Red Bee Apiary Honey Tasting Workshops-2012

Honey expert, beekeeper and author Marina Marchese presents

Tasting and Pairing Italian Honey at

La Scoula EATALY - NYC

Here is a preview of Marina's

The American Honey Tasting Society's

2012 summer calendar of Honey Tastings

at Red Bee Apiary in Connecticut

Sunday, May 27 - East Coast Honey - Local Honey from Red Bee Apiary's perspective. A Taste of East Coast Terroir. Sweet and buttery blueberry blossom, dark rich tulip poplar, grassy alfalfa and fragrant goldenrod are a few favorites.

Sunday, June 3 - Italian Honey - Explore La Dolce Vita, Marina introduces you to the Italy honey experience. Light buttery acacia, dark bitter chestnut, nutty sunflower and aromatic eucalyptus are just a few you'll fall in love with...It's amore! Learn how to speak the language of honey in Italian too.

Sunday, June 10 - East Coast Honey - Local Honey from Red Bee Apiary's perspective. A Taste of East Coast Terroir. Sweet and buttery blueberry blossom, dark rich tulip poplar, grassy alfalfa and fragrant goldenrod are a few favorites.

Sunday, June 17 - West Coast Honey - A Taste of Honey Terroir from the West Coast. Delicate sages and fireweeds, desert cactus and wildflowers and dark avocado. Welcome to the wild west!

Saturday, June 23 /Slow Food MetroNorth Sponsors- Join us for a Taste of Local East Coast Slow Honey. We'll make Carlo Petrini proud as we learn how to speak the language of honey in Italian.

Sunday July 1 - Greek Honey - Learn about honey from one of the Ancient Honey Cultures. Camphorous thyme, forest pine and fir, healing chamomile all Mediterranean treasures.

Sunday, July 8 - Exotic and Rare Honey - Not for the Faint of Heart. Smokey Africans, bitter cherries, medicinal manuka and leatherwood from the land down under and rubbery ulmo from Chile. You'll learn that all Honey is not Sweet!

Sunday, July 15 - Local East Coast Honey - Local Honey from Red Bee Apiary's perspective. A Taste of East Coast Terroir. Sweet and buttery blueberry blossom, dark rich tulip poplar, grassy alfalfa and fragrant goldenrod are a few favorites.

Sunday, July 22 - Italian Honey - Explore La Dolce Vita, Marina introduces you to the Italy honey experience. Light buttery acacia, dark bitter chestnut, nutty sunflower and aromatic eucalyptus are just a few you'll fall in love with...It's amore! Learn how to speak the language of honey in Italian too.

Sunday, July 29 - Local East Coast Honey - Local Honey from Red Bee Apiary's perspective. A Taste of East Coast Terroir. Sweet and buttery blueberry blossom, dark rich tulip poplar, grassy alfalfa and fragrant goldenrod are a few favorites.

Reserve your seat now!

Are you interested in traveling for the ultimate honey tasting experience? Join Marina to the Settimana del Miele - The Honey festival in Montalcino, Italy. Renown for it's famous Brunello wine, this ancient Medieval town is also known as the City of Honey for the 50 different types of honeys produced in the Tuscan region. The Honey Festival is September 9, 10 and 11, 2012 and held in a castle with breath taking views of the local landscape.

For more information: Email redbee@optonline.net subject "Honey Festival"

Honey Tasting Laboratory Workshop

You're Invited!
RED BEE APIARY'S
next
Talk, Tour and Honey Tasting Laboratory Workshop
on Sunday, July 3rd, 2011

Learn about artisanal honey, learn how honeybees
make this liquid gold we call honey,
how location and nectar source determines
a honeys color and flavor and how honey is
harvested and extracted from the hive.
Marina will take guest through the
sensory analysis of tasting and evaluating
the honeys based upon the
Honey Sommelier chapters of her book
HONEYBEE Lessons from an Accidental Beekeeper.

Only a few coveted seats available!

Sign Up Here Today!

June Bugs are Honeybees

Read about
The Annual Hiving of the Honeybees at Red Bee Apiary

Last month I was interviewed by a woman who goes by the name of "The Aging Diva." Susan Crandell is more than just a diva but a vibrant woman, best known as the founding editor of MORE magazine. Recently, she turned in her seven-figure salary and Ferrari for a a career as a freelance writer. Susan is interested in woman who were brave enough to make similar life changes, that's how she found me, international designer turned beekeeper and Honey Sommelier. My transformation and personal journey was what Susan was after for her story titled: "Change your Life: Launching a business Selling Honey like Fine Wine."

