Honey from Tullisaari

Park/forest/garden/meadow honey from Tullisaari.

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This jar of honey from East Helsinki is a piece of Mehiläisten seura.
Our collective work is interested in artistic work as situated knowledge under the precarious conditions of multispecies livelihoods. This jar can be exchanged for time, conversation, help or money.
Photo Aino Aksenja © 10.10.2020

Bee Company’s honey is urban honey at its best. There are allotments, forest, meadows, gardens, park vegetation, many Salix and Tilias within the radius of 1 km. Especially buzzing were the Frangula alnus bushes in the park. I extracted a set of honey in the beginning of August and due to warm weather a lot more honey was foraged after that, but I decided to leave it for the bees.

Bee Company’s honey won the third price in the harvest fiesta of the Beekeepers of Helsinki. Because there were 14 other contestants with their excellent honeys, I was surprised yet pleased for us. All the honeys awarded were from places with diverse nature.

In the photo above the honey is sitting on the branches of an oak that fell after the Aila storm during the night of the 21st of September, exactly 64 years after the tree was conserved. It’s exact age has not been dated, but it is estimated being approximately 200 years old.

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Photo: Aino Aksenja © 10.10.2020

On an arbour day and on my birthday 27th of September, I took part in a tree tour in Tullisaari park organised by The City of Helsinki. For my great joy I was told by the city’s civil servant Elina Nummi, that the tree will be left to decay where it fell as natural memorial. The amount of species in an oak decaying is multiple to a living one. In Helsinki latitudes it may take nearly 20 years for a large oak to decompose completely.

You can find out more about the natural monuments and (officially acknowledged) ecologically important areas in Helsinki from the Nature Information System.

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10.10.2020 winter food is already dried and capped. Most of the bees are already in a loose cluster around the queen. On warm day some still collect nectar and pollen from the last flowers of autumn.
Photo: Aino Aksenja ©

If you are interested in the honey, contact me!

-Ina