Barbara and Alessio found their modus vivendi on Giglio Island.
In spite of those who say that there is nothing to do on the island, here is a great example of research and industriousness.
Barbara and Alessio are two professional technicians, she is a surveyor, he is an expert in plumbing and heating. They enthusiastically help the family in other “collateral” activities – a little garden, a little vineyard and wine, a little oil -, as happened at Giglio when the island was self-sustainable and everything was produced on site. ; also because the ferry – or “postal” as it was called then – did not always arrive based on the weather; for the various supplies there were some sailing vessels.
So there is something to do, to know how to look for it and to feel like it.
At this point I have to express my opinion: Il Giglio is experiencing a new renaissance. Fortunately, Barbara and Alessio are not the only ones to have rediscovered eco-sustainable activities to be carried out on the island.
Alessio and Barbara have started an apiary.
An activity that is almost a challenge. In Italy, bees began to disappear in the 1980s, due to a parasite that attacks them: the varroa.
The idea was not born under good auspices, also because at the beginning Alessio – who is the tenacious, insistent, obstinate advocate – lost some bee families.
Alessio fell in love with bees, with their way of organizing themselves, building their houses, their food stores, their nurseries, with techniques that could be defined as anti-seismic: three hexagonal cells joined at a vertex, placed at the base of a hexagonal cell to build a stable and indestructible structure.
He fell in love with their intelligence, the way they communicate with each other. By loving them he began to respect them, much more than we respect them as ordinary humans who respect them because we know that, once the bees are extinct, mankind has four years of survival before becoming extinct. Alessio’s is a true, persevering love. The love of a father who seeks a solution to his son’s problems.
He began to trace their behaviors and their characteristics; she studied them to try to figure out how to help them survive.
There are those who say that bees are like seeds.
Bees have been raised for millennia, a story within history that tells of their ability to feed and adapt to various environments, while retaining the generosity of producing food and medicine for humans. Bees, depending on who their keeper is, are managed in different ways depending on their habitat and the food available to them.
So there!
This is the key.
Bees adapt in climate to available food. Adapting also means evolving genetically, giving life to individuals, then families and then swarms capable of living in a specific environment.
At Giglio there are no pesticides or fertilizers. The island is a park and wild nature bursts and reigns. Nothing that could hinder growth or cause weakness or disease. The food collected from the wild blooms is healthy and nutritious. Some plants are already medicinal and already provide healing elements.
These bees, so cared for and fortified, are the seeds of new generations of healthy and strong bees.
Those who raise bees do it to produce honey or royal jelly or propolis: they take away from the bees what they produce also for their own sustenance.
What did Alessio start doing?
It feeds the bees with their own food. Something that honey producers are unwilling to do, since honey is a product to be sold.
Alessio and Barbara also sell honey… that is what remains after feeding the producers.
Their honey is called The Queens.
What did Alessio observe?
The bees have become stronger, more robust even more determined.
Varroa has not been exterminated but has become a harmless housemate of the hive. Bees are able to detach it from themselves, perhaps even helping each other. They cleanse themselves of the parasite and start their work again.
The way of thinking and understanding the continuation of life by making ourselves stronger reminds me of the way of working of another friend, with whom GiglioCooking has recently started to collaborate: Andrea Battiata of the Bio-Active Garden of Florence. Andrea also fortifies the plants by fortifying the soil. He does it with kefir plant enzymes. Its rows of vegetables are clean and free from parasites: the plants seem to be able to repel “unwanted subjects” by themselves, without the use of chemicals.
This is my post dedicated to him and his garden:
The philosophy is the same: to be strong to face life with happiness.
It should be a philosophy for us humans too, what do you think?
Bees continue to work healthy and happy. Meanwhile, they enjoy the spectacle of these sunsets on Montecristo.
Marcella Ansaldo © 2021