Black Lamb

Light for the larder

January 1st, 2010

BY LESLIE RUSSELL

If you could wring the color out of October aspens, distill it into a viscous light, and capture this light in a Mason jar, you would have honey. We capped thirty-five pints of it this fall. Like a piece of super-enlarged honeycomb, the jar pattern covers the countertop, too precious to put away.

This honey has been seventeen months in the making, a big experiment to keep bees in high-desert snow country, far from orchards and verdant fields of clover. We assembled the hives, including deeps and supers, floorboards, lids, and enough trays to fill each super. The bees arrived in two screened cages, each about the size of a shoebox. Hundreds of them vibrated, a writhing ball of buzzing insect, twiggy legs hooked on the box or the wings or bellies of their sisters. The queens were sequestered within their own tiny boxes with cotton plugs laced with pheromone. Where the queen goes, the rest will follow. All were dumped from the cage into their new pine boxes and, with a supply of sugar water, they immediately took up the business of their hivedom, building comb and brood.
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