Queen bee knows her honey
MARY ELLEN MASON was a busy music video producer when she first started thinking about bees about 10 years ago. In her Los Feliz apartment, she read book after book about beekeeping. “They seemed like these perfect creatures,” she says. “They produce a product you don’t have to do anything to.”
When Mason decided to take a sabbatical from the music business, she took a part-time job as a baker to decide what her next step would be. Soon, a swarm of bees flew into a friend’s yard in Elysian Heights, and he called Mason and told her it was time to put the bee knowledge to use. Now Mason is making honey there. Her bees presently give 100 pounds of honey a year, and she recently moved one hive to a location in Reseda to experiment with making honey in different locations. She’s about to buy one or two more for Elysian Heights.
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Question: Where do you get the hives?
Answer: There’s a place called the Los Angeles Honey Co. in City Terrace. It’s like Home Depot for beekeepers, except it’s always deserted and really quiet -- it’s got kind of a David Lynch feel.
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Q: What do they have there?
A: Foundation comb, beekeeping suits, safety gear, books on beekeeping, extractors for getting the honey out of the frames -- hard-core beekeeping supplies.
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Q: How about the bees themselves?
A: They don’t have bees. We order the queens from Allen’s Bee Ranch in Redding. Once a year we order a new queen, and swap her out with the old one.
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Q: Do the old ones get tired?
A: Their pheromones weaken, they get distracted, so you re-queen.
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Q: That sounds like a metaphor for a lot of relationships. What else do they do like humans?
A: Well, if there’s too many drones -- male bees -- you have to get rid of some of them because they don’t do any work, they just get in the way. Their only purpose is to mate with the queens.
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Q: How much does a queen set you back?
A: Around $10. The Bee Ranch owner is always amused because we just order one, and most of his customers are big commercial operations. It comes in a box in the mail.
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Q: How do you get the queen used to her new digs, and what happens to the old queen?
A: The box [the new queen] comes in is sealed with a sugar candy. You put it in the hive, and as the bees eat away at the candy, they’re getting used to her scent. Then the old queen gets driven off or she dies.
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Q: Have you ever been stung?
A: I’ve never been stung. I wear the full Devo-style protective gear -- long gloves, a pith helmet and a jumpsuit. You just have to stay calm and Zen and move very slowly.
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Elysian Farms Angelino Multiflora raw honey. Auntie Em’s Marketplace, 4616 Eagle Rock Blvd., Eagle Rock; (323) 255-0800. $13 for a half pint.
