Bee Merry...Bee Bright!

Hello Friends, Honey Lovers and Fellow Beekeepers!

The most popular question this time of year is: What do bees do in the winter? Lots of people have all sorts of different ideas about what they might do: “Do you bring the bees inside? Do you put a little heater in the hive?” The idea of bees cuddling around a tiny space heater is adorable, but that would not be the truth. Actually, they cluster in the warmest part of the hive-closest to the sun-with their queen in the center. As the bees cluster around her, they shiver constantly to keep her, and themselves warm. On less chilly days, the bees will crawl over to the honeycombs where they have stored their winter honey and take a bit to feed themselves and the queen. In this way, they keep warm during the winter months and make their honey last through winter and survive into the spring.

Keep your antennae out for a special New Years Eve recipe pairing cheese, champagne, and of course, honey!

Merry, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all!
From all of us at Red Bee Apiary.

I Love you, Honey!

We are celebrating LOVE at Red Bee® this Valentine's Day! Romance and passion for all things sustainable and sweet...we're talking Honey, nature's oldest sweetener. Luscious honey that should be drizzled on your sweethearts breakfast waffles or in their evening bath. Honey is good for you inside and out...really! Sexy and sticky, honey is a romantic treat to be enjoyed by all true lovers.

Here are a few gifts suggestions from Red Bee® for yourself or your special Valentine। We have put together our favorite romantic products from our Rossape™ skin care collection to create a true spa experience. Light our pure beeswax candles and begin with a warm bath sprinkled with our European bath salts, chamomile flowers, buttermilk and honey, gently scented with lavender essential oils. Or would you prefer a massage with our sweet almond body oil or a lemon and peppermint foot rub worthy of any Queen bee?

To keep your skin perfectly smooth and hydrated spread our honeybee butter balm on elbows, knees, heels and even your face. You'll shine like silk and smell like divine rose oil. Our secret recipe includes coconut butter and grape seed oil for a deep hydration. A bottle of our artisanal honey is included...so use your imagination. Relax, unwind and rejuvenate body and soul. If you are a purest Rossape™ will be your passion.



Honey for your Honey, give the gift that keeps on giving...all year long! Our Honey of the Month Club is a spectacular way to say I Love You! Each month we will send one of our Red Bee® artisanal honeys to that special someone along with tasting notes and pairings। Blueberry, Clover, Goldenrod or Tulip honey, what could be more decadent? Choose 4, 6 or 12 months.

Join me at my next event

VALENTINE’S DAY HONEY AND WINE PAIRING EVENT AT CELLAR 58

February 14, 2010 at 7pm-9pm

Owner Maria Pezzella and Chef Andrea Tiberi of Cellar 58 is delighted to present a cooking demonstration with Red Bee artisanal honey. Joining Chef Andrea will be Marina Marchese, owner and founder of Red Bee Honey. Guests will be treated to a 3-course cooking demonstrating with Red Bee artisanal honeys with Chef Andrea. Marina Marchese will discuss details of her new book HONEYBEE and present a honey tasting and cheese pairing.

Space limited. Please register by Thursday, February 11, 2010

by calling 212-420-1300. Tickets: $35/per person. Special for 2: $60.

Includes three-course meal, honey and cheese pairings,

plus one glass of wine per person.

Red Bee’s signature honeys will also be available,

as well as Cellar 58’s extensive wine list.

So Bee good to yourself or your Valentine...everyday with a Red Bee® gift.

For more info visit www.redbee.com

THEECOLUXELIFE and Red Bee

We are pleased to announce that Red Bee will be partnering with The Eco Luxe Life an on-line Ecouture retailer who will be distributing a selection of our Rossape collection of sustainable skin care products. The Eco Luxe Life is a green company that is run by three woman, Alex, Lauren and Synde who offer everything for a healthy lifestyle from beauty to bags for pets and even people. Their tag line is "IF you need it-we can green it." I already spied a Garden-in-a-pail kit that is a must have. Can you tell I am ready for spring? I am loving the Bioplanet spoons made from 100% corn. These will make earth friendly honey tasting spoons at our events we have coming up. See calendar below....

