Honey and Venom

by Andrew Coté

  In its heyday, the restaurant was always busy, and Newman was a regular fixture at the market and the restaurant. I saw him often and we spoke a few times. On one particular day, I was thrilled—initially—when Newman sat next to me at the small bar of his restaurant, where I was drinking boilermakers and waiting for a friend. He turned to me and smiled. My heart raced, my face probably flushed. In my head, I imagined permutations of the witty conversation to come, where I would talk about bees and he would be riveted, and he would share secrets from his days on the sets of some of the most iconic movies ever made. We would discuss his food business and my honey business, perhaps partnering together in the most charming honey enterprise ever fathomed by mankind. Now was my moment.

  Then Newman asked me a question about the football game that was playing on the bar’s television. I froze. Not only was I woefully ignorant about football, I was about to disappoint Butch Cassidy. I probably knew as much about football as Newman knew about selective queen breeding. I cursed myself for being unable to respond. Newman turned back to the screen, smiled, and charmingly ignored my obvious distress. I cleared my throat to speak, searching for something I could say about the game that was obvious and not likely to be wrong. Before I could open my mouth to place my foot in it, divine intervention, or the fast pace of the game, saved me. Something happened—a basket or a home run, I am not sure—but it caused Newman to pump his fist once in the air and exclaim some sort of celebratory line. I exalted in kind, saved from humiliation, and downed the contents of my glass.

  Some years later, after Paul Newman’s beautiful blue eyes had closed forever, I sat in the restaurant’s mostly empty parking lot finishing a phone call before I delivered a bucket of honey to the kitchen. Honey is heavy, so I backed up toward the kitchen door, grabbed the sixty-pound pail from the rear of my truck, and placed it on the ground so I could park without blocking the service entrance. Between the rear axle and my front door, a man in a nicely fitted dark blue suit appeared seemingly out of nowhere, followed by two other fit, nicely attired men. They expertly triangulated me against the side of my vehicle. “What’s in the bucket, sir?” one asked with restrained politeness. It was clear to me that these were not private security guys for some Hollywood big shot enjoying farm-to-table cuisine. These guys were Secret Service.

  “Honey,” I answered with rare sarcasm-free candor (and hoped he wouldn’t think that’s how I was addressing him). I stood with my palms facing the men, chest level, fingers spread. One of the agents picked up the bucket and carried it away from the restaurant as if it contained nothing more than feathers. Impressive. Intimidating. My initial reaction was to survey my brain for the transgressions that could lead to such a visit, but I quickly realized the situation.

  “So,” I started, “only two Town Cars here. You are…” I trailed off and started again. “So it must be…Bill Clinton inside there?” I continued, smiling. Clinton was no longer president, but he lived relatively close by. The looks on their faces should have confirmed that I was right, but these guys don’t let their faces show anything. And let’s be clear, guessing correctly didn’t win me a prize. Rather, the remaining two agents took a step closer. PSA: Secret Service agents do not respond well to humor or attempts at charm.

  Luckily, Chef Nischan came out smiling, walking briskly toward us. “He’s okay! He’s okay! That’s our beekeeper, Andrew!” The agents glared for a moment, then, appearing almost disappointed, backed off. One laughed—sort of. It was more a hint of the idea of a smile, and for just a brief second. Chef shook my hand and told me that, yes, the restaurant was closed, and he was having a lunch with Paul Newman’s widow, Joanne Woodward, and President Bill Clinton. “He’s just finishing up some cornbread with your buckwheat honey drizzled over it right now!” Chef told me. How befitting that the Arkansas native was enjoying cornbread, and what an honor to have it drizzled with our honey.

  One of the agents interrupted my moment of joy, his own mirth clearly over. “Do you need anything else, sir?” It was his way of saying “Get out of here.”

  Ignoring the question, Chef asked me, “Would you like to meet him?”

  “Sure. Yeah. That’d be great.”

  “Wait here.”

