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| Frank, Klas and honey. |
Anyhoo, while I'm sure Frank can, and will, give us interesting leads on local, slow food in Chicago, the topic of our first conversation was...honey.
"I was invited to be part of a Slow Food event about 5-6 years ago, put together by the Chicago Honey Bee Co-op. After the event I was talking to some of the members. They took me on a tour of an apiary, and I loved it. I started beekeeping myself. I even for a while tended the hives at the Morton Arboretum. But that became overwhelming with the other projects I was involved with, so I no longer do that," Frank told me.
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| Frank bottles his own; raw, unpasteurized, small batch. |
"Bees will overwinter, but I lose about half of the bees each winter, so I need to replenish the hives each year. I do things a little differently than a lot of beekeepers. I won't use any antibiotics, fungicides or any other treatments in my hives. I might lose more bees each year, but my honey is is chemical free, local and raw," Frank explained to me.
Now, about local. There is some discussion that for allergy sufferers, eating honey produced in their locality can help alleviate their symptoms. Some people I've spoken to swear that taking a small amount, such as a teaspoon a day, over the winter helps them build a resistance to the offensive pollen when allergy season arrives. I did a little internet research, and found that science does not support this claim. I will not try telling that to those that feel they've had success, however. What works for you, works for you. End of story.
However, it is clear that "local' is key in that theory. Eating honey produced in France, for example, will not affect your sniffling at all. Even honey produced in southern Illinois won't be so helpful. Local means as close to the area in which you are suffering as possible. That's where Frank comes in to many of his local customers.
"I sell honey at Klas, at Tischler's Supermarket in Brookfield, and at a few boutique grocers and deli's in Chicago. Also, some people buy the propolis that the bees produce. The bees use propolis to seal their hives in the winter, and when harvested it's used as a tonic for skin irritations and wounds. It's very anti-bacterial."
Frank also feels that the honey produced in a city environment is superior to honey produced near vast fields of corn and soybeans because those areas have much more pesticide and herbicide exposure, affecting the plants that the bees are pollinating. As long as your neighbors aren't spraying their gardens, the bees and the honey produced in our neighborhood is not affected by these chemicals.
Even if you don't eat honey, you do eat something. Chances are super strong that something you ate today is dependent on the honeybee for it's existence. But the existence of the honeybee is now on shaky ground. Whether it's a virus, pesticide exposure, or loss of flowers and wild spaces as we continue to plow up native land for factory fields of monoculture crops, honeybees all over the world are dying. Small beekeepers such as Frank are fighting to keep the critters that pollinate our apples, asparagus, broccoli, blueberries, onions, cherrries, cucumbers, watermelons, etc. etc. alive and among us. And many small beekeepers have folded under the stress of the battle.
But Frank is committed to his hives and his contribution to our local ecosystem. I hope to have Frank into the Focus Yoga studio soon to bring in jars of his honey and talk a bit more. If you'd like to read up-to-date theories on what is causing the honeybee loss, and why you should even care at all, Time magazine has made a cover feature of the story, and you can read it on line here.