Read Susan story:
Change Your Life:
Launching a Business, Selling Honey Like Fine Wine

Calendar of Events at Red Bee Apiary:

If you missed our last Honey Tasting Laboratory Workshop, you have another chance to join us...

JUNE 12
Tour, Talk and Honey Tasting Laboratory Workshop
+ Sunday, June 12, 2011 at 1:00 till 3:00pm
Join us for a Tasting Flight of Seven Artisanal honeys paired with farm style cheeses and accompaniments. with Red Bee's own Marina Marchese.
Event held at Red Bee Apiary, Weston, CT.



JUNE 18
Stone Barns Center For Food and Agriculture
+ Saturday, June 18, 2011 Beekeeper Marina Marchese, founder of Red Bee Honey will discuss her book HONEYBEE Lessons from an Accidental Beekeeper
as mentioned in Better Homes and Gardens this month!
Honey Tasting to follow

When it Rains, it Pours and here comes April Showers.......

Hello again Friends, Beekeepers and Honey Lovers,

It's been a wildly busy new year for me and Red Bee Apiary. My book HONEYBEE was recently released in paperback with a brand new cover featuring a complimentary quote from The Washington Times -“Ms. Marchese has given us a lovely gift. Honeybee: Lessons from an Accidental Beekeeper is an entertaining and useful primer for the novice and honeybee devotee alike.” This has brought me some wonderful new opportunities to speak at some venues this year that I could only dream about like Stone Barns Center For Food and Agriculture and the Eastern Apicultural Society annual conference in RI.

Above is a preview of the story in

Life@Home Magazine

When it rains it pours and April is showering on me with lovely stories about my work and memorable Honey Tastings in magazines like Life@ Home and Cottages & Gardens. It's incredible to believe that my book is being read in the far corners of the planet and last week I set my alarm clock for 4:00 am to speak with Ann Meyer host of The Food Hour Radio Show in Fremantle, Australia about single-origin nectar source honey. I am pleased that foodies and chefs are paying attention to honey by the floral source and Ms. Meyer appreciated the chapter titled Honey Sommlier. Period Living Magazine in the UK mentioned my book in their Going Green section. If that's not the icing on the cake, Time magazine recently interviewed me for a story on the astounding new interest in beekeeping across the nation. The trends are clear, the future of beekeeping is woman and creatives who are taking this hobby to new levels. Has the world gone honeybee crazy or is this just part of the new greening of the world we live in?

Above is a preview of Cottages & Gardens magazine

story featuring Red Bee Apiary.

Many of you have asked if we will be holding Honey Tasting events again in our apiary gardens this summer. We are kicking off the season early with our first Tour, Talk and Honey Tasting of the year on Sunday, May 29, 2011 at 1:00 till 3:00 pm. Visitors will be treated to a short guided tour of the apiary gardens while learning about honeybees and how they make this liquid gold we call honey. The fun continues with a formal honey tasting, farmhouse style in the apiary gardens. Please sign up early if you miss this opportunity there will be others throughout the season. So check our calendar of events for the dates, I hope many of you who expressed interest in the past will make it to one of these fun and educational honey tastings.

Here is a fantastic shot of a worker in action,

note the pollen on her hind legs.

This year we are hoping to plant a few acres of sunflowers upstate at one of the farms we work with hoping the honeybees will bring us sunflower honey! More later....thank you to all of you who signed up for our newsletter and continued support of honey and the bees who make it!

If you are looking for more about Red Bee Apiary or my book HONEYBEE follow me on Facebook.

Bee good to yourself...everyday!

Marina

Red Bee Apiary

Me? The Red Queen.......

Last summer I had the great pleasure to sit down with James Beard Award–winning food writer Rowan Jacobsen here at Red Bee Apiary for a tasting flight of more than 25 honeys. For those of you who are not familiar with Rowan, he is a food writer and author of five books including Fruitless Fall: The Collapse of the Honey Bee and the Coming Agricultural Crisis which addresses the disappearing honeybee syndrome. In his new book American Terroir: Savoring the Flavors of our Woods, Waters, and Fields, Rowan explains the French concept of Terroir or "Taste of Place" for the best of local foods found here in America.

