It Started with Hello

The wind gusted every so often, the sun couldn’t decide whether it wanted to come out, and there weren’t too many people wandering through the market.

It was quiet. No two ways about it.

But even on a slow market day, there are moments that stick with you.

A Simple Hello

Big Brothers Big Sisters of Long Island was at the market yesterday, with a tent where they could recruit volunteers and collect clothing donations. There was a table, some information and one volunteer.

It was quiet over there too, so Gabriella got up and walked over to my tent.

“Hi. I’m Gabriella.”

I said hello, introduced her to Backyard Bees, and within a few minutes we were talking about what I might be able to do with Big Brothers Big Sisters in January. They are planning an empowerment series for girls, and we started talking about a special Backyard Bees workshop.

It’s a small connection right now, but it might become something much bigger.

That’s one of the things I like about a farmers market. You never really know what a simple “hello” might turn into.

Hello from Bangladesh

Another moment came when a mother and son visiting from Bangladesh stopped at my table. The mother appeared somewhat skeptical of my honey.

Her son explained that, according to his mother, in Bangladesh the only good honey came from the trees. Nothing else tasted as good as honey from the trees.

I had, regrettably, run out of honey-tasting spoons. I couldn’t offer her a taste of my honey, but we continued to talk—and I wanted to know more.

“What trees? What flowers? What bees?“

We talked about the different colors of honey and how, here on Long Island, I think about honey in terms of the flowers my bees are visiting.

The son made a connection and said, “Yes! In America there are so many flowers. Flowers everywhere. There are not so many flowers in Bangladesh.” I thought that was an interesting observation about the United States!

They couldn’t name the particular plants their honey came from, so I told them I would do some research.

That little conversation sent me down a rabbit hole—a fascinating rabbit hole about giant honey bees.

I learned about Sundarban honey, which comes from the vast Sundarbans mangrove forest along the southern coast of Bangladesh. The bees make it from the nectar of mangrove plants with names I had never heard before: khalsi, kakra, keora and goran.

Much of this wild honey is made by Apis dorsata, the giant Asian honey bee, which can be nearly twice as long as my backyard bees, Apis mellifera.

Giant Asian honey bees (Apis dorsata) on an exposed comb. Photo by Vinayaraj, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Apis dorsata is also different because it has not been domesticated to live in managed hives the way Apis mellifera has. These bees build a single, enormous exposed comb high in the trees—and harvesting their honey is quite a feat!

Maybe that was the honey the mother remembered. I don’t know. But from everything I read, it certainly seemed like the kind of honey someone would remember.

But I kept going down the rabbit hole and also learned about mustard honey.

Bangladesh, like the United States, has a varied honey season. During the winter mustard bloom, from December through February, beekeepers place their hives near fields filled with yellow flowers.

Mustard honey is a familiar crop honey in Bangladesh, much as clover honey is in the United States. I haven’t tasted it, but it is described as richly sweet, sometimes with a slightly peppery or mustard-like finish.

It isn’t easy to find in the United States, but one day, who knows? Maybe I’ll have a chance to taste it.

All of that came from a mother and son stopping at my table to say hello.

How Bees Say Hello

My bees can’t say hello, and they can’t tell me what it is like to be a bee in Bangladesh. They can’t tell me which flowers they would choose in Albania, although someone at the market last week shared memories of bees there. They can’t tell me about the beekeeping relatives of one of my clients in Poland.

They can’t explain the world from a bee’s point of view at all.

But this is one of the things I love about my role as a beekeeper. I have to watch and learn what my bees are trying to tell me. I have to listen to people. Then I have to go look things up.

If I’m doing my job as a beekeeper—and as an ambassador for these remarkable creatures—I get to speak for the bees.

I can tell you that honey doesn’t all come from the same flowers, the same landscapes or even the same species of bee. I can tell you that the honey someone remembers from childhood may come from a completely different world than the honey my bees produce here on Long Island.

And I can tell you that sometimes the best way to learn something about bees is to start by saying “hello” to a beekeeper.

Where Hello Leads

That is what happened yesterday. I heard about an opportunity to volunteer with Big Brothers Big Sisters. I heard a mother remember honey from the trees of Bangladesh. And I was reminded that my little tent at a farmers market is more than a place to sell honey.

It’s also a place to say, “Hello. Welcome to Backyard Bees.”

Sometimes I say it first. Sometimes someone else says hello and sends me down an unexpected rabbit hole. And sometimes the bees say hello in their own way, leaving clues in the flowers, the comb and the color of the honey for a beekeeper to interpret.

The market was quiet yesterday, but those few hellos gave me plenty to think about.

Sometimes that’s where the most interesting stories start.

Looking Ahead

It was a quiet market this week, but I’ll be back next week—with a new supply of honey-tasting spoons and all the good things you may have missed this time around.

Stop by, taste some local honey and say hello. You never know where the conversation might lead.

Continue Exploring

A Real Farmers Market at Eisenhower Park what makes the farmers market at Eisenhower park so special to me; find links to all the market reports here

Saving Dahlia Seeds: Something to Save for Spring last week’s market report