The Honey Between Us

I started keeping bees to save them.

After reading about colony collapse disorder for the third time in a week, I decided that if I was going to be worried, I might as well do something. I ordered a starter nucleus colony, bought a veil and a smoker, and put two hives in the back corner of my quarter-acre lot.

That was four years ago. I now manage six hives and harvest about 80 pounds of honey a year.

What Bees Do to a Neighborhood

Here is something no one told me: bees make the whole block more beautiful.

Within a season my neighbor Linda's rose garden was producing more blooms than she'd ever seen. The old apple tree two doors down — which hadn't fruited properly in years — came back with a full crop. My own raised beds went from "pretty good" to spectacular. Zucchini so fast I had to harvest twice a day. Cucumbers setting fruit before I'd even tied the vines.

Bees don't just make honey. They make everything around them better.

The Honey Itself

Raw, unfiltered local honey is nothing like the bear-shaped bottle at the supermarket. It crystallizes because it's real. It tastes like the specific flowers your specific bees visited that specific season. My spring batch carries the ghost of clover and tulip poplar. The late-summer honey has a darker, richer note from goldenrod and late-blooming wildflowers along the greenway.

Every jar is a fingerprint of this neighborhood.

Finding Neighbors Through Fresh Neighbors

I listed my first batch through Fresh Neighbors on a Tuesday afternoon — six 8-oz jars at $12 each. By Thursday morning I had seven messages asking if I had more.

What followed surprised me. People didn't just want the honey. They wanted to know about the bees. Could they see the hives? Could their kids watch? Could they learn to keep bees themselves?

I've since started hosting small backyard tours for the neighbors I met through the app. Nothing fancy — just my yard, my hives, a veil to borrow, and an hour to talk about one of the most remarkable creatures on Earth.

The honey is just the beginning.

Claudette harvests twice a year and lists limited quantities each season. Find her at @UrbanApiaryNash.