I’m remembering a warm evening last summer—in my mind’s eye, I’m driving in the waning light, the day growing dusky and golden, the air soft and humid as the temperature slowly drops. My windows are down and I have the music on loud. The National’s “Bloodbuzz Ohio” is playing and I’m half singing, half humming along to the words. Lay my head on the hood of your car…I was carried to Ohio in a swarm of bees.
The last line repeats and repeats. Something about the mellifluous jumble of those three words always sticks in my head—swarm of bees. I’ve heard the phrase in passing before, although I’ve never given it much consideration. I’m not sure I knew it was a real phenomena, not just a way to describe a large group of bees, in the manner of a pride of lions or a murder of crows.
Fast forward to last week at home on the farm. My dad comes in to tell us that a actual, real, live swarm of bees has arrived and settled in on the upper corner of one of the garage walls. Puzzled at his choice of words, I try to picture what a “settled swarm” could mean. Swarm seemed to indicate a buzzing frenzy of insects—locusts descending or gnats flying in a frantic group. But in bee-speak, swarming is a technical term, the definition being a form of reproduction.
“Swarming” occurs for two reasons. One is when an existing colony gets too crowded. In this case, the colony splits into two parts and one swarms to a new location. Two is when adverse conditions lead to abandonment. Here, an issue or disturbance like lack of food, death of a queen, bad weather, or so on will cause all the bees to leave their existing colony and seek a new one.
If you caught them in the process of swarming, you’d witness a heavy cloud of activity: a whirling, humming orb of honeybees in flight, surging towards some unknown home. But once they land, they become docile and calm, clinging to a surface as if a fuzzy blanket was laid down, which gently pulsates with life upon closer inspection. They won’t fly about, but will get right down to the business of building a new home, scuttling over the surface and getting to work.
Serene though they may be, you’ll see a few bees flying about, just as you would near a regular hive. This is what my dad noticed, and as he looked closer to find the source, he saw the mass of bees.
My dad used to keep hives up on the edge of the woods, so he’s “tapped into” the beekeeping scene in Maryland (which, as it turns out, is quite a hotbed of activity! Who knew!). He immediately reaches out to a local bee expert, one he knows through a subscription to the guy’s weekly bee emails (again, who knew!).
A few days later, at 6:30 PM, we’re all gathered just outside the garage where the cow pasture meets the rolling lawn. The bee man (as we call him) is greeted by a cadre of nieces and nephews, their eager faces thrilling at the prospect of such a novel happening (life on a farm! never ordinary!). They clap their hands and race about—one nephew perches in his dad’s lap, sitting on the top of the loader bucket of our big yellow backhoe that’s parked near the fence. The others dart in and out of the garage, alternately peeking closer and closer at the activity until they spot a bee in flight, sending them running back to lean against the safety of my mom’s legs.
The bee man is named Bryan and he arrives in a beat-up Subaru with a vanity plate that reads BEE down one side with the state beekeeper’s association logo. He’s tattooed and soft-spoken and patiently answers all of our questions as he pulls his hooded, netted jacket over his jeans and t-shirt and steps into rubber boots.
To our surprise, there’s no fancy equipment in his car. No smoker (this is how you traditionally calm bees down—the smoke lulls them to sleep), no vacuum (our best guess for how he would remove them), no sprayers.
Instead, he carries a large plastic bucket with a lid and a pair of heavy-duty gloves over to the corner. He inspects the swarm. He looks again. In a strong Baltimore accent he says, “Looks to be about 10,000 here.” We gasp! He tells us his plan: he’ll simply stand up on the ledge and use his hands to scoop the bees into the bucket, then cap the lid. He’ll take the bees home with him and transfer them to one of his hives.
Scoop the bees! With his hands! None of us imagined that would be possible—who knew they were docile enough to be handled as such. Bryan explains that the bees only sting and flit about when threatened. What’s more, if he can find the queen amongst all the worker bees and transfer her into the bucket first, the rest will follow with ease.
