Sweetness And Light Part 7

Dr. Molan came to the door of his house with his fat beagle, Jess, who clearly looks up, successfully, to her soft-hearted master at bun time. After growing up in Wales, Dr. Molan wanted to find work in a sunny, politically stable, uncrowded corner of the globe and ended up in Waikato in the middle of New Zealand's North Island. He has done most of his research here on a shoestring, partly thanks to help from the university's international residents, who have translated papers and helped out for free. Honey does inspire goodwill. Is it due to sweet childhood memories of honey sandwiches?

Dr. Molan was investigating the health properties of wine-yeast and milk when a friend who was a keen amateur beekeeper persuaded him to take a look at honey. A 1976 editorial in Archives of Internal Medicine in Archives of Internal Medicine had dismissed it to the category of "worthless but harmless substances." Was there more to honey than that? His first task was to search the existing literature, to see what investigations were already rolling, rather than trying to reinvent the wheel. had dismissed it to the category of "worthless but harmless substances." Was there more to honey than that? His first task was to search the existing literature, to see what investigations were already rolling, rather than trying to reinvent the wheel.

Long-standing honey folk cures turned out to have a certain amount of scientific backing. Sometimes buried in obscure journals, Dr. Molan found references in more than one hundred published papers that suggested that honey was actively beneficial.

First and foremost, honey is antimicrobial. Rich in sugar, it destroys bacteria partly by osmotic force, and also partly through its acidity; but this is not all. The explanation for honey's further antibacterial properties was discovered in the 1960s. It contains an enzyme, glucose oxidase, which catalyzes a reaction that produces hydrogen peroxide, which kills bacteria. This enzyme is destroyed by heat; honey used for health reasons is best processed traditionally, without the heat used in modern, industrialized methods.

Furthermore, Dr. Molan found out that, around the world, certain honeys were favored for therapeutic use. To give two examples, in India lotus honey is used for eye conditions, and in Sardinia that of the strawberry tree is also regarded as particularly healthful. It seems that phytochemicals in such plants come through into the nectar. Because manuka was considered to be a good New Zealand honey for cuts and abrasions, Dr. Molan decided to test its properties. "I'm a great believer that if something is traditional, then it works," he says. "There may be no rational explanation, but that's because we haven't found it."

IN THE UNIVERSITY'S laboratories, Dr. Molan and his a.s.sistants tested manuka's efficacy on petri dishes of agar, a nutrient jelly for growing microbes. When bacteria multiply in it, the substance turns murky white. When a hole is punched in the center, and a honey solution is put into it, the surrounding agar becomes clear, indicating the bacteria have died. Using tests like this, he discovered manuka to be particularly effective on a wide range of bacteria. To give an indication of a honey's antibacterial strength, the scientist had the idea of a UMF grading-a "unique manuka factor": the higher the number, the greater the protection, like the grading of sunscreen. The jelly-bush honeys from Australia are also being investigated; these plants are from the same laboratories, Dr. Molan and his a.s.sistants tested manuka's efficacy on petri dishes of agar, a nutrient jelly for growing microbes. When bacteria multiply in it, the substance turns murky white. When a hole is punched in the center, and a honey solution is put into it, the surrounding agar becomes clear, indicating the bacteria have died. Using tests like this, he discovered manuka to be particularly effective on a wide range of bacteria. To give an indication of a honey's antibacterial strength, the scientist had the idea of a UMF grading-a "unique manuka factor": the higher the number, the greater the protection, like the grading of sunscreen. The jelly-bush honeys from Australia are also being investigated; these plants are from the same Leptospermum Leptospermum species as manuka. species as manuka.

The long-standing practice of packing honey into wound dressings that had fallen from favor is undergoing a revival. Dr. Molan successfully tested a DIY version on his wife's boil using a makeup removal pad daubed with honey; now there are clinical products using a honey gel.

Honey protects wounds and sores from infection while soothing the area with its anti-inflammatory properties. It does not stick to the flesh, so a dressing can be easily removed. Another advantage is its sweet smell-a bonus when dealing with stinking skin conditions. Honey-dressed wounds have been shown to heal more quickly and with less scarring than those treated by other methods. In some cases, ulcers and sores that have suppurated and festered for months have cleared up in a matter of weeks. In both laboratory tests and clinical cases, honey has even been shown to be effective against MRSA, the antibiotic-resistant "superbug" that is of such concern today.

With scientific proof now supporting them, honey dressings are more widely available and are undergoing further trials in hospitals of several countries, including Great Britain, the United States, and South Africa. When Dr. Molan presented all the evidence for honey to seven hundred specialist wound-care nurses at a conference in Australia, he won a standing ovation from professionals who understood the potential importance of this ancient cure.

BEFORE MY DEPARTURE, I asked Peter Molan to introduce me to other New Zealand honeys. His cupboard was full of treats, some more b.u.t.terscotchy than others I had tried; it was a new chapter in my honey education. Many of them come from plants that evolved to be pollinated by birds, before the honeybee was introduced by Europeans in the nineteenth century; to feed the birds, the nectar can gush out, and beekeepers with hives in the right place can get a bounty. Golden tawari honey was especially sweet, rata was fragrant with a hint of spearmint, and pohutukawa is a special, white honey from a tree that grows on the coastline. Was it my imagination, or could I detect a little salt in it? All these came from native plants; my sweet tooth had led me into the islands' ecology.

TAKING "A CHEW OF COMB" is a well-known folk remedy for hay fever; the pollens in local honey are supposed to immunize you against those in the surrounding air. Many people mentioned this cure to me; one person even said you had to find a pot from your birthplace (perhaps this is an example of alternative-health one-upmans.h.i.+p). The renewal of interest in local honey has happened for other reasons, too. is a well-known folk remedy for hay fever; the pollens in local honey are supposed to immunize you against those in the surrounding air. Many people mentioned this cure to me; one person even said you had to find a pot from your birthplace (perhaps this is an example of alternative-health one-upmans.h.i.+p). The renewal of interest in local honey has happened for other reasons, too.