Fresh off the plane from my recent trip to the Honey Festival in Montalcino, I found the advanced reading copy in my heaping pile of mail. With memories of Tuscan honey still fresh on my tongue, I dived into Rowan's new book to find a hilarious recount of his visit with me and our honey tasting experience together which begins on page 90. Rowan refers to me as "The Red Queen" and takes the reader along the ride for an intimate look into my private vault of honeys, nectar source by nectar source. In detail we discuss each of the honeys by their aromas, colors and flavor profiles, just as it was fine wine. Our two day honey binge practically left him in a honey-induced coma. It is a rare event for me to stumble upon someone who will actually entertain my passion for single-origin honeys and Rowan lived to tell the story. If you are a locavore and foodie, American Terroir will satisfy your hunger!

Red Bee Honey Tasting Events

SEPTEMBER 28, 2010
Le Pain Quotidien Speaker Series
Mineral Springs location, Central Park, NYC at 6:30 pm

OCTOBER 16, 2010
First Annual Connecticut Cheese & Wine Festival
Hopkins Vineyard
25 Hopkins Rd in New Preston, CT
Red Bee Honey signature Tasting Table
Saturday October 16, 2010 from 11 am to 5 pm

NOVEMBER 9
Honey and Cheese school
+ Tuesday, November 9, 2010 at 7-9 pm
Fairfield Cheese Shop
2090 Post Road Fairfield, CT 203.292.8194
info@fairfieldcheese.com
Honeys and artisanal cheeses with complementary wines from Harry's Wine and Liquor.

NOVEMBER 10

Heavenly Honey and Artisanal Cheeses
+ Wednesday, November 10, 2010 at 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm
Artisanal Premium Cheese Center, Manhattan, NY
483 Tenth Avenue, New York, NY 10018
Join beekeeper and author of Honeybee: Lessons from an
Accidental Beekeeper, Marina Marchese, owner of Red Bee
Honey and Fromagere Erin Hedley for an enlightening
evening of discovery with delectable pairings of
artisanal honeys and artisanal cheeses with complementary wines.

NOVEMBER 15
How Sweet it is: Honey & Cheese
+ Monday, November 15, 2010 at 6:30 am - 8:00 pm
Murray's Cheese
254 Bleecker St.(between 6th & 7th Ave.)
New York, NY 10014 RSVP:212.243.3289
We'll be pairing Red Bee single varietal American
honeys with the finest farmhouse cheeses.
HONEYBEE book signing to follow

Blooming and Buzzing!

Our gardens are blooming and the bees are buzzing! It's finally June at Red Bee® and is it just me, or is everyone crazy for honey? Now more than ever, people are paying attention to where their food comes from and now...even their honey. Did you know that honeybees are responsible for pollinating 100 different fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, spices? My personal favorites that I could not live without are coffee, chocolate and the cotton for my blue jeans. Beekeepers nurture natures greatest pollinators while providing local honey at their source. They are the rising rock stars of today's green movement. We find ourselves here at Red Bee Apiary are busier than ever, educating the public on honey and beekeeping. People are reading labels too! They understand that what you put on your body is as important as what you put in it. With that said, our Rossape sustainable skin care products are getting attention too. Could bees and honey possibly be getting a little bit of respect?



So if your interested in learning more about the health benefits and the culinary delights of honey, join us at one of our workshops here at Red Bee Apiary. There are a few coveted seats left for our next Seven Flight Honey Tasting Workshop on Sunday, June 20th at 1:00 pm till 3:00 pm. Reserve your seat on our web site.


Learn how honeybees make this liquid gold we call honey, how location and nectar source determines a honeys color and flavor and how is harvested and extracted from the comb. Beekeeper and Honey Sommelier, Marina Marchese will show us how to taste and evaluate honey using the Honey Sommelier tasting guide in her new book HONEYBEE Lessons from an Accidental Beekeeper.

Read: What Fairfield Green Food Guide says about our Honey Tasting Events!


If you can't make our formal events, our Honey Tasting and Bottling Kitchen is opened 12:00 noon till 4:00 pm seven days a week by appointment only. Honey lovers are invited to join us for a Tasting Flight of any seven honeys of your choice with accompaniments locally produced bread and goat or brie cheeses for $5.00 per person. Groups of six or more could reserve our veranda overlooking the apiary and gardens.