So take a peek at The Eco Luxe Life's one stop shopping and your Red Bee products can be shipped along with your other favorite items. The benefit is in the time saved and the combined shipping cost is a saving in your pocket cost. Take a peek here at http://theecoluxelife.com.

There are many new exciting events and media features planned for 2010. We will keep you posted here on our blog or friend me on facebook if you have not already "Red Bee Marina" or become a fan of my book "HONEYBEE Lessons from an Accidental Beekeeper."
Come by and say hello at one of my upcoming Red Bee events:

JANUARY 26
Back Yard Beekeepers Association
+ Tuesday, January 26, 2010 at 7:30p + FREE
Honeybee book discussion and honey tasting
Norfield Congregational Church, Weston, CT

FEBRUARY 26
Great Chefs 2010
+ Friday, February 26, 2010 at 6:30p
Red Bee signature Honey Tasting Table
Hyatt Regency Old Greenwich to benefit the wellness
programs offered by Community Health at Greenwich Hospital.
For tickets contact Jackie Hvolbeck at 203.863.3863.

This is a spectacular fundraiser for the Greenwich Hospital We are excited to be donating our time and artisanal honey for the fifth year. We are in good company, over 50 of the finest restaurants, catering companies and wine distributors from Fairfield and Westchester counties will gather to promote their venues, wines and signature dishes. The special guest chef and honoree for this event will be Rafael Palomino (Proprietor and Chef of Greenwich Tavern, Greenwich, CT; Sonora, Port Chester, NY; Blackrock Tavern, Fairfield, CT; and Pacífico, New Haven, CT and Center Valley, PA). Dancing and a silent auction will round out the event. Tickets for Great Chefs are sold in advance only and space is limited to 500 guests. RSVP is necessary.

Red Bee Marina and Chef Peter Gorman are serving decadent honey with farm cheeses to guest at our signature honey tasting table.

Queen Bee Foot Rub

I know winter has officially arrived when my skin is dry and my feet begin to crack and peel. Nothing makes me feel better than my own home made Queen Bee Foot Rub. This easy to make product requires a few simple ingredients and can be whipped at home in less than 30 minutes. If you notice that store bought moisturizing products simply sit on your skin then wash off later as a waxy mess. This is PARAFFIN wax...or simply industrial waste! It never penetrates your skin and actually prevents the beneficial oils from moisturizing. My wax of choice is pure beeswax. It's is pure, natural and emollient. Beeswax completely dissolves allowing the moisturizing oils to penetrate your skin and promote relief and healing. You will feel the difference!

Try this recipe:

Ingredients:
6 ounces olive oil
1 ounce beeswax
1/4 teaspoon lemon essential oil
1/4 teaspoon peppermint essential oil

Tools:
Wire whisk
Heat proof glass bowl
Cooking pan with water or double boiler
Stainless teaspoon

Method:
1) Measure the oil and beeswax to a heat proof measuring glass bowl and place the bowl into a bath of boiling water.

2) Mix well with a wire whisk until the wax is nearly completely melted. Remove the bowl from the water and stir the ingredients to thoroughly combine. Add the essential oils with teaspoon and stir well.

3) While still warm and liquid pour into small plastic or glass jars being careful not to spill. Mix will harden slowly as it cools. Place caps on jars when mixture becomes room temperature.

This recipe can be easily adapted to your own preferences in scents by adding in your favorite essential oils. I use peppermint to aid in circulation and lemon as a natural antiseptic. Enjoy!

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.

Bee Day!

