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AnimalsTranscript
00:00 It's one of the only food products that doesn't perish.
00:05 The Live of Food, we're going to talk about a product,
00:16 we're talking about heritage today, thank you Benoît for being with us.
00:20 We're going to talk about honey, we're going to talk about bees, we're going to talk about apiculture,
00:24 a job that you have embraced with passion.
00:28 This crisis is very unique, and God knows that for a long time
00:32 we've been deploring Chinese glucose, sugar juice, I call it that, it's awful.
00:38 But it's sold like this, French honey from Europe,
00:43 everything is the opposite, of course.
00:46 God, it's difficult when you're a consumer to recognize the good honey from a bad honey,
00:52 but maybe it's enough to turn the pot over and go and get some readings.
00:58 What's the situation like today in the French apiculture market?
01:01 It's decadent because today, as you say, there are a lot of imports.
01:07 We've used it because in France we're not able to produce honey for the whole of France.
01:13 This year, in 2023, we produced about 34,000 tonnes.
01:16 It's consumed a lot more by the French.
01:18 What does it represent? A little less than 20%?
01:20 What is French production compared to consumption?
01:23 20-30% of consumption.
01:26 So that means 70% of imports, I was talking about that a little bit in the preamble.
01:30 So what seems absurd is that when you produce only 30% of your consumption,
01:36 you put a whole industry in trouble.
01:39 Because today, do we live from our apiculture?
01:42 Today we live from our apiculture.
01:43 The apiculturer earns his money.
01:46 He earns his money, depending on his operation, of course.
01:51 And then we also used imports to buy honey abroad,
01:56 which is bought between 1.20 and 1.80 euros per kilo.
02:01 Because we don't necessarily buy real honey.
02:05 We buy adulterated honey, when the honey comes from China, for example.
02:10 As you said, it's just a matter of looking at the pots,
02:12 but it's not necessarily easy to see,
02:17 because the product is really well presented on the pot.
02:24 You still have to learn to turn the pot to see what you're actually buying.
02:27 What you're actually buying.
02:30 It reassures me, in your words, dear Benoît,
02:32 that an apiculturer can live from his profession.
02:35 But who are the customers, in the end?
02:37 Because we, consumers, we buy a pot of honey.
02:39 It lasts a long time, because you don't lose a pot of honey.
02:43 You open it and you can eat it for a year.
02:45 Largely.
02:46 It's one of the only foods that doesn't perish.
02:51 It doesn't perish.
02:52 It's sugar, fructose, glucose, and it's a food that doesn't perish.
02:57 So, it's true that if you bought a pot of honey per family in France,
03:01 the market, we estimated it, is big, but it's not just consumers.
03:06 Who buys honey today?
03:07 Is there a collective restaurant?
03:10 Yes, we have the restaurants that use honey.
03:16 Then the restaurants, the higher the rank, the more they will take real honey.
03:19 Not real, honey.
03:20 Honey.
03:21 You can't put real, because there's honey and sugar.
03:26 And there's sugar on the side, which hasn't been touched by bees.
03:30 Today, we are able, well, we are not in favor of the system,
03:34 but we are able to produce honey in 6 milliliters,
03:37 where bees haven't even been put their nose in.
03:38 Does a hive produce one honey a year?
03:40 No, our hives will be pollinated depending on the year.
03:45 We also need these bees for pollination.
03:47 So, there's only one production calendar?
03:50 We only have one production calendar.
03:52 It also depends on the region we are in.
03:54 In our sector, we will start with the honey from the Colza region.
03:58 It's a sector where we produce from the Colza region.
04:01 We will go to the Tilleul, the Cascade, the Châtaigniers, the Sarrazin to finish.
04:06 This is a honey from Sarrazin, it's the supreme of the supremes.
04:09 Very beautiful colors.
04:10 What is it? 30,000, 50,000, the population of a hive?
04:13 So, a hive where there are between 50,000 and 70,000 when we are in the 16th milliliter.
04:17 It's a beautiful population.
04:18 Two types of bees, bees that will produce, so breeding bees.
04:21 And then bees, a bee that will be a little different from winter,
04:26 because it's the two-season bee that produces, it lives about 40 days.
04:30 The winter bee will live between 4 and 6 months in the hive.
04:34 Its role is just to heat the colony.
04:37 At the heart of the hive, that is, where the queen is, about 34 degrees.
04:40 Okay. Is there a winter mortality?
04:44 So yes, today we have plagues.
04:47 The first plague that has existed since the 1980s is the Varroa.
04:51 It's a parasite.
04:52 It's for diseases, but otherwise, before we get to diseases, to predators,
04:55 the bees, if you will, how do you say, they die, winter bees die or not?
05:00 So, winter bees, they are there to live between 4 and 6 months to heat the colony
05:10 and they will die in the spring when the queen is put back in the hive.
