IV.2. THE HERITAGE

We were able to overcome, to a large extent, the common problems of the apitherapeutists about the purchase of the honey bee therapeutic products, as well as those about the trust in the quality of their biochemical structure. First, because we have our own apiary. A part of the apiary  remains stationary on the hill Prisăci (Apiaries) - an archaism indicating an ancient occupation, the beekeeping. More recently, his name would be the hill Stupine (Apiaries). It is located in the locality Bălănești, nine km from the city of Târgu -Jiu. Another part of the apiary, from spring to autumn, leaves the hill for the pastoral, in the submountain and mountain melliferous areas of the counties Gorj, Vâlcea and Hunedoara. To go to pastoral with an apiary means transporting it elsewhere to other melliferous area at distances less or more long than the winter hearth.

The knowledge of the beekeeping and the bee colony, among with I grew up, granted me the occasion to be familiarized with the hive products, with their production, harvesting and storage, too. I still have not changed much in the processes of the occupation that I inherited. Of course, I brought some renewing in the material basis of the apiaries under the new EU rules on the organic beekeeping. Our own apiaries give us the guarantee of quality bee products, as the possibility of harvesting one or other of the bee products just in time and under the conditions I think to be optimal for producing the honey bee therapeutic products.

We, however, by the aid of the bees, according to our own methods, we make some extracts, mainly from plants and certain fruit - but not only, completely avoiding the oxidation or other impairments of their therapeutic qualities.

Nor in the field of the apitherapy we have come to a completely empty place. Empirically, of course, without scientific medical knowledges, but with an amazing efficiency, my grandparents and parents gave people, for various conditions, some bee remedies including bee products or some combination of these, or between them and some herbs, fruits or seeds. Not infrequently, I saw how they caught the bees of the wings and put them to sting the painful joints, varicose ulcers or marginal areas. Some bee means, as well as some methods, I remembered. It is helpful to us now, too. I can only regret that, interested to read literature and history, I was not exactly paying enough attention to what they were doing. Now, when they are no longer among us, there is no one I could ask about.