Last Saturday was Bee Hiving day here at Red Bee Apiary. We picked up our girls in Vista, NY bright and early with great anticipation. They seemed quite content while I poured each box into their new hives. No major incidents just a lovely day with my honeybees. The hives are set high up on a hill behind our meditating Buddha statue overlooking the gardens. There they get full sun early in the morning so my girls get up and out to work. This year I cleaned up all my hives by torching the insides as to remove any unwanted bacteria or pests that may be lingering inside. Also, I replaced all the frames and foundation so my honeybees are starting out with all new fresh equipment. They will be happy about that! A clean hive.


Our beautiful rooster who I call Oscar Wilde, he definitely is dressed in drag, did not seem to mind a few new honeybee hives around his hens.

If you want a life where you can eat all day...come back as a chicken. Literally, they eat ALL DAY LONG and don't seem to gain a pound. We have free range, fresh eggs daily and of course honey!

I do want to share with you the details of my upcoming book HONEYBEE Lessons from and Accidental Beekeeper. Its due out in September! It is my personal story of how I began keeping honeybees. These amazing creatures quickly took over my life and that first taste of fresh honey from the beehive was incredibly delicious enough for me to dive in and learn more. I uncovered so much fascinating information along my journey that honey and beekeeping is now a full time adventure and I made it my life. Stay Tuned for more about my book and events I will be participating in! Here is a sneak preview of the cover.......

Red Bee ® will be at the New Canaan Farmers Market each Saturday 10-2pm and Ridgefield on Fridays 3-7 pm. We've been invited to so many new markets this year we cannot keep up. We will have our honey for sale in many other markets by volunteers so keep an eye out for Red Bee ® products. For those readers from other places we are located in Connecticut. Hope to see you there!

If you are in the neighborhood and want to stop by to pick up some honey or any of our other handmade pure and sustainable skin care just let us know you are coming so we can greet you!

Beekeeper as Artist Encaustic Beeswax Art Show

Finally, this September I will be having my first solo exhibit of my newest beeswax encaustic paintings. The show will be called appropriately "Beekeeper as Artist." I hope you can all come to the reception on September 17th from 5:30 till 7:30 pm at the Bartlett Arboretum in Stamford. If you've never seen this place it is a hidden treasure with fabulous gardens and an old cottage where my work will be displayed. I am extremely excited to be showing my work here. Of course, there will be a honey tasting for guest to indulge in, paired off with cheeses and my favorite picks of wines.

Some of you may notice that I chose to print up my invitation completely in Italian. Many of you may not be able to speak or write another language but I think the information will be pretty clear even if you are not bi or tri-lingual. This is just my way of continually embracing my Italian heritage and immersing myself in the culture of La Dolce Vita. I am hoping to have my next show in Rome sometime next year. Hope you can come! Afterwards, stay at my bee farm in Puglia. It is going to be a completely renovated agriturisimo meaning farm bed and breakfast. Details to follow.

Here is a sneak preview of my first self portrait in encaustic beeswax. I'm pretty happy with it and definitely my whimsical illustration style comes through here.
Below I am posting my artist statement:

I was unexpectedly drawn to encaustic painting 8 years ago when I first became a beekeeper; this highly provocative medium has its rich roots in the ancestral land of my forefathers, Italy, specifically the paintings at Pompeii. Encaustic, meaning “burned in” is beeswax mixed with pigments that is melted on a heated palette. It is applied to a surface to fuse the bees wax and paint together. The beauty of encaustics is the unpredictability and flexibility that gives the artist its own voice. To me, there is nothing more seductive than the smell of bees wax melting in my studio. Encaustic painting lends itself to my whimsical sense of color, texture and pattern that were my signature as a commercial illustrator. The works seen here are my personal attempt to translate my illustration style into unrestraint and freedom from art direction and manic deadlines!

A good time is guaranteed for all. Gradisca!

The Bartlett Arboretum & Gardens
151 Brookdale Road Stamford, CT 06903
Opening reception:
Thursday, September 18, 2008 5:30 till 7:30 PM
Vox: 203.322.6971
http://www.bartlettarboretum.org

Ferrogosto Honeycomb!