  So I parked my truck, walked back, and waited. The well-dressed armed guards also waited. In about ten minutes, while he was escorted out to his waiting vehicle, the former leader of the free world came out and spent just over a minute talking to honey monger me. He is much taller than I expected. He’s a controversial figure, no doubt, but there’s no denying that this man emanates a palpable charisma, one I had never experienced in my life until that moment. I had heard—but until then I didn’t believe—that Clinton makes the person to whom he’s speaking feel as if he genuinely cares about him or her. “I loved that honey,” he told me, and I honestly think he meant it.

  * * *

  —

  Back when I was a full-time professor and a part-time beekeeper, I was able to handle doing one or two farmers’ markets per week without neglecting any of my other responsibilities. It did keep me busy, though I had loads of help, of course. My father helped with the bees, as did my brother Mike and my nephew, Patrick, and all helped with the markets from time to time. My mother would sometimes bottle the honey, and my nephew often did markets on his own or with my mother. Once upon a time our family sold my father’s honey under the label “Norm’s Other Honey”—the first honey being, of course, his wife; my parents have been friends since 1955, a couple since 1960, and married since 1966. I liked to draw cartoons when I was young, so I designed a label for him that was a caricature of his head on the body of a honey bee. The problem was, at the tender age I inked the drawing, I erred and drew the body of a worker bee, so my father’s head on the body of a female bee adorned his label for decades. He didn’t want to make me feel bad about it, so he never told me; only in my late teenage years did I notice, and it was a source of small amusement to us and to fellow beekeepers.

  That label remained until one day we were approached to sell our honey in a small locally owned group of supermarkets, and we needed a label with a UPC code. The store, a family-owned chain of three called Caraluzzi’s, thought the label with the human head on the body of a bee a bit “strange,” according to Steve Caraluzzi. So my father suggested that since I was now seemingly the heir apparent to our little honey empire—my brother was busy working full-time as a police officer and raising two children, and could only do so much in regard to the bees—that we might as well go with a new label. Thus Andrew’s Honey reared its head (admittedly we get no points for creative names). My mother dug up a cartoon of a beekeeper holding a frame of bees I had drawn as a ten-year-old boy, and voilà, my own ridiculous label was born. Originally we printed the labels on regular paper and glued them by hand to the bottles. Later we graduated to sticky paper. Only recently have we put on big-boy pants, and now our labels are printed by an actual printing company.

  We have always been content with our rather small footprint in the world of bees, which is fortunate, as our finite production means we can never become a big commercial endeavor. We have a constant flow of requests from markets and retailers who ask to carry our products, but we simply do not have the number of beehives necessary to produce the quantity that would be needed, and we cannot manage as many as would be required. Our beehives have never numbered beyond the hundreds, and though we produce tons of honey, we still fall far short of overall demand.

  Interestingly, this resembles the gap between the global demand for honey and the actual amount of honey produced worldwide. For this very reason there is a brisk world market of fake honey. In fact, fraudulent honey is a billion-dollar industry; the volume of fake honey sold globally is exceeded only by the volume of fake fish and fake olive oil, also billion-dollar industries. Produced primarily in Chinese factories, the bastardized honey is usually one part honey and several parts cane suga
r, rice syrup, or corn syrup. It is labeled as pure honey and then sold all over the world as the real thing, though it is a far cry from it.

  If, for instance, we made and sold pies, we could probably buy the appropriate ingredients and move into a large commercial kitchen and amp up production and theoretically sell millions of pies, with purchased ingredients. But when it comes to our finite supply of authentic honey, we are limited to what we can harangue the bees to produce. Being that we live in the Northeast, the season is shorter than if we lived in Florida or California, and accordingly our yields are lower. Of course, there are large commercial beekeepers and honey producers even in upstate New York and Canada, so yes, it is possible to make a bigger go of it.

