north of Bucharest, in the middle of harvesting in their caravan. They are professional beekeepers and tell me that they sell their honey in Germany. They keep apart from the community formed by the other beekeepers because they own a car. Laura Stefania in the neat and tidy cab, plies the extractor while her husband opens the hives to take out the frames full of honey.

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Annual gathering of the Seventh Day Adventists in the village of Salcioara on the Saturday following the harvest of the linden honey. The Adventists make up the majority of the inhabitants of Salcioara on the Black Sea and half of the men are beekeepers by trade.

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Detail of an opening to a hive. We can see the frames of the hive.

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In Ciucurova, at the company Fileomera SRL, which buys a lot of the linden honey from the migratory beekeepers by paying cash, the extraction of honey takes place in a space that meets European standards. After the fall of Ceausescu and the end of communism, the honey cooperatives quickly closed leaving the industry in total disarray.

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Paolo and Aurélia Balasa: their village of Salcioara is a few kilometers from Babadag. Paolo, son of a beekeeper, is an Adventist. He is 47 years old. He set the record for linden honey production this year with a yield of 25 KG per hive. His truck and trailer hold 130 hives.

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Paolo and Aurélia Balasa: their village of Salcioara is a few kilometers from Babadag. Paolo, son of a beekeeper, is an Adventist. He is 47 years old. He set the record for linden honey production this year with a yield of 25 KG per hive. His truck and trailer hold 130 hives.

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Paolo and Aurélia Balasa: their village of Salcioara is a few kilometers from Babadag. Paolo, son of a beekeeper, is an Adventist. He is 47 years old. He set the record for linden honey production this year with a yield of 25 KG per hive. His truck and trailer hold 130 hives.

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Paolo and Aurélia Balasa: their village of Salcioara is a few kilometers from Babadag. Paolo, son of a beekeeper, is an Adventist. He is 47 years old. He set the record for linden honey production this year with a yield of 25 KG per hive. His truck and trailer hold 130 hives.

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Onéa Dinu Calin and Lorin prepare the hives for this evening’s journey. The linden honey period is reaching its end and tonight a 180 km journey awaits them, at a speed of 40km/hour. Tomorrow morning, they will find themselves alone in an immense field of sunflowers further south, a kilometer from the sea.

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Onéa Dinu Calin and Lorin prepare the hives for this evening’s journey. The linden honey period is reaching its end and tonight a 180 km journey awaits them, at a speed of 40km/hour. Tomorrow morning, they will find themselves alone in an immense field of sunflowers further south, a kilometer from the sea.

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The Danube during a storm in Tulcea. The region of Dobroga, where the biggest linden forest in Europe can be found, is the strip of land, hills and small mountains that branches off from the Danube to the north, just before the delta.

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To the south of the region of Dobroga, the plain stretches out and allows for the monoculture of sunflowers. It’s a godsend for the beekeepers who can easily go from the lindens to the sunflowers.

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The lodges are set up on the sunflower fields, but the good old days of brotherly aid are over. The camps stretch out as far as the eye can see.

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A bee full of pollen collecting it from the pistils of a sunflower.

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A bee full of pollen collecting it from the pistils of a sunflower.

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Eric Tourneret, with his face swollen from bee stings, on Costantin Banui’s cart.

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Mirca and Tinca Dumitru, 64 and 61 years old, from Braila, worked all their lives in a factory. Before retiring, they built up their stock of hives and made a “lodge”. Today, they own nearly 200 hives but do not migrate any farther than the sunflower fields on the peninsula of Braïla, a few kilometers from their apartment. For them, beekeeping is more than just a supplement to their pensions.

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Mirca and Tinca Dumitru, 64 and 61 years old, from Braila, worked all their lives in a factory. Before retiring, they built up their stock of hives and made a “lodge”. Today, they own nearly 200 hives but do not migrate any farther than the sunflower fields on the peninsula of Braïla, a few kilometers from their apartment. For them, beekeeping is more than just a supplement to their pensions.

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On the road, crossing the forest of the village of Ciucurova, dozens of beekeepers have set up camp for three weeks by the roadside for the flowering of the linden trees.