Urban Beekeeping article

by Keri Fisher

Nancy Mangion remembers the first time she met a beekeeper. Her horse-drawn buggy was getting fixed in an Amish village when a man came up to her and asked, " Wanna see my honey house? " She was afraid of bees at the time, but she followed him. " There were bees everywhere, " she remembers. " He took a scoop of honey with his finger from a wax frame. ‘Wanna try some honey? It’s nice and fresh.’ So I tried it. " The man told Mangion that he hadn’t had a cold or allergy since he began keeping bees. That’s when she decided to get her own.

Now she’s the nonchalant bee-lover trying to calm a hysteric: me. When I pull up to her house and see them swarming around, I almost turn around and go home. She has to hold my hand as we walk by the hives to her gazebo. When I point nervously to the two insects buzzing above, she laughs. " Those aren’t bees, " she says. " Those are wasps. " Comforting.

Read the rest of the article here:

http://www.beekeeping.com/articles/us/taste_honey.htm

Keri Fisher is a food writer living in Belmont. She can be reached at fishfood72@earthlink.net