The honey from Valtellina

There is everything in it: the light, the sun, the rain, the flowers…

Video full text: Honey from the Valtellina!

Here’s a tip for anyone visiting EXPO.
You can then board a special train that from Milan will bring you directly here, to the Valtellina!
This is where you’ll find the most beautiful landscape and all the products that are typical of this area.
Typical products waiting to be eaten and enjoyed.
Palazzo Vertemate Franchi, in Prosto di Piuro, Chiavenna.
This villa was the first port of call for anyone travelling towards Italy on the Grand Tour.
How marvellous!
One wonders what this first vision of Italy must have been like arriving from the Alps.
This arrival at the start of renaissance Italy.
It’s here that I’m going to meet someone who will explain the villa’s particular features to me,
a villa whose beauty comes from the perfection of food self-sufficiency.
You really are a Lombard, I can see that!
My mother always put a bit of yeast into the soup, and so I have… grown!
What is this wonderful building?
It’s the hunting residence of a noble family from a bygone era.
A unique Alpine example of a self-sufficient villa,
with a fruit orchard, a vegetable garden and the chestnut trees.
There’s an Italian-style garden with a fishpond that always provided fresh fish.
The water from the fishpond then ran down to those fountains,
and flowed along the canals; above there were the medicinal herbs,
they would lift those taps and water would flow from the spout,
flooding the areas of the vegetable garden as required, then the water in the vineyard,
and then under the property.
These renaissance folk were no fools!
We’re the real fools if we believe that we created who knows what civilisation.
And this is an example of how it is possible to have everything in one place.
Everything also means the bees!
Hello Cleto. What do bees mean to you?
They are a passion!
Will you introduce me to these bees?
Here we can see a cut away section of the hive,
and a hive normally has around ten of these honeycombs.
So how do you build a hive?
It is made up of different sections – in this case there are two.
The lower part is the nest, they made that.
This is where they have stored some pollen,
these cells on a yellow background are full of pollen.
These, on the other hand, contain honey.
So the bees have created these cells to contain their larvae?
Yes, the queen lays her eggs in one section.
They have kept this section for raising new bees.
This section, on the other hand, is entirely for the honey,
and when the cell is full they seal it with a layer of wax so as to preserve it.
And that’s the job we have to do.
So where is the propolis? Where is this marvellous natural antibiotic then?
The bees use it to line the entire hive,
so that it acts as an insulator against any type of attack whatsoever.
For example, this tiny drop here, this is a drop of propolis,
it’s really good for us!
They seal all the cracks,
these, for example, are sealed with propolis.
Help me to understand better: where does the liquid honey come from?
From the nectar of flowers; if you squeeze a flower it’s already liquid.
The bees suck it up, swallow it and inside their body they add enzymes that are also useful for our bodies.
They’re out of this world! So a bee’s body contains a living laboratory.
This is the centrifuge, known as a honey extractor.
We put it in here to filter it,
and after four or five days we can put a jar here to collect the finished product.
When you buy a jar of artisan honey, remember how it is made!
This is for me?
There’s everything in here: the light, the sun, the storm, the rain,
the flower, the blossom and the spring.