  But we like our lifestyles, and where we live, and we have always been pragmatic and simple, perhaps even unambitious in the eyes of some. We never chased much after riches or made monetary rewards a priority. If we wanted to do so, we made a real mistake being involved in any sort of agricultural pursuit. Instead, we are content with and grateful for our share of the liquid gold our four-winged angels provide, and the satisfaction that comes with the labor invested on our end. Still, every now and then, when I am standing at a market in early February on ground that is as cold as ice and there is a gentle hint of dampness in the air accompanied by a strong steady winter gust on my face, I wonder, if it would have been so bad, if instead of being beekeepers, my forebears had started a bank or a law firm.

  One day in 2006 my father and I went to visit one of Manhattan’s farmers’ markets. There was a fellow there named David Graves, who I had heard had beehives atop a building in Manhattan—this was during the Bitter Years. At the market we admired his display of jams and honey and maple syrup, and the photo on his display table of him invading his rooftop beehives while dressed in a bear outfit. Needless to say, we liked him right away. With a thick head of white hair and a very dry sense of humor, he talked to us about his rooftop adventures with the bees. Worth noting was that David drove all the way from Massachusetts to attend these NYC markets—five times a week, no less. On the train home that day my father said to me, “If that guy is driving four or five hours each way, he must be going home with that van full of cash.” That’s when we sent in an application for the biggest of the New York City farmers’ markets, the Greenmarket. Maybe chasing after a little bit of riches wasn’t a lousy idea after all.

  Under the umbrella of GrowNYC, the Greenmarket, which is the name for the organization that runs nearly fifty farmers’ markets throughout the five boroughs, was founded in 1976 in order to both promote regional agriculture (thereby supporting local farmers) and give New Yorkers access to the freshest possible local produce. The crown jewel of the New York City Greenmarket is the one at Union Square between Fourteenth and Seventeenth streets, held four days a week. Upwards of sixty thousand people attend on some days in order to grab locally grown produce and more.

  “As Greenmarket’s flagship market,” the official description reads, “the seasonal bounty is unparalleled, with hundreds of varieties to choose from during any given season. From just-picked fresh fruits and vegetables, to heritage meats and award-winning farmstead cheeses, artisan breads, jams, pickles, a profusion of cut flowers and plants, wine, ciders, maple syrup and much more.” We were part of the “and much more.”

  After a tremendous amount of paperwork filled out mostly by my mother, who is the bookkeeper to the beekeepers, we were approved and accepted into the system. We began by selling our honey and hive products in New York City at the now-defunct Grand and Essex streets market. It was a small and never terribly successful Sunday market (hence its ultimate demise), but we were thrilled to be there.

  On the first day I set up, I arrived very early, around dawn, and found the neighborhood quiet. I had reached the market just ahead of the sun via the Williamsburg Bridge from Brooklyn. Some of the streets, like Norfolk and Suffolk, were cobblestone south of Delancey. There was graffiti in many places, trash everywhere, and several drunken people staggering home, or staggering somewhere. Soon the morning light on the Lower East Side began to bestow more color upon the area, and the pickle shop, bakery, and bagel shops across the street began to stir with people. The area was a blend of Orthodox Jews and Chinese immigrants, with a large helping of Dominicans. The Orthodox Jews would not even taste the honey until I got a letter from one of the local rabbis affirming it as kosher.

  The corner of Grand and Essex was an introduction to the street markets of New York City. For years after that I worked the market at Tompkins Square Park. I also set up shop in Forest Hills, Queens, and sometimes uptown on Ninety-seventh Street on the Upper West Side. One year I hawked at the market in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, and also from time to time in Fort Greene. I still participate in the summer market held in Rockefeller Center, where my booth is a few feet away from the spot where the famous Christmas tree is set up in November.

  All of these markets have, or had, their own blends of ethnicities and appeal, but none of them had as strong a lure as the Union Square market. And not just for the sales, though those are obviously better. But because the number of people, the celebrity spotting, and the sheer energy of the place make selling at Union Square a fun way to earn part of a living.

