Bee Keeping in the Barrocal

With friends in town, we had the opportunity to visit another “wine hotel” in Alentejo: São Lourenço do Barrocal. Barrocais or a Barrocal is a cluster of glacier-deposited rocks that dot the landscape in this part of Alentejo in Portugal. Sitting on the plains in the shadows of the hilltop village and castle of Monsaraz, lies the resort and wine hotel of San Lourenço do Barrocal.

While each wine hotel offers similar services and relaxation, some, like the Monverde Hotel on the property of Quinta da Lixa in the Minho region of Vinho Verde country emphasize their restaurants, while others, like Herdade do Sobroso close by in Alentejo or Quinta do Vallado in the Douro Valley to the north feel more like working farms with hotels offering relaxation on the property. At São Lourenço do Barrocal, the emphasis feels like it is on the activities. While all offer wine tasting and poolside lounging and, in dark sky county, star gazing, São Lourenço do Barrocal offers horseback riding, pottery classes and bee keeping, amongst others. Bee keeping, you say? So why not step out of your comfort zone and into a swarm of bees?

We began our tour with Fabio with a short, lakeside, PowerPoint on bees. We learned about the Queen Bee, the drones (who live to serve and, well, service the Queen) and the worker bees (females) who clean, guard the hive and collect pollen. We learned that queens can live up to 7 years and mate once (well, many times, but in one time period in their lives) and retain the sperm from that one mating period for their entire lives. We learned that the workers can communicate where to find the pollen up to a couple of kilometers away to other workers using movements in the honeycomb. We learned about the threat to bees from pesticides, monoculture planting (only one crop planted in an area), Chinese hornets and varroa mites.

Then we went to the hives.

We donned our protective suits, Fabio fired up the smoker and we entered the hive area. Nearly immediately the guardian bees came to investigate, buzzing in our ears and swarming around our heads. It is, initially, intimidating but Fabi’s patience and calm demeanor helped us keep mellow, avoiding our Monty Python-like instinct to “run away!”. And so, like the lifestyle of the Alentejo residents, we relaxed despite hundreds of bees swarming, landing on our mesh masks and buzzing around us. We opened the hives. We saw one of the queens, we saw an alien-looking larva and a bee being born. We learned so much.

Then we returned to the lakeside to remove our bee keeping garb and sample honey both from the normal harvest last year and a sugary, thick form from a rare December harvest that tasted more like maple sugar on snow (Vermonters will know what I mean).

So, if you find yourself here at São Lourenço with time to spare, while choosing activities offered, we recommend you try it for yourself to experience the buzzing of bees amidst the Barrocal.