Speeding away from Tbilisi the roads get rougher and rougher. Mr Ramaz weaves the car around giant potholes.
Even though we are in the countryside there are many people on the side of the road and in the fields. Standing around, talking, tending crops and eating at fold up tables.
As we drive, Suvi, a colleague beekeeper of Mr Ramaz, gives a running commentary and makes fun of Mr Ramaz’s driving – whose style is quite casual.
Suvi, a tall guy with a bald head, clearly a bit of a joker.
Suvi has some hives in the area of the forest reserve we are heading for, right on the border with Azerbaijan.
He knows the beekeepers who live in the Forest Reserve.
We pass a grain facility with Iranian lorries loading grain – I notice a lot of Iranian lorries on the roads.
Soon we are the only vehicle on the road.
Then we are bumping along a straight track with trees and shrubs on either side.
We stop for a moment to pick some blackberries. Suvi tells me that the Blackberry honey this year is very good.
After another mile or so we arrive at a gate with trees towering above us. This is the entrance into the Forest Reserve, but it is locked.
Suvi gets out and peers through the gate. He makes a call and five minutes later a 4 x 4 appears. It is the Manager of the Reserve, who lets us in.
I look to my left – immediately inside the gate – and I can see hives stretching along a track and into a clearing in the forest.
Many beekeepers appear and we follow them, although I notice Tamta holds back as we approach some hives.
It turns out she is terrified of bees and insects.
Then there is an unpleasant surprise.
The forest is alive with mosquitos. Within minutes I am covered in bites.
We start talking to the beekeepers, who live in huts in the forest.
Mr Ramaz gestures and I follow him and one of the beekeepers into a hut on stilts.
It is dark but I can make out various types of honey in urns.
I am offered samples, one of them is blackberry honey, which is delicious, you can taste the blackberries.
I wonder how the guys can live in these huts as there is spilled honey everywhere and the air is alive with the mosquitos and also bees.
Every surface you touch is sticky.
There must be ants as well.
Keeping clean seems like an impossibility. Water is in short supply as it has to be brought in from outside.
Meanwhile, the beekeepers fit Tamta and me with the upper part of beekeeper suits but no protective trousers.
We get back into the vehicles and follow the 4 x 4 along a track that goes deeper and deeper into the forest.
Suddenly we arrive at a big clearing with a lake and horses grazing beside it.
This turns out to be mosquito central.
They sense a feast. Tamta and I are the meal.
Now they are in the car and biting through our clothes and getting up our sleeves, they are actually inside the beekeeper suits.
I am literally being eaten alive. But Mr Ramaz and the other beekeepers don’t seem to be getting bitten.
We drive on, going deeper still into the forest.
I wonder whether we will see any Jackals – but it’s probably too early for them.
There are Jungle Cats as well.
Then we stop in a clearing with about 100 hives.
Around us trees reach up hundreds of feet. They are festooned in flowering Ivy.
This forest is a curious place, partly it feels European but there is also something more exotic about it.
I notice the bees are very busy, draining nectar from the Ivy flowers. I can see little pollen balls on the legs of some of the bees.
Ivy is very important to the bees, both the nectar and pollen are nutrient full. It is an important crop for the bees being one of the last of the year. That is why beekeepers should leave them some of the crop for the winter.
Ivy honey sets quickly and it is difficult for UK beekeepers to extract. I am guessing with the warmer climate in Georgia that this is not such a problem.
I have heard of instances in colder climates where the nectar has set on the way back to the hives killing the bees.
After this, we headed to a clearing in the forest where the Reserve Manager lives in a wooden house with his family. His five-year-old daughter sticks her head out of the door to see the visitors, a little shy at first.
I wonder whether this is a lonely life for her in the Forest, but hopefully, she has sisters and brothers.
Then a Priest from the Orthodox Church appears. (On every trip to the hives in Georgia I notice a theme. A priest always seems to be with the beekeepers. Through the ages there has been a close link between beekeeping and the Church and Monasteries – in Georgia is still seems strong. By the way, in Islam honey and beekeeping are also very closely allied, there being many references in the Koran to honey and its healing properties.)
The Reserve Manager brings us tea and samples of the Ivy honey, a Forest honey and a few flower honeys – along with some tea and cakes. Delicious thick honeys.
In this reserve there is no electricity and no powered equipment or tools are allowed. So everything is done by hand, including extracting the honey.
At this point the discomfort from the bites is becoming unbearable, I begin to look like one giant bite!
I am kind of glad when I am told we are heading back to the forest entrance.
The Reserve Manager opens the gates and we head away from the reserve.
But we are not free of the mosquitos.
There follows a frantic swatting session, to rid the car of the remaining mosquito passengers.
Back we go along the bumpy track and away from the forest before the Jackals came out of their day time dens and start the night time hunt!
At this point we are all ravenously hungry.
We pull up at a restaurant by the road, and eat al fresco. I am a little disturbed to see we are sitting by a pond, which has a cloud of mosquitos above it. However, by this point, a few extra bites is not going to make any difference.
Georgians have a tradition of making toasts. There were many toasts during the meal.
These involve a little speech of maybe five to ten minutes and then knocking back a measure of wine or vodka.
After a couple of toasts Tamta nudges me and tells me that I need to make a toast, which of course I am glad to do.
There were maybe ten toasts during a two-hour meal – to family, to colleagues, to the bees, to those who have passed, to UK Georgian co-operation….and more.
Thankfully the wine wasn’t too strong and there was plenty of food or I would have been struggling to walk.
As a vegetarian, it was great to discover many meat-free options. Georgian food is similar to Greek and Turkish, with a wide range of fresh salad and vegetables. Along with all sorts of delicious pastries.
Got back to Tbilisi at 10pm, dog tired. Asleep almost immediately ready for whatever the next day turns up – which happens to be a trip close to the Russian border into a mountain forest area.
NB If you want to learn more about Gardabani Reserve, which has unique fauna and flora, then see this link.
Raw Honey Man 