by Andrew Coté
When two queen bees are thrust together due to whatever circumstances, usually they will fight to the death. On a rare occasion, however, one queen, rather than fight, will hoist her abdomen and point it at the opposing queen. Then, in an act called spraying, she will hose down her opponent in fecal matter. I understood for the first time how that poor queen on the receiving end of that feculent flow must feel.
Even though we’d had only one prior conversation, which had taken place seven years before and had lasted not even fifteen seconds, Liane had been a mild nuisance over the years. A large component of the irritation factor was the name of her group, though there were certainly other factors. She and her partner, Poindexter Pantstootight, he from back at the Fort Greene broken branch fiasco, decided to name their beekeeping group after ours, changing only three letters. She and Poindexter had some sort of relationship that came to a bitter end, and she’d ended up carrying the torch for their once-joint club. After a mercifully brief exchange, Liane descended the sculpture and buffaloed into the crowd to spray her charms elsewhere.
I breathed deeply through my nostrils and filled my chest. “How in the world…” I paused and regrouped my thoughts. “How did Liane come to find herself invited?” I asked my contact at the Slovenian consulate through a clenched smile. Yuliana was holding my arm and gently dug her nails into it.
“Oh, she isn’t with you? She’s not from the same group?” was the genuine response. The misappropriated club name had done me in again! I threw back more wine and smiled. Yuliana offered, “It’s always nice to run into old friends,” and we both laughed.
That short encounter aside, the UN event was a lot of fun. The fact that we now had World Bee Day (May 20), an internationally recognized day to celebrate our beloved honey bee (though the day is for all Apis species—National Honey Bee Day is August 17), was certainly a cause for a grand party. As I gazed at the diverse group of people in attendance, including the eclectic group of beekeepers who had come with me and who were enjoying themselves so much, I felt that perhaps leaving academia and jumping headfirst into a world of four-winged, five-eyed insects may not have been the worst idea I’d ever had. I tried to harbor a glimmer of hope that in the coming years the New York City beekeeping community could unite and enjoy the sweetness of our shared interests more than we’ve been able to over the past decade.
But most of all, I saw that moment as an appropriate launching pad for the growth of Bees Without Borders. What better crowd to facilitate furthering our work with the international beekeeping community than a group of international beekeepers at the United Nations? I had never harbored aspirations to grow BWB, as I was happy with my lifestyle such as it was, but there seemed to be a higher calling or purpose beckoning, perhaps. Or maybe I had drunk too much wine. But requests for workshops and offers for collaboration were piling in.
* * *
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As December draws to a close I remember one of the more simultaneously productive and problematic BWB trips undertaken in the twenty-plus years since the organization’s inception. My father and I were in Samburuland, in Kenya, staying in rudimentary lodgings in a remote area and cooking our own meals. One day I purchased a live scrawny chicken, whose feathers weighed nearly more than its meat, as it turned out. That evening I sliced off its head, and we cooked the poor bird for dinner. We pump-filtered all our water—for drinking, cooking, and brushing our teeth—on the grounds of an orphanage where every one of the children has some sort of heart trouble. The scene was bleak. They lacked adequate food, clothing, and medical supplies, and for play they kicked around a sort of homemade ball made from who knows what wrapped in tape. The nonspherical object didn’t roll; it just klunked over a few times before coming to rest on one of its uneven sides.
“At least it won’t roll into the street,” Norm quipped. “Not that there are too many cars.” (There could be days between cars.)
But of course it was Norm, who grew up hungry and poor, who remembered this pathetic little ball-esque thing in particular. So on our second trip there he brought along deflated balls of all types and a hand pump. I’d rarely seen him look happier than he did sitting in the speckled shade of an acacia tree, choked with children surrounding him, slowly inflating one ball after another and handing them out and tossing them around. We had brought suitcases full of donations for these kids—clothes and shoes, mostly—many of which had been donated by students and faculty from the high school I had dropped out of, Brien McMahon. But nothing was as well received or enjoyed as much as those balls.