Shop shelves are stacked with honeys from all over the world-fair-trade Zambian rain forest, New Zealand clover, Spanish orange blossom, Italian chestnut. All this offers a form of global shopping that makes life more interesting; honey transports well and has an enormous range of flavors to offer. But globalization can also mean fewer, blander brands, which gain dominance because they have economies of scale; they cost less, but they are less distinctive. To counterbalance global anonymity, we also turn to local food and shops.

Specialist shops can distribute for small-scale enterprises, including those in their area; they help the intricate, alternative web of producers to survive. Such operations have received a helping hand from the thriving health and beauty markets. James Hamill, who runs a honey shop in Clapham, south London, is an actor-turned-beekeeper and sculptor. His combination of trades helps him showcase the bee, and he built an observation hive in one wall so that his customers can watch the insects come and go. The apitherapy products have proved popular-from bodybuilders and sporty types seeking the pollen to others wanting the royal jelly, which James laboriously collects by hand himself.

Like all good beekeepers, James is a purist about how his honey is produced, refusing to blast it with heat, and so keeping its unique properties. He sells monofloral and polyfloral honeys from an eclectic array of sources. When supplies come through, there are honeys from the West Indies, including the fruity variety from bees in mango groves. His own hives are scattered around such places as an old-fas.h.i.+oned orchard in Surrey, on the heather moors of the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset (his all-time favorite is the ling heather honey from here), and in London gardens, where the ever-changing garden flowers provide a rich and varied nectar flow.

James is from a family of beekeepers and was taught the craft from the age of five by his grandfather, who was part of the great Californian apiarian movement, keeping his hives near the orange groves in Irvine. His grandmother had a precious book full of sc.r.a.ps of paper and bits of advice, which was eventually given to her grandson. Every one of the 250 recipes and remedies use honey and other hive products. James has revived some for the shop. There is a cough syrup using honey, glycerine, propolis, and lemon juice-he cannot call it a cure because this simple remedy has not undergone the expensive process of certification-as well as moisturizing cream, lip balms, and a propolis lotion for nappy rash. Not all of James's grandmother's formulas work commercially, such as the rosemary honey shampoo for brunettes, which would need a preservative to have any shelf life, but many are up to the task.

AS BUSINESSES GET LARGER, their head offices farther away, and health scares introduce fear to our kitchens, we increasingly want to know where our food comes from. After all, you put food into your body; eating is an intimate activity. This desire for knowledge is behind the success of farmers' markets, where you can meet producers face-to-face, ask questions, and get a sense of who they are, in the process discovering what is on your doorstep.

Local knowledge satisfies another need: nosiness. I discovered two beekeepers working in my part of the world who sold their produce in local shops. Talking to them was like jumping on the back of a bee and flying around my surroundings, over the town and the countryside of the sweeping South Downs, into gardens and buildings and orchards accessible to insects, but not normally to me.

I followed a pot back to its source: Patricia Gilbert, it said on the label, with her telephone number. I rang it. Patricia turned out to be a direct, lively Canadian, now finished with training nurses but unretired in every other sense. She grew up on a farm in Ontario where bees pollinated the clover and honey was spread on the family's homemade bread. When a cousin asked Patricia to help hive a swarm, she realized she was not afraid. Decades later a swarm landed on her fence in Lewes; she called in a local beekeeper, Stephen Kelly. His calm, methodical, easy manner-he is also an elementary school teacher-encouraged her to take up his offer of equipment.

Everyone says beekeeping takes you out of your normal life to focus on the moment. "It is slightly dangerous, so it makes you concentrate," is how Stephen Kelly puts it. Patricia thinks you must be observant. She learned to watch animals acutely as a child; her grandfather would get her to spot which cow in the herd was limping, and her blind grandmother sometimes used her as her eyes. You have to pay attention to bees; Patricia is even careful how how she looks at them; if the bees are rattled, they will react to the mere flicker of your eye. "You learn to keep your eyes still and use your peripheral vision," she says. she looks at them; if the bees are rattled, they will react to the mere flicker of your eye. "You learn to keep your eyes still and use your peripheral vision," she says.

As an amateur pilot, Patricia particularly likes watching the insects in the air. "Their flying is just magnificent," she says. "We have nothing compared to the grace of a bee." She watches them land, flaring slightly, like a plane, to get a cus.h.i.+on of air under their wings to slow them up. They leave the hive, seem to sniff the air, and take off, navigating with their inborn knowledge of flight and air currents. They aren't always precise; she has seen them stumble on the board at the base of the hive when they come in to land, loaded with pollen. But mostly they make us and our machines look clumsy. When the bees swarm, she is fascinated by how they don't b.u.mp into one another.

It was a swarm that prompted Patricia to sell her honey. The bees had settled temporarily on a willow tree by a local shop while its owner, Mr. Patel, was outside having a smoke; they got talking about bees; he offered to stock her honey.

People buying Patricia's pots were getting nectar from their own flowers. Lewes is an old town full of established gardens behind high stone walls; the bees soar and sip where they please. But some of her neighbors were nervous, and eventually she stopped housing the insects in her garden. Urban and suburban beekeepers are under pressure; James Hamill received a complaint-in Surrey-that his bees had defecated on some garden furniture. Sometimes too much much contact with your neighbors is the downside of local life. contact with your neighbors is the downside of local life.

But there were other places for Patricia's bees. I visited her allotment, where fellow gardeners, savvy to the benefits of pollination, were generally pro-bee. We stood among pollen-laden hollyhocks and flourishes of yellow fennel flowers, borage and red dessert gooseberries and white currants and apples, leeks going to seed with their big round heads like pompoms on exotic birds. It was a patchwork of plants rather than serried, regimental ranks of other plots and the chairs there made it a place to be, not just to work.