05:15 It's a whole cycle to make production bees.
05:19 Their job is to function.
05:21 They produce honey and pollinate.
05:23 So they will look for nectar and pollen in nature.
05:27 The pollen is used to pollinate trees,
05:32 but this pollen is also used as protein to feed the larvae.
05:36 The nectar that is brought in is a liquid material that is taken from the flower
05:41 and which is then transformed by exchange between bees.
05:49 It's called trophallaxis.
05:51 And from there, they will produce honey.
05:54 Precisely, the income of the beekeeper can also be on pollination.
05:59 There are people who are paid by the hive to pollinate, to hive.
06:04 Exactly.
06:05 So, earlier we were talking about hives that could move,
06:09 we call it transhumance.
06:11 Well, behind, yes, we will be ordered by people who have hives
06:15 to be able to pollinate apples, fruit trees, cherries.
06:19 And all the interest of the bee is there.
06:22 So, this is how we can specialize, specify.
06:26 You mentioned a honey from Sarazin, we have honey from Pleine Fleur,
06:29 honey from Colza.
06:31 We can, because there is an area, the bee pollinates
06:35 and escapes not so far from its hive.
06:39 A few kilometers away.
06:41 A bee about three kilometers.
06:43 Of course, three kilometers is the maximum distance.
06:46 It already travels a lot of kilometers in its life,
06:50 about forty days.
06:52 And yes, it stays in its sector.
06:54 So, the fact of bringing transhumance to monofloral sectors,
06:58 well, behind, we know precisely that our honey will be at 30%.
07:03 Yes, it's an estimate.
07:04 Are there any predilections?
07:05 Are the hives put a little in the shade?
07:07 Depending on the orientation of the sun.
07:09 So yes, there is a sense of pose.
07:11 We put hives in the opening, the exit of the hive,
07:14 it is generally southeast.
07:16 OK.
07:17 And in the sun, because the bee does not like humidity.
07:22 Okay, like us.
07:24 That's it.
07:25 So southeast, beautiful exposure, southeast.
07:28 It's the full sun, as they say.
07:29 It's the full sun.
07:30 From morning to night.
07:31 It's the rise of the day and from morning to night, it is in the sun,
07:33 which allows it to give it a more important activity.
07:36 I come back to your job too, because raising queens is fundamental
07:41 for everything that comes with the profession.
07:44 You are several in France, in any case, but you are a breeder.
07:47 What do you call yourself?
07:49 Raising queens in particular.
07:51 We are selectors and multipliers.
07:54 Yes, okay.
07:55 After that, behind, we have the real selector,
07:59 it is someone who is able to reproduce a bee, a queen,
08:03 fertilize a queen on a nile,
08:05 and we have really saturated the sector of the males that we want to give to it in fertilization.
08:13 Okay.
08:14 After that, we are multipliers because we are not on islands,
08:17 on our sector, we want to see Atlantic,
08:19 and behind we saturate a sector with our males.
08:23 Behind, we are not sheltered, there is a male coming from behind,
08:26 which is not of our selection.
08:28 Okay, yes.
08:29 Just that behind, we have methods so that at 95%, we are sure of fertilization.
08:35 Does the male have particular characteristics?
08:37 So the male does not sting, the male has big eyes,
08:40 his characteristics are to be a little bit lazy.
08:44 We ask him ...
08:46 Any resemblance to any other species would be a coincidence.
08:50 Behind that, it brings a little bit of ventilation in the hive.
08:57 The rest of his profession, we will say,
09:00 what he has to do, his role is to fertilize the queens.
09:02 What does a hive produce? How many honeycombs?
09:05 For the profitability of the beekeeper.
09:08 For profitability, when we are around 30 to 40 kilos per season.
09:14 Yes, per hive.
09:15 Per hive, we have a good production.
09:18 In our sector, we are a little less productive than in monofloral sectors,
09:23 such as in the center of France.
09:27 We are there in the sector, I found, between 25 and 30.
09:31 We have produced up to 80 kilos per hive.
09:35 Incredible, but that was a long time ago.
09:37 Several decades.
09:38 What is this production differential?
09:40 The quality, the biodiversity?
09:43 The loss of our honey and our flowers, we lose about 10%.
09:46 Our honey and our flowers every year by deconstructions,
09:50 which replace our meadows, etc.
09:53 So we lose in production.
09:55 History has unfortunately taught us that remembering was a really wrong idea,
10:01 because it didn't work.
10:02 We see that today, who is a hunter, who is a farmer, a winemaker,
10:07 all professions today, in connection with agricultural production,
10:11 put the hive back in the spotlight.
10:13 That's a good way, at least.
10:15 So for us it's important to put the hives back in,
10:18 and we sow the hives.
10:20 For the insects, for many people.
