Gaillac. From passion for beekeeping to passion for the profession

At twenty years old, he was a beekeeper. At thirty – in 2014 – he made it a profession and created his honey house in Lagrave under the Rikomiel brand. His passion comes from much further back, when, around five years old, he harvested honey with his uncle. In his family, the grandfather already had hives. It is also one of his that he restored and installed on an old vineyard, near Réquista, in this Tarn valley which remains one of his favorite places to position an apiary.

Éric Viguier has touched a bit of everything, from HEC preparation to the world of insurance and banking. He even managed a Crédit Agricole agency while simultaneously pursuing his passion for work with bees.

The beekeeper has two hundred hives which he transhumes as needed. All organic. “That is to say near organic crops, or forests but also organic in the hive whether it is feeding the bees, or the absence of treatment”.

For spring honeys, he transports them to Aveyron, to the Tarn valley for acacia honey, to the limits of Tarn-et-Garonne for chestnut and to Lacaune for heather, buckwheat and honey. wild flowers. Near Labastide-de-Lévis, Teyssode, Lautrec and Massac-Séran, he went in search of aromatic and medicinal plants. Éric Viguier likes to process honey. Its spreads – for breakfast or to accompany pancakes – have their small success: honey-hazelnut, honey-hazelnut-cocoa, honey caramel (no added sugar) and salted butter, dried fruits bathed in honey of acacia. These delicacies quickly give you an almost addictive taste.

Did you say “apitherapy”?

Another flagship product from Rykomiel: gingerbread, plain, fig, orange or on request. “They are made without eggs or fat. With rye and bearded wheat flour which comes from the La Micalié farm, in Lautrec”. The “craquelets” of round biscuits – crunchy on the outside, melting on the inside – a marriage of chestnut honey and dark chocolate, can be enjoyed with coffee or at any time. Éric Viguier works hard, organic beekeeping is time-consuming.

“For example, in summer when you have to identify the queens and cage them to protect them from varroa.” But he doesn't complain about his time. Ten years after his installation, he would resign. He has even just bought a farmhouse in Baratou, on the heights of Técou, which he wants to restore with biosourced materials. “I would like to develop apitherapy there.”