  After ten years of applying and waiting and hoping, one year I was finally accepted into the Union Square Greenmarket on Saturdays. This is perhaps the largest producer-only farmers’ market in the country. I was not on a waiting list; no list exists. Hopefuls apply each year and cross their fingers, and as needs arise and vacancies open up, they are filled by lucky producers. We were fortunate enough to get a spot when another beekeeper, Walter Bauer, retired, and we were selected from among many other eager and suitable candidates. We had already been selling our honey there on Wednesdays for some years, but to be there on Saturdays was life changing.

  Now we have been able not only to showcase our products to a large audience and interact directly with a cross section of clientele that we would never have known otherwise, but also to steadily grow our business by reinvesting in it. Mostly, I have grown the New York City arm of our trade by installing beehives all over the five boroughs. Within a few years of our acceptance into the Union Square Greenmarket, I had bees atop the Waldorf Astoria, several other hotels and restaurants, in historic cemeteries, on churches and synagogues, in community gardens, atop schools, and on private residences. I even installed three beehives at the United Nations on international territory. The bees have been generally well received by the public, and I enjoy working with them in the urban setting and harvesting their honey to sell at the market.

  * * *

  —

  Being in the big city, working bees and selling honey, has been good to me. But every June, I receive regular alerts about swarms of bees making trouble, and I drop everything to tend to them.

  My pal Tim O’Neal, also a beekeeper, once said, “Trying to get bees not to swarm is like trying to get teenagers not to have sex.” It’s an entertaining observation, and in Tim’s case, no doubt purely speculative, and I disagree. Hives of honey bees can certainly be inspected regularly and managed in such a way as to prevent swarming in the majority of cases. This, of course, does not always happen, and I will sheepishly admit that my bees do on occasion swarm. However, it is highly unusual for my city bees to swarm, because I check them obsessively to prevent the kinds of problems that are inherent with an urban swarm. It took a great deal of effort on behalf of a great many people to bring beekeeping back into the legal realm, and I want to be a force in word and deed to keep beekeeping safe, responsible, educational, and fun. City swarms, while often providing entertaining stories, are not exactly positive press. A swarm will also cut back on the productivity of the hive, and I want urban hives to make honey.

  Swarms increase as the weather gets warmer, and I often assist the New York Police Department in corralling the quivering football-sized lumps. Thi
s is how I met Tony Bees. Born in East New York, Brooklyn, the son of immigrants from Crete, Tony settled in Rego Park, Queens, where he lives and keeps beehives in his small backyard. Many years ago, the NYPD called me up to help them collect a swarm of bees from a tree in front of a clothing store in Brooklyn—the lieutenant on the scene happened to be from Westport, Connecticut, and he knew of me from the farmers’ market there, and somehow the department had gotten hold of me. I was in Connecticut at the time, but I drove all the way down to the Bed-Stuy area of Brooklyn to help out. That’s when I met Tony, who, as a bee enthusiast himself, had come out with his departmental colleagues that day, though he had no equipment with him at the time. Tony watched as my father, my friend Mio Shindo, and I captured the swarm with ease. We became fast friends, and for years captured swarms together and exchanged beekeeping advice. Tony even sometimes bought buckets of honey from me and sold it under his label.

  Mio, visiting from Japan, was not a beekeeper except when she stayed with me. I met her in Turkey in 2000 when she was a high school student who had gone on her own to Turkey to do earthquake relief work. We stayed in touch and she occasionally spent summers with me working at the farm. Later she graduated into swarm captures and feral hive rescues, and has since worked bees with me on BWB missions to Haiti and Tanzania. Now she works for the United Nations in places like Sarajevo and Lagos in a non-bee-related capacity, working with refugee populations—which, in a sense, swarms are as well.

  My friend Jon Huang is a graphics editor for The New York Times and a beekeeper. He and his wife, Megan, generously offered their apiary in Manhattan as a place where some of the NYCBA apprentices could get their hands dirty (sticky?) with a different set of bees. When it came time for them to move their growing family across the Hudson to Jersey City, some volunteers from the NYCBA helped them screen in and carry their two strapping beehives down from the fourth floor walk-up where they lived. The NYCBA tries to cultivate the sort of congeniality found in the hive among its members and participants. Sometimes we get it right.