https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vOP6XpcRtATDw60bfSf8wvceE3xcPEW3Vvg7FwTp65s/edit
Honey
Still Going strong:
It was said that there were three things that Aristotle did not understand:
Teach agus imeacht na taoide,
Obair na mbeach
Agus intinn na mbann
As Bearla
The coming and going of the tides
The work of the bees
And the mind of a woman
Bees and Honey.
In Stanley Vickery’s memoir of growing up with his grandparents in the 1830s in Mullogh he refers to metheglin and to the country as being ideal for honey production. A number of people in the area kept bees, Johnny Shannon, Ahagouna, farmer and sextant to St. James from the 1920s to the 1950s. Nelius Scully in Lower Gearhameen in the 1930s. He and his brother occupied one of the houses on land owned by Dick Tobin of Kilcrohane.
The Bohane family once farmed extensively at the Cummer Farm on the border of Clashadoo and Brahalish. They, like many before, were defeated at trying to work this difficult land. They relocated to a small farm in Upper Brahanlish and had extensive hives.
The hives used were made of straw, an example is at Letetia and the late Tommy Camier’s museum at Gortnagrough, Ballydehob made by in 1875 by George Copithorn of Kilbarry, Dunmanway.
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My grandfather, Michael Hurley, also kept bees. He was the ‘Master’ in Kilcrohane school, and a close neighbour of Dick Tobin who is mentioned in your piece.
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