10:23 For the insects, but also for the environment,
10:25 because today we talk about flooding, etc.
10:30 It's also because the earth doesn't do its job properly.
10:33 This world of agriculture, we see it, because I also come back to this consumption,
10:37 there is this differential, 30% of products, 70% of imports.
10:43 What will determine, when you have this production,
10:46 I'll come back to this at other times, the quality of your honey.
10:49 Because producing 30-40 kilos, we've seen, is a good ratio.
10:54 Does the honey also have to be of a certain quality?
10:57 How do you measure this quality?
10:59 The quality of the honey depends on what has been pollinated and hived.
11:05 We have different kinds of honey, we have bruyere honey,
11:08 we have colza honey in the sector, or chestnut.
11:11 It's really what has been hived that makes the difference in quality of the honey,
11:14 and not intrinsically the bees.
11:16 No, it's what has been pollinated,
11:18 it's the environmental values that make the quality of the honey.
11:23 So this harvest, because I was going to say, it's a bit like any other breeding,
11:26 we see the dairy, you have to go in the morning, you have to go in the evening to breed our cows.
11:29 The bees, you're going to collect,
11:31 a hive is made up of a set of drawers, what do you call that?
11:36 So we call it, the hive is made up of, at the bottom of the hive,
11:40 depending on the type of hive we're going to use,
11:44 we have several models, we have bruyere, angstrut, and dadan.
11:49 If we use dadan, for example, we work with hives that have 10 frames,
11:54 because behind that, it's a practical function, because when you consume it, it's heavy.
12:00 So we work in the body of the hive, there are 10 frames that belong to the bees.
12:05 We're going to renew these frames to bring clean frames back to the needs,
12:09 but we're not touching what's in the body of the hive.
12:12 During the full season, we're going to add what we call "hives" to the body of the hive.
12:21 That's where they're going to come and store the honey, that is, the hive.
12:24 So we're going to put a hive, two hives, three hives.
12:27 So just a question of common sense, as a father,
12:30 we take honey for ourselves, for our gustatory pleasure,
12:34 and for them, we leave a little bit?
12:36 That's what I explained right away.
12:39 The hive is the hive, it's the surplus.
12:41 So we don't touch that?
12:42 The hive, we're going to touch it, what's in the body, we're not going to touch it.
12:45 Very good, that's it.
12:46 Obviously, we take honey from them at the end of the season.
12:50 We still have the task of checking at the end of the season if they've stored enough.
12:55 The right proportion.
12:56 We have bees, some colonies that will eat more, etc.
12:59 So the bee is, how do I put it, not at all, I'd say, cautious.
13:04 It's working for its future.
13:06 That's it.
13:07 The bee is the apis mellifera, it's the honey bee that makes honey, that stores it,
13:13 and its role is to produce honey, but it's also to produce honey for itself.
13:19 So, precisely, a whole set of tools for the beekeeper who has to produce,
13:24 you brought us a few.
13:26 The beekeeper's selection, they're not aggressive, but it's necessary,
13:30 we've seen it, at least for the upper part, at least, and the face.
13:36 What's important is to protect your face.
13:39 You're not safe from a sting, because the bees have their own character,
13:43 and depending on the weather, they can be a little more aggressive.
13:46 I'm a selection beekeeper, so in my selection criteria,
13:51 I have this softness factor, where I can easily work with bare hands,
13:56 because it's much easier.
13:58 Yes, it's true that we often see you, you even stand up, but...
14:02 That's it.
14:03 We like to talk about reading the frame,
14:05 that is, having a frame with bees on it, bees that don't move.
14:09 And there's a whole role, too, in learning, discovering,
14:15 and opening a hive, it's to have a funnel.
14:18 The funnel is the most important thing.
14:21 The funnel is to always say hello.
14:25 So we're going to mix a little bit of honey, a little bit of granulated water,
14:31 to make a soft smoke.
14:34 We don't come to attack them, to stress them out.
14:36 Not at all. What we're going to make the bees believe is that we've
14:40 inflated the hive and that it's going to catch fire.
14:43 Ah yes, that's the information code we send them.
14:46 That's it. If the hive catches fire, the bees need to take supplies
14:54 to be able to get out, to escape, we say about half of the colony,
14:59 to escape into nature, but also to be able to live two or three days
15:05 before finding a new home.
15:07 So a very unique tool, the beekeeper's tool.
15:11 You're going to explain it to me, because we don't have that at home.
15:14 There are several functions, I imagine, to this beautiful tool.
15:19 What's its name?
15:20 It's called a frame lifter.
15:22 This is the beekeeper's knife.
15:24 There are a lot of beekeepers who haven't worked with it,
15:26 because it's a bit heavy.
15:29 I find it very practical, because I can use it as a lever to lift my frames,
15:34 and as a scraper if I need to scrape on a rack or something else,
15:40 and as a knife, possibly, when I need to scrape wax,
15:44 it's useful for a lot of things.
