When I was a young girl, I always wanted to get married and have kids. Thirty years later, I’ve achieved that vision. Something that I did not predict was that not only would I be married and a mom to three awesome kids, but I’d be married to a farmer and a mom of 13 chickens, six ducks and over 1 million bees, too.
How did I get here? I’m not exactly sure. It may have all started in early 2014 when I watched a classic episode of “I Love Lucy” where the Ricardos move to the country and get chickens. It looked glamorous and hilarious on my TV, so I may or may not have suggested that we get chickens to my husband. And… he ignored my suggestion.
“That’s a crazy idea” may or may not have been a direct quote.
Fast forward to one year later when one of our new tenants, who recently relocated to Brooklyn from Kentucky, suggested that we… get chickens.
“Great idea!” said hubby. He may or may not have ordered five chicks the next day.
Our beekeeping journey started in a similar vein. I’ve suffered from seasonal allergies for as long as I can remember. Itchy eyes alternating with a stuffy nose/runny nose. So not fun. During Covid, our youngest daughter developed seasonal allergies as well. After seeing his daughter suffer for five minutes, her father had to fix the problem! The logical solution was buying 15,000 bees, taking care of them through the honey production season, and harvesting the honey to help her (and me, maybe?) heal from our seasonal allergy symptoms.
As much as I love sidestepping chicken poop and holding my nose as I gather eggs, beekeeping is my true passion. Watching tiny creatures create something from nothing is truly godly.
We have nine hives — eight regular hives, which basically look like wooden boxes stacked on top of each other, and one observational hive, which is beautifully crafted to look like a wooden house with multiple Plexiglas windows to peek into, plus a roof that lifts up. Seeing a solid box but knowing that something incredibly awesome is occurring beneath the surface reminds me that God runs the world. All we see is a solid wall (and we might hear some buzzing), but until we open the top and pull out the frames we don’t know what to expect. There may be swarm queen cells, there might be a varroa mite infestation or the box might be full of honey. You never know until you take a closer look. Life can throw all sorts of challenges at a person, you can choose to see the surface of that challenge and stare at a wall, or you can look beneath the surface, put on your beekeeper’s suit and dive in. Open the box — it might be full of honey, even if all you see on the outside are seemingly menacing bees.
Even with my smartphone, computer and oven I can turn off with an app, I feel so much more connected to my past living in this small country oasis we’ve created for ourselves. Knowing that our bubbes and zaydes got their honey (and eggs) the same way we do, from hive and coop, and not from Costco, helps me feel their presence even more. Our honey basically goes from hive to jar, and jar to plate! It is also a wonderful lesson for the next generation.
One of my favorite ways to utilize our honey is raw: schmearing raw honey on homemade challah (cooking hack alert: use duck eggs rather than chicken eggs in baked goods!) is definitely my favorite way, and I also love using it in salad dressings. My go-to Rosh Hashanah salad uses kale as the base (make sure to massage kale well with olive oil), topped with chopped apples, pomegranates and feta or goat (no, we don’t have goats… yet) cheese. Using a sweet and tangy dressing of honey, olive oil, vinegar and salt cuts through the creaminess and heaviness of the cheese perfectly!
So here we are, urban farmers and owners of The Birds and the Bees Brooklyn, producers of local honey and eggs. Waking up with the roosters and going to bed exhausted from jarring 600 pounds of honey. (Yes, that’s the amount we’ve harvested so far this year from our nine hives). It’s definitely not the life I envisioned for myself, but I’m so grateful.
Shana tova u’metuka to all. To all Jews celebrating a bittersweet new year around the world, and especially to those in Israel. May we merit celebrating this Rosh Hashanah together, as one colony in our ancestral hive.
This article was produced as part of The Nosher’s Jewish Food Fellows Program, which aims to diversify the voices telling Jewish food stories in media spaces.