During our second trip to Samburuland, we worked with the Samburu and dug deep into the ground to install wooden fence posts and a heavy wire fence to keep the honey badgers at bay. The previous time we had been there, shadowed by a CNN film crew, we distributed beekeeping equipment such as veils and gloves and beehives, and installed them, and they had been doing very well. Before too long, however, the dreaded honey badger had found the hives and tore their metal lids right off and pounced on the larvae within. Fully half of the beehives had been destroyed by the time we returned. To protect the investment of the beehives, we set to work building a huge fence around this and two other apiaries. The first order of business was to dig a trench three feet deep all around the perimeter to bury the wire part of the barrier to keep the honey badgers from burrowing under the fence. It was thirsty work, but many hands made it light.
At night we had nothing to do but talk and watch the stars. There was no Internet or television, of course. There wasn’t even clean water without real effort. On the evening of December 31, Yuliana suggested that we all go outside and look at the blazing stars. We did, and thus the old year passed into a new one just like that, our necks stretched up, the stars so bright, time marching forward with nothing and no one who could stop it or even slow it down.
Though I was in sub-Saharan Africa that night with two of the people who matter the most to me—Yuliana and my father—it was not all joyful. While on this trip we received the sad news that Aldea, my father’s mother, had passed away at nearly a century old. We weren’t prepared to lose her but she was ready to go. A doctor had recently told her that she would easily live to be a hundred. “I’d better not!” she responded fiercely. The story made us laugh, but she was not joking. She’d had enough. She was later cremated and buried in the low-lying spot in the Norwalk cemetery right beside the same train tracks where her sister Aline had died and been buried in 1936. Eighty-plus years after their separation, the sisters were together again.
In several ancient cultures, honey bees are believed to be a conduit between this world and the next. It is an old tradition among beekeepers, since at least medieval times, and particularly from Ireland to Germany, that when a beekeeper shuffles off this mortal coil, the bees must be informed. In fact, all great life events—marriages, births, deaths—were related to the bees. The hives were approached and knocked upon sharply with the knuckles, and the bees informed verbally of the demise of their keeper. Failure to properly put the bees into mourning—which aside from the telling, often included leaving some of the funeral bread in front of the hive, or even draping the hives in a cloth—would supposedly result in a poor harvest, a swarm, or even the entire colony absconding. Though Aldea had no more beehives of her own at the hour of her death, I mentioned it to the nearby bees there in the middle of rural Kenya, just to keep the bees in the loop. They seemed to take the news better than we did.
William Blake once said that the busy bee has no time for sorrow. Standing there under the Southern Cross and a multitude of other stars and constellations, brighter than any stars could be back in Gotham City, I could not remain too sad for long. At some point, my thoughts drifted back to New York and the upcoming beekeeping season. Though it had drawn to an end back there, it would begin again soon enough. Next year’s events would unfold in more or less the same predictable rhythm, with some surprises, and most of
the same characters would return to take part, with some newcomers thrown in to keep things lively.
I had plans to install an apiary and bee-educational center at the request of the Queens County Farm Museum, a continuously running farm since 1697, the longest continuously farmed land in New York State, right there in Queens, New York City. Also, some wonderful Franciscan friars, part of the Society of Saint Francis, living at the Church of Saint Mary the Virgin, and I were planning an apiary on the roof of their monastery right in the heart of Times Square. In both cases, all of the beehives were being donated by the Durst organization. I was also planning on expanding, giving more classes, workshops, and tours of our urban apiaries, as requests for the same had been so heavy. And I wanted to dedicate more time to a fairly new bee-related passion of mine, which was creating obscure honey bee sculptures made from materials and objects found on New York City Streets, like pieces of broken fire hydrants, wheels from discarded elevator mechanisms, cutlery from shuttered restaurants, broken camera lenses, and so on, cobbled or welded together to at least hopefully resemble a honey bee. There was always more to do and like the busy bee herself, this beekeeper had more than enough to do to stay amused and busy until at least the ripe old age of 106.
Beekeeping in New York City is never boring, between the bees, locations, and wonderful people. Of course, there would be more swarms, and more beekeepers crowding the hipsters and Hasidim in Williamsburg. More aspiring actors, models, and bartenders taking up beekeeping, and more diplomats and retired police officers, too. More laughter with valued and beloved customers at the farmers’ markets; more frustration from both two-legged and six-legged creatures; more well-meaning and good-hearted reporters asking the same questions about urban beekeeping while thinking they’ve discovered something new. More of the organized chaos of the vigorous honey bee colony that is New York City itself.