Red Bee® JUNE EVENTS

SATURDAYS •••••••
Farmers Markets have officially begun and Red Bee Honey can be found at the New Canaan and Fairfield Brick Walk markets.

JUNE 3
Ocean County Library Stafford Branch • 129 N. Main Street, Manahawkin, NJ 08050
Honeybee Lessons from an Accidental Beekeeper Book Talk

JUNE 5
Sculpture Barn Art Center • Preservation Celebration • 3 Millltown Road RT39, New Fairfield, CT
Honey, Cheese and Wine Tasting

June 12
Centennial Bee Day Party • Brooklyn Botanical Gardens
Honey Tasting and Honeybee book signing

JUNE 20
Seven Flight Honey Tasting
at Red Bee Apiary

JUNE 25
Artisanal Cheese Center • Honey, Cheese and Wine
Beekeeper and Honey Sommelier Marina Marchese and Affineur Erin Hedley

Here is one of our favorite recipes It is so easy and elegant...
Honey Figs with Goat Cheese and Pecans Recipe

Goat cheese or Chèvre cheese is cheese made from goat's milk (chèvre is French for goat). In regions where domesticated goats are kept, many kinds of goat's milk cheeses are produced.
Caprino is a Italian goat's milk cheese and Castelo Branco is a Portuguese goat's milk cheese. So don’t be afraid to experiment.

Servings: 6
Prep Time: 25 minutes

Ingredients:
1cup pecans, finely chopped
3/4 cup of wildflower honey
6 oz log of goat cheese
12 fresh figs Calimyrna or black missions, halved
Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper


Methods:
Place the finely chopped pecans in a shallow dish. Season with salt and pepper. Roll the goat cheese log in the pecans to evenly coat. Refrigerate log until firm. To serve, cut evenly into rounds. Divide figs evenly between 6 dessert plates. Top figs with a round of pecan crusted goat cheese. Drizzle 2 tablespoons of honey over each serving. Serve immediately.

Honey, not just for your Tea

Honey and tea has been a staple for as long as we could remember. Grandmother's swore that it would ease symptoms related to colds and flues. The latest buzz is that local honey helps seasonal allergies and our customer swear by this. They stop by daily, specifically to purchase our local honey.

Here at Red Bee Apiary, we use honey on just about everything and there is no food that has escaped the drizzle of our liquid gold, from home baked breads to a sweetener for our morning coffee. YES, I said coffee. Who ever thought honey could be the perfect "green" sweetener for your morning Joe? It's full of minerals and vitamins that you won't find in processed sweeteners.

To help you explore the possibilities of coffee and honey, we are hosting a Coffee Roasting Workshop here in our gardens at Red Bee Apiary and posting three of our favorite honey recipes below. Coffee and Honey are the perfect accompaniments for home baked breads. We will be serving up all three of these tasty honey spreads with locally made Wave Hill breads and the freshly roasted coffee at the workshop.

Please join us for a Coffee Roasting Workshop with Peter and Junalyn Duveen of the Siberian Pipeline Coffee Company in NY. Learn how to roast your own coffee beans for a much fresher, robust flavor. Find out about pan-roasted coffee, and automatic roasting machines, and taste the result--freshly brewed coffee with delicious locally made Wave Hill Bread and Red Bee Honeys! Each guest will receive one sample sized bag of coffee beans.

Sign Up for our Coffee Roasting Workshop

Here's a sneak preview of what's on the menu at
Red Bee's Coffee Roasting Workshop
RECIPES:

Coffee Creamed Honey

Makes 1 cup

• 9 oz. creamed honey
• 1 Tablespoon instant coffee
• 1 teaspoon hot water

In small bowl, bring creamed honey to room temperature. Combine instant coffee and hot water. Add to creamed honey. Stir in quickly but do not blend completely, leaving some swirls of coffee. Chill until ready to serve. Makes 8 2-Tablespoon servings.

Chocolate Honey Hazelnut Spread (Nutella)

Makes 1-1/4 cups

• 1/2 cup honey
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup ground skinned roasted hazelnuts
• 1 teaspoon raw cocoa powder
  

Cream honey and butter; add hazelnuts and stir until smooth. Serve spread at room temperature; store in refrigerator, tightly covered. Cream honey and butter; add hazelnuts and stir until smooth. Serve spread at room temperature; store in refrigerator, tightly covered. * Roast hazelnuts on flat pan at 325°F for 15 minutes or until skins blister and nuts are lightly browned. Cool slightly; rub between palms of hands or with clean towel to remove skins. Grind in blender or food processor until fine but not pasty.