We talked honey. How its use in wound dressings had been common knowledge when Patricia went into nursing in the 1950s. How the bees could fill a hive in a matter of days from a field of oilseed rape. How the local Newick Park Hotel had summoned her hives to their flowering chestnuts, so they could serve their own honey at breakfast. How bees hum at middle C, the pitch rising under threat.

Apparently, swarms can come out of some of Lewes's historic buildings; the house once owned by Anne of Cleves, near Patricia's home, had bees in its old gables. Perhaps they had been there since the sixteenth century, perhaps they'd flown over the head of the hero of the American Revolution, Tom Paine, when he worked as an excise officer in Lewes in the eighteenth century. My thoughts flew back in time with the bees.

Then I went to see Stephen Kelly, the beekeeper who had first helped Patricia. He told me yarns of locals such as Sid Lancaster, who worked the Ouse valley, and whose father took wagonloads by horse to market in Covent Garden. He had three to four hundred hives in the area, and never told anyone where they were; for years people would find old ones abandoned in odd copses around Suss.e.x. "I don't think even Sid knew where half his hives were when he died," said Stephen.

Stephen used to be a bee whisperer, called out to take troubled bees to an isolated apiary in a forest to sort them out. (Sometimes he was more of a bee shouter; people say you must be calm with bees, but when they were in a temper, this steady man found a good shake could startle them into submission.) As an expert, he is often asked to collect swarms; some people now think he should pay for "their" bees; in fact, there tends to be a charge for their removal. Times change. Stephen has seen fluctuations of interest in beekeeping over the years. There are periods-such as the present-when people take it up, like allotment gardening, to get back to the land. But there were now far fewer beekeepers in Lewes than there once were; in fact, since Patricia left to live in France, I have not found another source of town honey.

Stephen's honey, from the surrounding countryside, is sold by my local greengrocer as well as at Stephen's own door. It is completely different from generic honeys, those blends of whatever is cheapest on the world market, which are flash-heated and micro-filtered to make them stay runny in the pot, unfortunately in the process removing some of the good taste and healthy properties. Small producers tend to leave honey as it is. Stephen simply warms his honey gently to let it run through a coa.r.s.e filter, removing pieces of wax and so forth. The pot I have of his tastes of Suss.e.x summer. He also sells set honey, a process which occurs naturally, at different rates in different honeys according to the nectar type. Setting can be hastened by "seeding" runny honey with a little of the solid type, which hardens the liquid as the crystals spread.

The rediscovery of local foods is not about pretending to live in a long-gone past, a time when people were more limited to the food produced in their area. I currently have thirty-two honeys on my shelves, sticky columns of pots in different shades of gold. They take me near and far as I travel on a spoon. The exotic and British honeys bring back memories, but Stephen's, in particular, holds such close and constant a.s.sociations that it will always be a favorite: eating local honey makes your backyard richer.

NOW THAT WE HAVE reached a technological, postindustrial age, there is a reevaluation of the natural world, reflected in the work of artists. The British artist Damien Hirst used honeybees in a television t.i.tle sequence for short pieces of music by Bach. On a larger scale, the sculptor Robert Bradford made a huge b.u.mblebee at the Cornish environmental visitor attraction, the Eden Project. Backing up the center's theme of biodiversity, the bee climbs a bank of flowers that exists only because of the bee's powers of pollination. While working on his sculpture, Robert became interested in the insects' complex biology, including its ability to communicate and the s.e.xual relations.h.i.+p between bees and blooms. As a figurative artist, he looks to nature to discover different kinds of form and surface-his bee's hairs are made from the nylon filament used to make brooms-and, like anyone who starts to notice bees, he was struck by how we can miss these amazing creatures simply because they are so small in relations.h.i.+p to us: so he made the bee big-about 16 by 26 feet. reached a technological, postindustrial age, there is a reevaluation of the natural world, reflected in the work of artists. The British artist Damien Hirst used honeybees in a television t.i.tle sequence for short pieces of music by Bach. On a larger scale, the sculptor Robert Bradford made a huge b.u.mblebee at the Cornish environmental visitor attraction, the Eden Project. Backing up the center's theme of biodiversity, the bee climbs a bank of flowers that exists only because of the bee's powers of pollination. While working on his sculpture, Robert became interested in the insects' complex biology, including its ability to communicate and the s.e.xual relations.h.i.+p between bees and blooms. As a figurative artist, he looks to nature to discover different kinds of form and surface-his bee's hairs are made from the nylon filament used to make brooms-and, like anyone who starts to notice bees, he was struck by how we can miss these amazing creatures simply because they are so small in relations.h.i.+p to us: so he made the bee big-about 16 by 26 feet.

The project's buildings contain another large-scale structure that may relate to bees. Eden's vast polymer bubbles are composed of hexagonals, like honeycomb. The architects, Grimshaw and Partners, are part of a movement that is inspired by nature; honeycomb, like the egg, is a prime example of an evolved, efficient form. In a new twist on the "traditional versus modern" debate, such organic shapes are possible thanks to computers capable of accurate specifications for high tech materials and engineering.

