At a friend’s house, I bemoaned that my honey supplier was out of town. “I’ve got something,” she said and took out a five-gallon bucket and a small mason jar, looking at me like our friendship was about to change. “This is my private stash, don’t go wasting it.” I assured her — I never waste honey.
She turned the spigot and dark, dirty gold oozed out, flecked with impurities — fine particles of beeswax and pollen grains that give raw, unfiltered honey its rich flavor. She capped the jar and tucked the bucket away; I pocketed my 8 ounces and whistled down the street like nothing happened. I didn’t even tell my boyfriend about it.
Local honey is produced in Reno, Carson City, Grass Valley, and Nevada City. My friends and honey sources, Patty Spiller and Tracy Brostek, each keep four hives on their friend’s McClaughry Farms in Grass Valley, trading liquid gold for rent. Spiller and Brostek got their start in 2011 by attending meetings in Grass Valley and taking a beginning course with Randy Oliver, an entomologist and expert beekeeper in Grass Valley (scientificbeekeeping.com).
“We purchased a nuke — a hive in beginning stages with five frames of cones, a queen, and 10,000 workers,” said Brostek. “One benefit of buying young bees is they get used to your handling them. You have a less aggressive hive.”
At warmer temperatures, bees produce two to three times more honey than they need, so they don’t miss what the beekeeper takes. This makes the foothills prime beekeeping territory. Brostek would keep bees in Tahoe, but production slows when temperatures drop into the 50s — the all-female worker staff shifts focus to keeping their queen warm and safe by surrounding her and fluttering wings, surviving on calorie-rich honey reserves.
The China-Smuggle Bee Struggle
Anything so precious and difficult to produce comes with scandals. The cheap route of industrial honey yields a lackluster product — batches from thousands of hives are mixed in hot, high-pressing machines that thrash the honey and kill good enzymes. In 2001, when the U.S. imposed high tariffs on Chinese honey imports to give American beekeepers an economic chance, disease coincidentally killed thousands of Chinese hives. Tests found animal antibiotics and heavy metal particles in honey from China and India, so the U.S. barred certain imports.
Inconspicuous green barrels started being smuggled into countries like Argentina, Vietnam, and Australia, relabeled, watered down (to delay natural crystallization), and sold into U.S. markets. In 2011, reports revealed smugglers weren’t even smuggling honey. Chemical creations that pass for honey are being repackaged from new “countries of origin.” If your honey is labeled as anything other than local, you don’t know what you’re eating.
The Nectar of the Gods
Spiller’s unfiltered, non-pasteurized honey can be found at every farmers market in the area donning the name McClaughry Farms. For $24 I get the 3-pound jar, usually blackberry for its dark amber flavor. Health benefits from raw, local honey have long been praised by ancient civilizations. The Egyptians believed that when tears from the god Re fell they became bees that pollinated the earth, deeming honey the nectar of the gods. It has been used as a medicinal staple to alleviate stomachaches, bad breath, and troubled sleep. It heals burns and wounds, and is antifungal, antibacterial, and antiviral. Honey salves mixed with cinnamon relieve arthritis, toothaches, pimples, and hair loss; drinking the same mixture in warm water helps bladder infections, cholesterol, blood pressure, and flatulence.
Thirty percent of human food sources are traced back to pollination by bees. Since the introduction of pesticides, bee populations have plummeted, and we must do our part by refusing pesticides, planting gardens, grouping bee favorites like tulips, black-eyed Susans, sage, mint, and berries, and allowing weeds like dandelions, clover, milkweed, and goldenrod to grow. And supporting local beekeepers.
“Keeping bees is important for the sake of the bees,” Brostek said. “There’s so much up against them like monoculture and pesticidal farming, which is really hard to battle because it’s a money-maker. If there were more bee hobbyists, it would give bees a chance. I only have four bee colonies, it’s really small, but it’s something.”