Whipped Honey Cinnamon Butter

Makes 1 cup

• 1/2 cup (6 oz.) whipped or creamed honey
  
• 1/4 lb. (1 stick) butter, softened
• 1 teaspoons ground cinnamon
  

In a medium bowl, mix together honey and butter. Spoon into jars with tight-fitting lids. Store in refrigerator.

Honey Bee Open House

What’s Buzzing at the New Canaan Nature Center?
Honey Bee Open House
144 Oenoke Ridge
New Canaan, CT 06840
Phone: (203) 966-9577
Saturday, July 25, 2009
10:00 AM – 2:00 PM

Did you know that one third of our food is pollinated by honeybees? Did you know that we have lost 50% of our honeybees in the United States due to environmental stresses and a little known condition called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD)?

Everyone is invited to our Honey Bee Open House to learn more about honey bees and honey, pollination, the amazing health benefits and the importance to our environment and ecosystem.

• 10:00AM Unveiling of the new honeybee observation hive in the Discovery Room
• 11:00AM – Noon Marina Marchese, owner of Red Bee Honey will share her experiences as a beekeeper and conduct a honey tasting to highlight different nectar sources that create each unique flavor profile
• Noon – 1:00PM Encaustics (beeswax) art demonstration with Silvermine Guild artist Elizabeth Back, Nash Hyon, Kari Englehart, Leslie Guiliani and Maria Marchese
• 1:00PM Wildflower walk & talk
• 1:30PM Honeybee costume parade - prizes will be awarded!

Peanut Brittle with Red Bee® Honey

Behind the Burner's host Divya plans a Perfect Summer picnic with easy recipes for a breezy bean salad, sumptuous sandwiches and perfect peanut brittle using Red Bee® wildflower honey! This recipe is so easy that I tried it at home and it turned out fabuloso! For those of you who are impatient the peanut brittle with honey recipe begins at three minutes into the video.

I've become a Honey Sommelier!

For those of you who still think of honey as a condiment well have I got news for you. I have just returned from the University of Georgia's annual Beekeeping Institute where I learned the art of honey judging. I studied under the finest, Robert Brewer, co-founder of the Institute, coordinator of their Master Beekeeper program and Certified Welsh Honey Judge. Yes, there are honey judging shows! Honey is respected all over the world similar to wine and olive oil and now these standards have crossed the Atlantic and landed in Georgia. The program consist of a class based upon the Welsh credentials and an opportunity to steward (assist) in a real honey show. Judges adorn a white lab coat and fedora style cap seen in the photo above of world decorated honey judge Michael Young of Dublin. (The one holding the jar of honey)

Michael is a chef, artist, life long beekeeper and founder of the Welsh Beekeepers Association. He holds 3 prestigious certifications for honey judging. I had the pleasure to meet him back in 2003 at London's National Honey Show where hundreds of beekeepers enter their honey and at numerous beekeeping educational programs. This talented and gracious man personally extended an invitation to me to contact Robert directly and take the course to become a certified honey judge.


Robert and Michael are responsible for raising the esteem of honey among beekeepers here in the U.S. Honey judges evaluate honey on color, clarity, smell, taste and presentation. Who knew honey tasting was a high art? I've presented similar honey tastings at Murray's Cheese Shop (I wrote about it on my earlier blog post) and many of Red Bee's customers. Guest are always surprised to learn that there is more than one type of honey besides what you find in that silly plastic bear on grocery store shelves. Hummmm...maybe this is why some people claim not to like honey. Obviously, they've never tried blueberry blossom or comb honey.

There are approximately 300 different honeys found in the U.S. alone each with its own flavor based upon the nectar source of individual flowers foraged by the honeybees. This is the basis of my recently completed book titled Honey Sommelier, honey is a gourmet worthy food that can be tasted and evalutaed similar to wine. I have collected and researched some 200 different honeys from around the United States and the globe documenting nectar sources, color, tasting and pairing notes. This is the ultimate honey lovers resource guide that will change the way many think about honey by your local Honey Sommelier.