THE CANADIAN SCULPTOR Aganetha Dyck has worked with honeybees for the past fourteen years during their short, northern season of July and August. Her fascination has led her right to the heart of the colony. Her work began by placing objects, such as jewelry and even a life-size gla.s.s wedding dress, into hives, to explore the sculptural possibilities of beeswax. The bees-her "collaborators"-built comb on them and it was not until the moment of removing the object that Aganetha saw what had happened. The hidden nature of her work, created in the darkness of the hive, was given a further metaphorical layer in Aganetha Dyck has worked with honeybees for the past fourteen years during their short, northern season of July and August. Her fascination has led her right to the heart of the colony. Her work began by placing objects, such as jewelry and even a life-size gla.s.s wedding dress, into hives, to explore the sculptural possibilities of beeswax. The bees-her "collaborators"-built comb on them and it was not until the moment of removing the object that Aganetha saw what had happened. The hidden nature of her work, created in the darkness of the hive, was given a further metaphorical layer in Working in the Dark Working in the Dark (19992000). In this work, a poem composed by the poet Di Brandt was put into Braille and placed within the beehive. Beeswax itself is started from a single, anchoring dot; when the fifty-four lines were taken out, the bees had made a new language in this work of "translation." (19992000). In this work, a poem composed by the poet Di Brandt was put into Braille and placed within the beehive. Beeswax itself is started from a single, anchoring dot; when the fifty-four lines were taken out, the bees had made a new language in this work of "translation."

I asked Aganetha what it was like to work with bees. Like Rudolf Steiner and Joseph Beuys, she responds to their energy; to her, the heat of the hive is part of its mysterious power. After removing a frame, she hovers her hands carefully over the hundreds of bees on the comb, listening to the hum, smelling the scent, and feeling their movement. "It's just the most amazing thing, to have this connection to this warm creature that ma.s.sages your hands and makes you feel alive," she says. "Especially if you are in the sun and it's very beautiful and the flowers are blooming and you think the world's okay." The warmth of the hive remains in her memory long after she has left the apiary.

She listens, too, first to the sound of the bees to see if they are happy or angry as she approaches a hive. The content sounds are quiet hums, hardly audible until she puts her ear to the hive and hears this gentle breeze of a calm colony. The opposite is the loud and irritable sound of a disturbed hive, when guard bees darting around outside the hive make short bursts of noise-zziiittt zziiittt. Working with her son, Richard Dyck, a multimedia computer artist, Aganetha is recording the noises within. One day they listened to two hives communicating with each other-or at least that was what it sounded like-and heard a low, long moan. Both listened, mystified, to this ma.s.s cry of bees. "I am captured by the bees," says Aganetha. "I want to get as close to them as possible." Their size belies their great importance; she is absorbed by "the power of the small."

CHAPTERTWELVE.

DO BEES DREAM?.

Imagine a Parisienne bee, for once taking the long way home. She flies around the Bastille, up, up, up through cliffs of city buildings; over blue-gray mansard roofs; past ironwork balconies sprouting potted plants; through the narrow medieval streets of the Marais where the sky has been snipped by the buildings into long, slanted strips; over people settling to lunch at boulevard tables. Our bee crosses the river, dips past the poplars on the prow of the ile St. Louis, peers at sunbathers using the quay as a beach, and pa.s.ses on to the Jardin des Plantes with its artful colors and beds of vegetables. She swings south to the 13th Arrondiss.e.m.e.nt, a district with knots of streets and tree-lined grands boulevards grands boulevards, and here she pauses before a small shop in the pretty rue b.u.t.te aux Cailles. I stop, too, and enter.

It is Les Abeilles, one of two honey specialists in Paris. A long cabinet lining one side of the room displays the owner's private collection of some two hundred honeys from all over the world. For sale are many French varieties-an intense wild heather honey from the Var; a light, local one from the Bois de Boulogne; rhododendron from the Pyrenees; clover from the Ma.s.sif Central-and jars from farther afield: almond honey from Spain, mimosa from the Yucatan in Mexico, tupelo from America, pine from Turkey. Bottles of honey lemonade and a fresh-tasting mead sit next to three types of honey sweets doled out with a yellow Perspex spade. Customers come in to stock up on their regular supplies or splurge on a treat. Many are charmed. An old lady pulls in her friend to look at the honey extractor in the window, and reminisce about her youth; honey seems to call up such animated nostalgia.

Jean-Jacques Schakmundes, the shop's owner, is in his sixties, with a proud honey tummy; he refuses sugar, calling it a chemical product, and eats honey instead. A man who changes direction in his work every ten years, for the past decade he has run this shop and a society for city beekeepers, L'Abeille Parisienne (The Parisian Bee). His manifesto for urban bees is clear and pa.s.sionate. These days, the insects are more protected in the city than in the countryside, he believes. This is because their food is safer. Pesticides can now coat seeds to go into all parts of such plants as sunflower and maize, and beekeepers believe their impact on the bees to be disastrous. They think the insects' immune systems suffer, their learning abilities decline, and they become disorientated. A lost bee is a dead bee. Many thousands of colonies-billions of bees-have died, mysteriously, in recent years.

In the city, the bees have the pick of the parks and the trees that dapple the light and blossom the spring: acacias, limes, chestnuts, and horse chestnuts; rooftop gardens, flowers in courtyards. The urban, hothouse climate provides an early and long bounty of blooms. If people talk fearfully about stings, Jean-Jacques points out that the risk is very low, plus there is a simple and important equation that matters to most: no bees, no flowers; honey is, he argues, a by-product of pollination.

With the urban bee society, Jean-Jacques set up an apiary of ten hives in the local Parc Kellerman. The group has given the honey to the elderly of the quarter, and to prisoners in one of the suburbs. The site was visited by schoolchildren. Jean-Jacques would ask them why the bees make honey. "To feed us," they'd reply. This is the reality gap, he says. We have a problem until we see that we came after the bees, that we belong to nature, not the other way around. Sometimes people see bees as intruders, he says. "Absolutely wrong. We are the intruders."

Ignorance is one thing; cruelty, another. Last July, the park apiary was torched by an arsonist armed with a Molotov c.o.c.ktail. All that remained were charred hives and heaps of dead bees-the pathetic devastation of sodden, burnt-out remains.