And I would, should I be so fortunate over the coming years or decades, continue to devote my life to the romance and allure of honey bees, their glorious honey and the vibrant, mysterious society of the hive—while raising my own brood as best I can, and worshipping and tending to, in my way, my own queen.
* As of 2019, the site has been cleaned up, the ground leveled, a gazebo installed, a slate pathway added, flowers and tomatoes planted, and a GreenThumb sign affixed to the metal gate, declaring the former junkyard apiary as the Walter Miller III Memorial Garden (La Casa Frela).
Drones don’t have fathers, but I have a wonderful father, Norm, who introduced me to the world of honey bees.
My precious queen bee, Yuliana, carried and delivered my perfect little pollination project, Nobu, our impeccable brood.
I dedicate this book to my troika of sweetness and light.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am humbled by and appreciate your interest in my story. I had a great deal of direct and indirect help from many people in bringing this book to fruition. The errors are all mine, but any credit also belongs to a wide swath of others. I offer one big blanket apology to those whom I forget to recognize here.
In no particular order: Thanks to my agent, Steve Troha from Folio, who wrote me, then a stranger, asking, “Have you considered a book?” Nine years later, here we are. Back then I was busy building my petty honey fiefdom, shirking my professorial duties, traipsing around the world spreading bee love and getting stung. I could not have imagined dedicating the considerable time it took to get all this down on paper. But Steve doggedly helped make sure that it eventually happened; in fits and spurts we managed, and now the aftermath is in your hands.
My thanks to Pamela Cannon, my editor at Penguin Random House. During the week that Steve took me around to visit the ten publishing houses interested in the proposal, Pamela was our first stop. Though I met a lot of talented people, none held a candle to Pamela. Some proof of that is between these covers. In fact, the entire team at Penguin Random House has been wonderful. To think that my words have been published by the same imprint that brought us J.R.R. Tolkien and Shel Silverstein makes me swell with pride. So thanks to the great team there that includes Amelia Zalcman, Lexi Batsides, Susan Turner, Nancy Delia, Emily Isayeff, and Kathleen Quinlan, among many others. Let me point out that this collaboration has been a lot like the community in the beehive, with me as an outnumbered drone surrounded by strong capable workers.
I must also thank Nan Gatewood Satter for her editorial guidance. She was patient, constructive, good humored, and deft in dealing with my lack of computer literacy. Pamela and Nan have similar editing sensibilities that surely saved me from myself and made this book better than it would have been otherwise. For those who know me personally, if in having read this book my edges seemed less rough; if my words seemed strangely, somehow, softer—do not rejoice or despair. I am, alas, perhaps, as inappropriate as I ever was. I just have talented editors now who tried to disguise that.
Then there are my parents, who have always loved me enough to allow me to make my own mistakes, as frequent as they were, and as painful as they must have been for them to endure. I have been trying to make it all up to them for a long time, and one day I may actually even the score. Also a special thanks to my brother, Michael, who, aside from being particularly helpful in the apiaries during the spring buildup and during harvest times, risks his life daily to protect others, and still has time to be a good father, brother, son, husband, and beekeeper (not necessarily in that order), and has always been there for me. And thanks to his children, Patrick and Megan, who help in a multitude of ways with bee-related matters, and who share their dad with me. I am proud of you all and love you all.
Thanks to my dear friends at Mushin-juku in Kyoto. There are too many to acknowledge all personally so let me thank the matriarch, Ikeda-Sensei, on behalf of everyone for all of the patience, kindness, and affection you have shown me and my family over the last three decades. And a big thank-you to the original Nobuaki for treating me like a son—with a healthy mix of discipline and affection. We all miss you.
Thanks to the Back Yard Beekeepers Association in Weston, Connecticut, where I’ve had the chance to meet and learn from some of the leaders and great thinkers in the beekeeping industry. I started attending BYBA with my father in the 1980s as a teenager and still go to meetings whenever I can manage. Being asked to speak there in 2006 about my beekeeping experiences in the Middle East was a proud moment for me. The BYBA was the inspiration for the New York City Beekeepers Association, and though we modeled it after them, we will never reach their level of greatness.
