Beehive arrives at US Embassy in Helsinki

Beekeepers from Liljendal to care for inmates

print this

By Johanna Mannila
     
      Mrs. Cody Orek was brimming with excitement on Monday of last week, when a beehive was finally brought to the front yard of the US Embassy compound on Itäinen Puistotie in Helsinki.
      The hive was taken to a shady spot next to a lilac bush, and comes from the Marbacka honey farm of Mia and Bjarne Bruce in the rural community of Liljendal, east of Helsinki.
      Cody Orek wants later this sumer to change the type of hive to an African type model, which yields less honey than the ones in use in Finland, while bringing in very good pollen.
      “We aren’t looking for large amounts of honey. What is most important for us is the use of bees for pollination”, says Mrs. Orek, explaining the beekeeping philosophy of herself and Ambassador Bruce Oreck.
     
“Mia and Bjarne Bruce will care for the bees, and I plan to be their assistant as long as we stay in Helsinki”, Cody Oreck says.
      “My mother in Louisiana had beehives, and when I moved to Colorado I got some more, because we have 120 fruit trees and we need pollinators.”
      Oreck’s beekeeping hobby in Colorado came to an end when a mother bear and two cubs paid a visit to the orchard.
      The bears destroyed the hives and Cody Orek never got around to replacing them.
      “Fortunately a couple of years ago a young couple wanted to place nests in our orchard, and they installed an electrified fence around the hives to keep the bears from taking the honey. The electricity for the fence comes from solar panels”, Mrs. Orek says.
     
The Oreks are going to the southwest of Finland to visit the bee farm of Aimo Nurminen.
      “He raises queen bees for communities of black bees, and we would like to revive the raising of black bees here in Helsinki.”
      The black bee is an endangered breed of bee which has adapted to northern conditions, but which was allowed almost completely to disappear.
      “They have adapted to Finnish conditions since the 18th century”, says bee advisor Ari Seppälä, a consultant for the Finnish Beekeepers’ Association.
     
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 11.5.2010


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Beekeeping declining in Helsinki region (19.4.2010)

JOHANNA MANNILA / Helsingin Sanomat
johanna.mannila@hs.fi