Despite such animosity, a number of Parisians keep bees in the city, or keep them outside and visit on weekends. "A bee is not a cow," as Jean-Jacques says. "It does not need to be milked every day." There are now some three hundred hives in Paris itself, in gardens, on moored barges, on balconies and rooftops, including the Paris Opera House. The French admiration for the honeybee is reflected in civilized statutes. A Paris law pa.s.sed in 1895 states that the hives may be 16 feet from your neighbors, except where there is a wall or fence, in which case they can be nearer; and 328 feet from a school. The annual insurance premium for beekeepers all over France is just one euro per hive.

IN THE JARDIN DU LUXEMBOURG, amateurs come to the beekeeping school to take a course that guides them through the year, from feeding the bees in winter to the late-summer collection of the combs. I arrived, on their annual open day at the end of September, to find around thirty people waiting for the doors to open. When they did, a jumble-sale scrum pushed toward a table where the year's crop of pots was on sale. The rush felt exhilarating, rather than unseemly, because this excited sense of harvest is so rare in a city.

The beekeeper, Monsieur Le Baron, had a trim white beard and a steady, grave demeanor. I joined him before the metal-topped hives in the teaching garden, and an informal group gathered, discussing the perils for bees in the twenty-first century. Monsieur Le Baron thought that countryside beekeeping was finished. Why should anyone bother much about the plight of poisoned bees? What were a few beekeepers compared to the might of agribusiness? When we moved on to genetically modified crops, the conversation suddenly became tense. I'd asked about the future of bees, and this was a future that was loaded with uncertainty.

As we were talking, a man from Chicago came up and recounted how he'd kept bees in his youth; when working with his insects, he had felt as if he were a part of their colony. These are happy bees, he said, watching the gold dots, flying without hasty pressure in long, relaxed loops and circles before the park trees in the late-September shadows. We pa.s.sed ten minutes or so, discussing how the United States Department of Agriculture had cla.s.sified light honeys above dark honeys, despite their rich flavors; about the gender politics of the hive ("all women love the bit about the drones being expelled," he quipped ruefully); about the eucalyptus honey of California and the blueberry honey of Maine. It was an encounter that was part of the serendipity of the city, and of the subject.

THE CITY is the place where humans gather and hum; the city is where we fly to get the pick of the crop from shops. La Maison du Miel, in the rue Vignon, just north of the haute couture near the Madeleine, is the longest established honey shop in Paris, opened in 1905, with the original mosaic bees still on the floor. The shop started as a cooperative of beekeepers who wanted to get their produce sold in the capital. It is still run by the same family; they now buy other honeys and have seven hundred hives of their own, which they move around the countryside to the best nectar sources. Four pale green drums dispense honey in quant.i.ty (acacia, mountain honey, pine, and one other)-some people even heave home 11-pound pails-and there are also forty-five or so other honeys to choose from, labeled by variety or region. is the place where humans gather and hum; the city is where we fly to get the pick of the crop from shops. La Maison du Miel, in the rue Vignon, just north of the haute couture near the Madeleine, is the longest established honey shop in Paris, opened in 1905, with the original mosaic bees still on the floor. The shop started as a cooperative of beekeepers who wanted to get their produce sold in the capital. It is still run by the same family; they now buy other honeys and have seven hundred hives of their own, which they move around the countryside to the best nectar sources. Four pale green drums dispense honey in quant.i.ty (acacia, mountain honey, pine, and one other)-some people even heave home 11-pound pails-and there are also forty-five or so other honeys to choose from, labeled by variety or region.

One of the mosaic bees on the floor of La Maison du Miel Maison du Miel (The House of Honey) in Paris (The House of Honey) in Paris.

It is here that I really came to grips with the different character of honeys and their specific colors, textures, scents, and tastes. Trying dozens in one sitting was a dizzying task, but various themes emerged, as I staggered from pot to pot. There were those with a metallic, herbaceous kick, such as eucalyptus, sage, and mint; the distinctively fruity ones, like the mango honey that came from Brazil; the floral lime tree and orange blossom; the colorful sunflower and dandelion; the particular sweetness of carrot honey. Then there were those that had a special combination of qualities, for example, the limpid beauty of the acacia honey, with its gentle taste, emollient texture, and clear glow.

The darker honeys, such as the chestnut, could have the burnt intensity of caramel; the oak honey tasted like wooden fruit, and the pine was a quieter b.u.t.terscotch. The mimosa had an almost oily texture and a licorice tang. Buckwheat, in this case, was a tang too far for me. Nappies Nappies (that means "diapers") it says in my tasting notes (though I have tasted it elsewhere with greater pleasure). (that means "diapers") it says in my tasting notes (though I have tasted it elsewhere with greater pleasure).

The regional honeys conveyed the character of their land, and contrasts were interesting; the honey from the Alps had an acidic kick, while that from the Pyrenees was smoother, with the fruitiness of wild raspberries. If I knew the place, or its stories, this added to my sense of the honey's character; the rosemary honey from Narbonne, which was prized by gourmets of the cla.s.sical world, made me think of the honey traders of the past.

Printed lists at La Maison du Miel recommend the honeys for particular medical conditions and physical states. Thyme honey is termed a "general antiseptic," which also stimulates digestion; sunflower honey is advised for fever; lavender is said to be good for the respiratory tract and coughs; lime blossom is recommended for sleep and chestnut to accelerate blood circulation. Is this credible? Some of the customers are almost as old as the shop, so it clearly must do something something for them. for them.

But recently such goodness has flowed less richly. Some of the problems have been due to bad weather. The year 2003 had been disastrous for the honey harvest, explained Monsieur Galland, the shop's current proprietor. There was a drought, which was bad for nectar, then soaring temperatures had meant the bees ate up their honey stores to give them the energy to flap their wings and ventilate the hive. The honey harvest had been down 60 percent in some places; the chestnut trees, for example, bloomed for only ten days. Besides, there was the ongoing problem of pesticides. He was gloomy.