15:47 The frame lifter is always used, there are different models, different shapes.
15:52 I like to work with this one, but it's not necessarily the least heavy.
15:59 What's important is that this production, 30, 40 kilos,
16:04 per hive, an average beekeeper, we're talking about 30, 40 hives.
16:10 A professional beekeeper will work with at least 200, 300 hives.
16:14 Yes, I was far from the count. 200, 300 hives.
16:17 200, 300 hives, you start and you can live from one operation alone.
16:21 And the more you increase the shape, the more you need hands.
16:25 I was talking about harvesting earlier, we didn't mention it,
16:29 we come to harvest in the evening, there's a time for...
16:33 There are two ways to harvest, it's what I call "soft harvest",
16:39 I put bee hives in there.
16:42 The bee hive is a bit like a funnel, you slide it between the hive and the hive,
16:47 the bees go down, go back down to the hive to get to drink, get out, etc.
16:52 So they go out and they can't go back up.
16:55 So you can put that in the evening and then get the hives back the next day.
16:59 We say it's 8 hours, we usually leave it for 24 hours.
17:03 The bees are well down, it allows you to get the hives back up smoothly.
17:08 The second way is also with a blower.
17:11 We have soft blowers, we put the hive on its side
17:16 and then we blow the bees gently to be able to get the hives out and get them back right away.
17:22 Here are the honey pots, we have a whole decline after that, thanks to honey.
17:27 So we have sweets that are good for the throat, that are good for the taste,
17:30 that are good for the juniors, for everyone.
17:32 We have our honey, royal jelly, there's a whole plethora of products today.
17:37 That's right, there are several sectors of activity in the apiculture.
17:40 There are the producers of royal jelly, because we need it,
17:44 and for health it's great, it's a booster, an energizer,
17:47 and a little cure of three weeks of royal jelly, you have to enjoy it.
17:51 It's good for you.
17:53 Then we have the honey production, of course,
17:58 then we also have the harvest of propolis, which is used for medical purposes.
18:02 Then we also have wax, which is used for us, in our hives,
18:08 but which is also used for cosmetics.
18:10 And that's super important, it's real wax.
18:12 How is this wax obtained?
18:14 This wax is obtained by extracting honey.
18:20 We take honey from the hives, and in the hives there is honey,
18:23 but the honey is hopper-culled.
18:25 The hopper-cull is a bit like a cap on a bottle of wine.
18:27 And when the bees have ventilated this honey,
18:30 and it's at temperature, that is, 16-17% hygrometry,
18:33 so they chase humidity, they hopper-cull it.
18:36 And for us to extract, we need to remove this hopper-cull.
18:40 So for that, we have a hopper-culled knife.
18:43 A little noise, don't forget.
18:46 I'm sorry.
18:47 A hopper-culled knife.
18:48 So we take the hopper-culled knife,
18:50 we scrape the excess wax that will fall into a hopper-culled jar,
18:55 and we take this wax.
18:58 With bees, we never lose anything, everything is reused.
19:03 And we melt this wax, because it's ours,
19:07 because we know what we used and what was in our hives,
19:10 and then we reuse it to make wax leaves for our hives,
19:16 but also in everything that can be a cosmetic product.
19:20 Very good. So here, the destination, the commercial outlet,
19:24 it's other professionals who buy you this wax.
19:27 We send back to the waxer our wax that we melted.
19:30 So here, we get it back from our waxer,
19:32 we send back the hopper-culled wax, the clean wax.
19:35 Once again, the wax that is in the core of the hive,
19:38 where it was melted, etc., it becomes darker,
19:41 we don't get it back to work it again.
19:44 It can be used for a beekeeper, for example,
19:47 who has painted wood.
19:49 Yes, or for bees.
19:51 Then we also have pollen. We talked about pollen earlier.
19:54 So we have the pollination phase, and we can put pollen traps
19:57 at the entrance of the hives to get it back,
20:00 within a few days, per hive.
20:03 So we do a cycle, so in a few days, we get pollen,
20:08 which we keep well in the fridge, and which we can also redistribute,
20:12 and the pollen is something very rich.
20:15 So, the price of honey, to finish this show,
20:18 a beekeeper's honey, produced by our bees.
20:21 Here, I have one that is at your place, in Cors de Mais.
20:25 There is a price per kilo of honey, we know.
20:28 Yes, so on a particular kind of grocery store, per kilo,
20:32 we are between 12 and 16 euros, depending on the honey.
20:36 Everything depends on the honey.
20:38 There are honey that are more expensive, more valued, etc.
20:41 So, a kilo of honey is a prio, but at least medium, for French honey.
20:47 Harvested, as we saw together, my dear Véronique.
20:50 By hand.