HONEYBEES AS ORGANIC AS PAPER It is a little known fact that newspapers have a very practical use when it comes to maintaining bee colonies. “Newspaper method” describes the process of uniting two or more boxes of unrelated bees by placing a few sheets of newspapers in between them as a wall. The bees will slowly start “chewing” through the paper and in this process, the bees will spread their saliva and scent onto the paper, helping both colonies get used to the scent of the other colony. The paper is eventually degraded entirely and the two unrelated colonies smoothly assimilate into one big family. If two colonies of bees were placed into one box without a gradual intermingling, the bees would start attacking and killing bees of the other colony, causing devastation to both colonies (and the beekeeper). The Estonian Beekeepers’ Association inquired us about our paper waste and realised that our unprinted newspaper reel ends are the perfect substrate for tasks such as these. Even though newspaper inks are
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based on vegetable oils, the pigments used are not tehcnically food-safe and should not be consumed in large concentrations. As honey is a highly concentrated product, the desire to keep bees as pure as possible makes sense. So – recycle your paper because it will be reproduced into new paper that will help sustain bee colonies who can hopefully continue to produce their highly nutritious sweet nectar for future generations to come!