There are still eighty thousand beekeepers in France, but only about 2 or 3 percent of these are professional; and they must get good prices for their honey in order to keep going. Perhaps honey will become, increasingly, a specialized product. Perhaps, one day, we shall look back with astonishment that we took it for granted as a cheap pot to pull off the shelf in any old supermarket.

I ENCOUNTERED some special urban honey in Saint-Denis, just north of Paris. The hives are kept on the roof of the town hall, right next to the gothic Basilique de Saint-Denis. Today a modern observation hive, in a jaunty blue metal casing, had been put next to the church. From the back, it looked like a cross between a public information kiosk and a metal Punch-and-Judy stall, with a funnel at the top and bees flying in and out like random smoke. The front had two observation windows, one displaying a comb full on; the other sideways, showing the hive's layers of activity. Some people reclined on deck chairs around it to watch the show, while others peered closely through the hive's windows. The sun reflected gold on the combs, and beyond was the honey-colored stone of the church. some special urban honey in Saint-Denis, just north of Paris. The hives are kept on the roof of the town hall, right next to the gothic Basilique de Saint-Denis. Today a modern observation hive, in a jaunty blue metal casing, had been put next to the church. From the back, it looked like a cross between a public information kiosk and a metal Punch-and-Judy stall, with a funnel at the top and bees flying in and out like random smoke. The front had two observation windows, one displaying a comb full on; the other sideways, showing the hive's layers of activity. Some people reclined on deck chairs around it to watch the show, while others peered closely through the hive's windows. The sun reflected gold on the combs, and beyond was the honey-colored stone of the church.

Olivier Darne's "urban bounty hunter" hive outside the Basilique de Saint-Denis, near Paris.

The basilica's doors were suddenly given an impatient rattle. Out jumped Olivier Darne, the beekeeper-or hive installation artist, you might call him-a darting figure in sneakers, with big brown eyes beneath a black-and-yellow skullcap. He settled and flew, settled and flew, jumping up to photograph a coach party peering at his bees, then giving me five pots of successive honeys from this year's harvest, from hives he had placed on the town hall. The honeys progressed through the slightly woody, delicately perfumed freshness of spring, to luscious early summer, to a harsh interlude in July, and then onto rich, mellow late summer. The variation in tastes was astonis.h.i.+ng; the early harvests were particularly delicious and complex.

Olivier is a young graphic designer who has kept bees for seven years, first on his roof in Saint-Denis and now in other city spots. The words Butineur urbain Butineur urbain are written across his blue bee kiosks; "urban bounty hunter" is a rough translation. The honey itself he calls are written across his blue bee kiosks; "urban bounty hunter" is a rough translation. The honey itself he calls miel de beton miel de beton (concrete honey). Olivier is playful in that French way, with an underlying purpose. With wit and panache, he is bringing bees to people; putting the insects in the heart of the scurrying city; setting the hives among commuters about to dive down into the metro, on their way to gather money at work. His leaflets declared "NOUS SOMMES TOUS DES ABEILLES" (We are all bees). They showed the end of the hive's entrance poking into the sky like the barrel of a tank gun, with bees blown out like living shot. The red-and-white checkered flag flew above, like a standard for battle. Olivier's next plan was to take his hive-kiosks around Europe, to see how a Rome honey differs from a London one. In Saint-Denis, I could see for myself how people were intrigued, delighted, and amused by his bees. This was bringing people to nature, making bees buzz in the urban mind once more. (concrete honey). Olivier is playful in that French way, with an underlying purpose. With wit and panache, he is bringing bees to people; putting the insects in the heart of the scurrying city; setting the hives among commuters about to dive down into the metro, on their way to gather money at work. His leaflets declared "NOUS SOMMES TOUS DES ABEILLES" (We are all bees). They showed the end of the hive's entrance poking into the sky like the barrel of a tank gun, with bees blown out like living shot. The red-and-white checkered flag flew above, like a standard for battle. Olivier's next plan was to take his hive-kiosks around Europe, to see how a Rome honey differs from a London one. In Saint-Denis, I could see for myself how people were intrigued, delighted, and amused by his bees. This was bringing people to nature, making bees buzz in the urban mind once more.

HOW DO WE SEE nature in the city? Can we dissolve the buildings and the streets that we stand on; can we crack open the hard sh.e.l.l of concrete and tarmac to reveal what lies beneath? How far down is the soil below our feet? Nature feels so distant to our way of operating, even if it is so close. The world moves fast, and so do the bees: can we find the stillness to see them? nature in the city? Can we dissolve the buildings and the streets that we stand on; can we crack open the hard sh.e.l.l of concrete and tarmac to reveal what lies beneath? How far down is the soil below our feet? Nature feels so distant to our way of operating, even if it is so close. The world moves fast, and so do the bees: can we find the stillness to see them?

What we glimpse of nature in the city is what slips around its edges: the fat autumnal sparrows hopping through the wire around a car park; the early bee stranded on the road. Once your eyes adjust, you can pick out the natural, living world amid the bricks, but you need to focus hard in the urban jungle.

Manhattan, the ultimate cityscape, does not seem a likely home for honeybees. Its surging energy is a force of nature, crackling with the static of action. But these man-made canyons, which so embody human dreams, endeavors, and achievements, feel like no place for bees and blossoms.

Yet when I tried to imagine the naked island as it first appeared to Europeans in the sixteenth century, it began to have distinct possibilities. For a start, the Hudson and East rivers, the very reasons for the city's situation and success, would give the insects plenty of water. The land had been farmed successfully; Harlem was a place of country estates until the subway arrived here in the early twentieth century. The soil of Central Park, and of all the other green s.p.a.ces, supports the plants that yield the nectar that makes the honey.