My appreciation to the authors who have written about me and my beekeeping undertakings in their own books—including Robin Shulman (Eat the City), Alison Gillespie (Hives in the City), Leslie Day (Honeybee Hotel)—and to Howland Blackiston, who entrusted me to write the urban beekeeping sections for his bestselling book, Beekeeping for Dummies (3rd edition forward). Also thanks to the countless journalists who took an interest in me and my work and wrote or filmed about it for audiences all over the world, especially the incomparable Craig Duff.
Thanks to GrowNYC, and specifically the Greenmarket team. As a result of their dedication and hard work, Andrew’s Honey has an opportunity to interact with the world at the Union Square Greenmarket. We are grateful to be a part of the impressive collective of farmers and hope to be there for many more years to come. Specifically, many thanks to Michael Hurwitz, Liz Carollo, Laurel Halter, TK Zellers, Jessica Douglas, Margaret Hoffman, Tutu Badaru, Rishma Lucknauth, Aquilino Cabral, June Russell, Lobsang Samten, Cathy Chambers, and Jessica Balnaves for all of the support and kindness, patience and understanding, shown to us over the years. We strive for all sweetness and no stings. I think we have made it!
Specific to our farmers’ market stand at Union Square, boundless thanks to my worker bees, present and past: Allison Chan, Hannah Sng Baek, Jen Fraenkel, Sarah Seiler, Heather Rubi, Rose Anderson, Angela Riddlespurger, Susana Yepes, Yangjong Lama, Ing
rid Pasten, Mayya Medved Hyatt, and Alyssa Yee, and to drones Benjamin Gardner, Zeke Weber, and Noah Stern, for keeping our customers and friends informed and sweet with our products. Especially Allison, who does most of the work, hand-labeling and painting every single bottle of the New York City rooftop honey, crouched in the back of the converted U-Haul turned honeymobile.
I owe a debt of gratitude to those who have allowed me, past and present, to maintain colonies of honey bees on their properties in New York City: At the Durst Organization, Vanessa Jaworski, Estelle Silberman, and mostly Helena Durst—for their interest, care, and dedication to the precious honey bee; at Brooks Brothers, to Debra and Claudio Del Vecchio, and Emilie Antonetti for their altruistic approach toward beekeeping and all else; to Dr. Robert Koenig, who not only hosts three colonies of honey bees atop the New York Institute of Technology but also allows the NYCBA to hold classes and events in their wonderful space; to Ambassador Peter Thomson and his incomparable wife, Marijcke, without whom the United Nations in New York would not have their stunning North Lawn apiary; to Ann Temkin, Lynda Zycherman, and Glenn Lowry at the unrivaled Museum of Modern Art; to my friend Gus Reckel, who evolved from a banker to become a baker, and now owns L’imprimerie, in Bushwick, Brooklyn, producing extraordinary baked goods sweetened in part by the honey from the three hives I maintain on his roof (the beehives can be seen from the M train, so peek out the window next time you pass the Myrtle–Wyckoff station); to Chef Peter Betz, with whom I have jointly worked the beehives atop the iconic Waldorf Astoria and now at the InterContinental New York Barclay in Midtown; to the folks at Buddhist Insights, who allow me to maintain beehives on the grounds of their monastery for the most enlightened honey I have ever tasted (not that I am too attached to it); to the Clinton Community Garden and Andy Padian, Foram Sheth, and Annie Chadwick, for hosting beehives for the past four decades; to Maggie Christ and Jason Walters at Ballet Tech; to Owen Harrang at Bryant Park; to Jennifer Walden Weprin at the Queens County Farm Museum; to Sibylle Brenner and Schuyler Semlear at Grace Church School; to Ronnie Stewart at York Prep; to Kellie Cahill at the New York Hilton Midtown; Zeke Freeman and the folks at Bee-Raw Honey; and my good friends Kelly Jacques and Gadi Peleg and the whole crew at Breads Bakery; and to all the many community gardens, private rooftops, restaurants, hotels, schools, and other locations too numerous to mention—thanks for your support, for helping the bees to reside in a safe haven, and for your role in enabling these stories to exist.