August is here and beside celebrating Ferrogosto, in celebration of our Honey harvest. Derived from two Latin words, Feriae Augusti, meaning August rest. In ancient Rome after the cereal crops were harvested, there was a large celebration for the farmers and the draft animals. They were given a well-deserved rest: they were even adorned with many flowers. These celebrations were also in honor of the Emperor Augustus Caesar, and the main day of this celebration was August 15^th. We have removed frames of honeycomb from our hives and cut them neatly to be sold as boxes of our ever popular honeycomb! Here is a photo of a perfectly filled deep frame of honey. Honeycomb is truly natures perfect food.

If you've never had the pleasure of tasting this truly divine treat this is a must before you die and go to Naples. I recommend first spreading this on your favorite piece of toast. You can add some butter first. Who does not love honey butter? My next recommendation is spreading some honeycomb onto a cracker or piece of baguette then spreading a little brie, goat or any triple creme style cheese. You might think about your last rites beforehand because these are matches made only on heaven!

“Can you eat the wax?” Asked a shopper at our local farmers market, “YES! You can and it is divine”, I answered with great enthusiasm. This age old question was referring to the bees wax of our Red Bee® honeycomb. If you’ve never had the pleasure to taste this rare delicacy, honeycomb is that clear box of nature’s purest honey still in its original wax. Charles Darwin described honeycomb, as a masterpiece of engineering that is "absolutely perfect in economizing labor and wax." We at Red Bee® think honeycomb is honest to goodness raw honey. Raw honey, meaning unheated, contains minerals and vitamins and is a quick source of energy. When you spread honeycomb on a slice of bread, the honey oozes out of the tiny wax cells exposing it for the first time to the air, making it unconditionally fresh, straight from our own beehives. Unknown to many; honeycomb also relieves sinus pressure and sore throats.
It takes about 556 worker bees to gather 1 pound of honey from about 2 million flowers. The process begins with the female worker bee; who begins foraging at the first 3 to 4 weeks of her life. Forager bees gather up nectar and pollen by visiting flowers within 2-3 miles of their hive. She sucks up the flowers nectar with her long, tube-like tongue and stores it in her special honey sac stomach. This stomach is separate from her digestive stomach. She carries the nectar back to the hive. The nectar is mixed with the worker bee’s own enzyme called invertase inside her honey stomach to make the honey ripen. Then it is stored in the hexagonal shaped honeycombs made from beeswax. Worker bees within the hive fan the liquid nectar with their wings, which helps to evaporate the extra water and bring the water content to 18% and thus thicken the nectar into honey. Honey is harvested each autumn and it takes a whole year, beginning in the spring for the honeybees to make an over surplus of honey again. Besides making honey, bees are responsible for pollinating 100 fruits, vegetables and nuts making up 1/3 of the human diet. Honeybees are vital to human survival.




In ancient times, honey was highly valued and often used as a form of currency or offering. The ancient Romans paid their taxes with honey, as did the Egyptians and Aztecs of Central America. Honey also has a rich culinary history as nature’s oldest sweetener and preservative for baked goods. Traditional Rosh Hashana rituals include dipping apples into honey. A natural accompaniment to all food groups, you will be delighted to find that honeycomb pairs exceptionally well with Murray’s cheeses, yogurts and crackers. Just take a small butter or cheese knife and dig in, spread this divine treat on toast or baguette. We suggest pairing it with goat or Brie cheeses. What a brilliant idea to serve a chunk of honeycomb as the centerpiece for your next cheese platter. Garnish it with some marcona almonds, fresh pears or figs and bread, your guest will be enchanted to experience honey in the classical European tradition. Did you know that honey never needs refrigeration and never spoils so give the gift of a honeycomb for the holidays. Get yourself some honeycomb today!

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.