WHEN THE GREENMARKETS started in New York City in the 1970s, they were making an explicit connection between the food we ate and where it came from. This small eruption of nature in the city encouraged another: urban beekeeping. I arrived at the Wednesday market in Union Square to find David Graves standing at his stall behind pots of his "New York City rooftop" honey, priced at $8 a half pound. Before him flowed streams of shoppers with their flotsam of carts and bags; a dozen different accents made inquiries within an hour, and fifteen children paid a cla.s.s visit, hustling for tastes from the honey pots. "Do bees like honey?" one asked. "It's their food," David replied, before making them repeat the mantra "gentle honeybees, gentle honeybees." He constantly rea.s.sures people that they are safe with these insects in the city. started in New York City in the 1970s, they were making an explicit connection between the food we ate and where it came from. This small eruption of nature in the city encouraged another: urban beekeeping. I arrived at the Wednesday market in Union Square to find David Graves standing at his stall behind pots of his "New York City rooftop" honey, priced at $8 a half pound. Before him flowed streams of shoppers with their flotsam of carts and bags; a dozen different accents made inquiries within an hour, and fifteen children paid a cla.s.s visit, hustling for tastes from the honey pots. "Do bees like honey?" one asked. "It's their food," David replied, before making them repeat the mantra "gentle honeybees, gentle honeybees." He constantly rea.s.sures people that they are safe with these insects in the city.

David first kept hives on a rooftop in his home state of Ma.s.sachusetts in order to get the hives away from marauding bears. When these mammals emerge hungry from hibernation in the spring, they sniff out the protein of the brood comb and can knock over hives to rip out the contents with an unstoppable greed. Even when David moved his bees up onto the roofs of some outbuildings, one bear still managed to climb up via a birch tree and get its dinner.

An early rooftop adventure went badly wrong. As a novice beekeeper, he put some hives on top of his father's Chevrolet dealers.h.i.+p in Williamsburg, Ma.s.sachusetts. Then he went on holiday. It was a good summer and a tremendous amount of honey built up. The hives became overheated, the wax melted, and one hive collapsed in an overflowing ooze that seeped down through the roof and onto the cars below. His father wanted no more of the bees, so David loaded the hives onto a pickup truck and took them back to his home in Beckett. As he was unloading, one of them tipped over and a cartoon cloud of bees chased the hapless beekeeper into the swimming pool. "I've had my ups and downs with bees," he says.

David Graves, the New York City rooftop apiarist.

The highs and lows, these days, involve elevators and subways. David first thought of harvesting urban honey as a means of selling a truly local food to New Yorkers; it is a premium product that is low in supply and high in demand. He advertised for rooftop apiary sites by putting a notice on a box of bees on his stall: "We are very gentle, we like to share our New York City honey, do you have a rooftop?" and offered a percentage of the honey to those who took him up. There were takers. Now much more experienced, a Johnny Appleseed of urban bees, David shuttles between the seventeen hives he tends in the city. The highest is twelve stories up, on a hotel in the middle of Manhattan, and there are others on roofs in Brooklyn, the Bronx, the Upper West Side, in midtown on the East Side; on a church, in a community garden, and even by a school. Also, on top of a Harlem soul food restaurant, Amy Ruth's, where the cooks add the honey to their special Southern Fried Chicken recipe.

Apart from being an unusual marketing point, the city is simply a good source of nectar. "When you look at aerial photos of Manhattan, it doesn't seem very green," David says, "but when you go to street level, you start to see there's a lot around." There are crab apples, linden trees, and Bradford pears; the clover, sumac, and tidy flowers surrounding apartment complexes; the plants on roofs and of course the flora of the parks. But there's still too much wasted s.p.a.ce; from one of his rooftop viewpoints, David can look into Bronx backyards and muse how much more fruit and vegetables could grow in them as food for humans and bees.

But beekeeping is not exactly encouraged in New York City. The official list of animals banned from the city includes, not unreasonably, bears and large rodents; then there are the likes of "even-toed ungulates," such as deer, giraffe, and hippopotamus, and also "odd-toed ungulates"-other than horses-such as zebra, rhinoceroses, and tapirs. Then the list becomes less consistent, however. There is a section against "all venomous insects, including but not limited to, bee, hornet and wasp." Most stings are likely to come from insects such as wasps and yellow jackets; but the honeybee is a force for the good.

All this might seem like a bit of a technicality, except that, shortly before I visited New York, one of David Graves's rooftop apiarists had just received an officious piece of paper from the city's health department.

JILL LAURIE GOODMAN is a lawyer living in an Upper West Side brownstone, a short flight from Columbia University and its s.p.a.cious campus. Having grown up in a family of gardeners, she likes to keep one foot in the soil, and was immediately attracted to David's advertis.e.m.e.nt for hive sites. She went home expecting her family to shoot the idea down in flames. Her husband, Melvin, explained to me that, since he was terrified of insects-or at least, like Woody Allen, at two with nature-the whole idea was ludicrous: it had to be done. So they gave their house keys to a complete stranger and invited sixty thousand insects to live on their roof. is a lawyer living in an Upper West Side brownstone, a short flight from Columbia University and its s.p.a.cious campus. Having grown up in a family of gardeners, she likes to keep one foot in the soil, and was immediately attracted to David's advertis.e.m.e.nt for hive sites. She went home expecting her family to shoot the idea down in flames. Her husband, Melvin, explained to me that, since he was terrified of insects-or at least, like Woody Allen, at two with nature-the whole idea was ludicrous: it had to be done. So they gave their house keys to a complete stranger and invited sixty thousand insects to live on their roof.

The first year, David kept his bees on Jill's roof, and she followed him around learning the craft. The next year, she nailed together a hive and received a box of bees by post. They arrived by priority mail in a small wire cage with a notice declaring them "gentle honeybees." Apparently, the New York postal service can be less than swift when delivering bothersome packages that require signatures; but, for some strange reason, the bees arrived without delay. The queen is in a small, internal cage, with a few workers and a candy plug that she eventually eats her way through. By this time, the workers are familiar with her presence, and together they form the nucleus of the new community.

