Picture Stories by Stephen Alvarez

Honey Hunter, Apalachicola

Spring is coming and soon the Tupelo trees in the Apalachicola river swamp will be in bloom. For a short -2 week- window honey bees do nothing but visit the blooming trees and produce the best honey in the world. 

Jimmy Moses is getting ready to smoke his bees and check on the honey flow last spring. This time of year the bees are so busy making honey that they don't really even have the energy to sting.

-Stephen Alvarez

Apalachicola River: Florida

I'm starting a personal project on people who grow or gather their food on a small scale. As it progresses I'll occasionally post a single picture here. It is exciting to work on something just for the blog. This picture was shot Sunday May 4.

Jimmy Moses and George Watkins check their bees 1/2 way through Tupelo Season. Jimmy and George put out 200 hives on docks by the banks of the Apalchicola River so that their bees will make Tupelo honey in the short season that the swamp tupelo tree is in bloom.

In a very short, 2-3 week, season the bees and men will produce the year's supply of this light, high grade honey. The smoke from Jimmy's smoker -and perhaps his cigarette- help calm the bees while George looks into their health. But as they both point out, the bees are so busy that they don't have much energy to attack you. In about 10 days they will load the bees and honey on a barge and take them out at dusk. By then the Tupelo Trees have finished their bloom.

-Stephen Alvarez

Canon EOS 1ds mark III 16-35mm lens