The queen bee is around twice the size of a worker bee; Bryan has a small silver cage that he holds in one hand as he searches for her amongst the throngs. In the end, he never finds her (needle in a haystack, and all that) but the bees obediently allow themselves to be carried and dumped into the bucket anyway.
Underneath the thrumming carpet of bees lies the honeycomb. Although the swarm has only been on the garage wall for three days, they’ve already built an impressive formation of comb—Bryan keeps pulling off larger and larger chunks as we, his captivated audience, ooh and aah. The pale amber-colored honeycomb is formed out of wax secreted by the bees, which they use their antenna and legs to shape into rigid walls that will house the bees and their honey.
(No but seriously, are you obsessed with bees yet?)
I am, so a day later, I curl up in the leather armchair in my dad’s study. He’s sitting at his desk working; classical music plays quietly on the stereo. He hands me a heavy book—The Beekeeper’s Bible—and I flip through the pages, reading interesting tidbits out loud as I go.
We learn that all bees are born as workers, and are fed a substance called royal jelly during their first three days of life. Similar to the colostrum fed to cows and humans, royal jelly is an extra-concentrated form of regular bee food. After three days, all worker bees start eating regular bee food and one bee is selected to continue being fed royal jelly, thus doubling her size and making her queen.
I read about honey as a hangover cure, how to make beeswax candles, and ancient Chinese honey-based medicine.
We discover a selection of honey-based recipes: a honey mint julep, baklava—its flaky layers of pastry dripping with honey, warm honey scones painted with a golden honey glaze, curried sweet potato soup with honey, and honey-lacquered scallops.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I tend to avoid baking with honey. I find that the flavor is so pronounced, much like maple syrup, and it can dominate and detract from other ingredients. Unless honey flavor is your goal (like a salted honey pie or honey snacking cake), I prefer the neutrality of sugar.
But there are some notable exceptions: I use honey to sweeten basic white sandwich bread. And I like honey as the sweetener in these nutty pecan semolina cookies.
And actually, knowing that I rarely bake with honey should make you really view this post as a ringing endorsement of the recipe; it’s exceptional enough to change my go-to baking habits.
The recipe is a riff off Dorie Greenspan’s excellent Moroccan semolina cookies, which I first made a few years ago and have loved ever since. Her version (which you can find in her cookie cookbook or online in various spots including the NYT) calls for almond flour and orange blossom water, which imparts a delicately floral sweetness to the cookies. I skip it, opting instead to add honey for a different flavor (I use a blend of honey and sugar, whereas she uses entirely granulated sugar).
And I swap pecan meal for her almond flour, giving them a toastier flavor, which is nice with the semolina flour.
Not only are they excellent, taste-wise, but they’re quite pretty too with their dimpled center (made by gently pressing your thumb into each round of dough). Dust them generously in confectioners’ sugar and freeze them if you like—they keep very well that way.
Honey Semolina Pecan Cookies
Makes 3 dozen cookies
1 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons (294g) semolina flour
2 cups (200g) pecan meal
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (99g) granulated sugar
1/4 cup (84g) honey
2 eggs, at room temperature
2 tablespoons (48g) vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
confectioners’ sugar, for dusting
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
Whisk together the semolina flour, pecan meal, baking powder, and salt.
In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat together the sugar, honey, and eggs and mix on medium-high speed for about 4 minutes, or until very pale in color. Reduce the mixer speed to medium and carefully pour in the oil, streaming it down the side of the bowl. Add the vanilla and continue mixing for another minute or two.
Add the dry ingredients to the mixer and mix on medium-low speed until the dough just comes together in a ball. Don’t overmix.
Pull off large chunks of dough (slightly smaller than the size of a golf ball) and roll them in your hands to form a ball, then roll them in a shallow bowl of confectioners’ sugar. Place the sugared balls on the baking sheets (leaving a few inches between each) and use your thumb to press a large divot into the center of each ball.
Bake for about 15 minutes, or until a very pale golden brown. Remove from the oven and let cool.