The rooftop bees take Jill to another world. "There is a magic in producing the food you eat," she says. "Working with bees you have to be totally patient. Whatever tension or anger you have from the rest of the world, you just have to let go." I sat in Jill and Melvin's kitchen eating some of the year's crop, a pale, golden honey, while this intellectual Jewish couple discussed how the rabbis get around the dietary laws saying that you can't eat insects or produce from an unclean animal; how honey is part of traditional ceremonies, such as the bread and apples dipped in honey and served for a "sweet and good" new year; and how children used to be given letters dotted with honey when they first went to school, to a.s.sociate learning with sweetness.

In the city, bees are kept on rooftops so that the flight path in front of each hive isn't disrupted by humans-one reason for stings. This way, they are likely to be even safer. The New York City health department, however, does not see it this way. It was after four years of keeping bees that the city council's notice arrived at Jill's door. She didn't want it; she wanted the whole thing to go away. Yet it was here. It warned her of a "large number of flying bees found on the roof area causing nuisance." It accused her of "harboring bee hives on the roof of an attached building."

In her fight to keep her insects, Jill discovered that the city's ordinance on animals might allow for waivers. She also made connections with other urban beekeepers. In Chicago, the mayor Richard Daley was so "green" that he had planted the roof of the city hall with 20,000 plants, of more than 150 species, and put 3 beehives up among them. It was San Francisco's official policy to increase the production of home-produced food, including honey. But New York City, it seemed, was beephobic.

APIARISTS a.s.sOCIATE, as do their insects; put any bee-related subject into an Internet search engine and you find yourself linked into a highly active and wide-ranging human network. You can even hunt out a website on bee beards, in which a queen bee is put in a small cage on a human, and the swarm follows to create a calm, living "beard." Busy discussions continue in the real world as well as the virtual one. I encountered one such meeting in upstate New York. The Empire State beekeepers were holding their annual conference in a hotel in out-of-season Alexandria Bay, on the banks of the St. Lawrence River. I joined every sort of beekeeper there, from industrialists with hundreds of hives to backyard hobbyists. They came to chew the fat, listen to politicians make endless promises, and to hear talks on such topics as profitable queen rearing and primitive candle making in the Dominican Republic.

In the evening, we stayed awake for a historical lecture, dozy after the eat-everything buffet. A stray person, thousands of miles from home, I was feeling a little existential around the edges, touched by the chilled waters and tousled skies outside the Bonnie Castle Resort, as the speaker told of Cupid's bowstring of bees and the sweet pain of love. Some of the conference had depressed me. During the past two days, one subject had cropped up with an ominous regularity: chemicals. Honey is still-rightly-regarded as a pure food; but there are threats to its wholesome reputation.

Around the world, beekeepers have had to deal with the terrible plague of the varroa mite. Originally Varroa jacobsoni Varroa jacobsoni, now called Varroa destructor Varroa destructor, this small red mite, just visible to the naked eye, happily coexists with the Eastern honeybee Apis cerana Apis cerana. But when it crossed over to Apis mellifera Apis mellifera honeybees, first in the former Soviet Union, the mite began its devastation. It lays its eggs on the brood comb and the larvae hatch so deformed as to be useless. The whole colony is weakened, becoming more susceptible to viruses and other diseases; eventually, it collapses. The mite spread to the rest of the world from the 1960s onward; even the proudly isolated New Zealand got caught out, after a budget cut removed checks on bee colonies around ports and airports. honeybees, first in the former Soviet Union, the mite began its devastation. It lays its eggs on the brood comb and the larvae hatch so deformed as to be useless. The whole colony is weakened, becoming more susceptible to viruses and other diseases; eventually, it collapses. The mite spread to the rest of the world from the 1960s onward; even the proudly isolated New Zealand got caught out, after a budget cut removed checks on bee colonies around ports and airports.

There are other diseases, too, particularly American foul brood and European foul brood, not to mention the troublesome hive beetle in America. In each case, the problem spreads easily, through the comings and goings of trade. When the varroa mite was first discovered in the United States, in Wisconsin in 1987, it was traced back to Florida, probably to hives kept in the vicinity of Orlando airport; a freight worker reported bees escaping from the holds of international airplanes. Since half of the state's colonies were moved around to pollinate plants in up to twenty other states, from almond trees in California to blueberries in Maine, it is not hard to see how the mite spread. In the year after its discovery, 90 percent of Florida's colonies were destroyed by the disease.

How to combat the rampant bee diseases of the modern industrial world? For a while, products such as Apistan have held varroa at bay. It is meant to be applied in the winter, before the bees are actively producing honey, and does not dissolve in the honey. In theory, as with all such products, the end food is safe. But can you always trust food producers? There have been enough scares to make us wonder. Questions have recently been raised after America and the European Union banned the import of Chinese honey when residues of an antibiotic, chloramphenicol, used to combat foulbrood disease, were found in a number of tested samples. Since China provided a large amount of the world's honey, cheap, generic potfuls-the sort labeled "produce of more than one country"-could well have found their way onto many a breakfast table. The headlines, this time, were measured; the risk to human health was mainly to those susceptible to a rare but serious blood disorder. Anyone interested in the safety of our food took note, however.

Even the terrible advent of varroa has begun to look like "the good old days": the mite has started to develop a resistance to Apistan. What is the next step? The question loomed over the Empire State Beekeepers' conference. There are natural methods using herbs. Others are experimenting with formic acid, which was discovered when scientists noticed birds rubbing their infested feathers with ants, producing acid to get rid of mites. Meanwhile, some beekeepers are breeding queens from Russian stock that may have a greater resistance to varroa. The honeybee genome has now been sequenced, and in the future genetic engineering could speed up the process of breeding for resistance.