down on the farm
Calleva Farm is all abuzz with some newfound friends
BY NIKI MARKOFF
In 2021, I entered the world of beekeeping when, during COVID, the Maryland Beekeepers Association put their intro to beekeeping class online. My COVID adopted pets were 60,000 or more honeybees inherited from Dave Harding, Calleva beekeeper for many years. Dave had quietly raised nucs and queens, taught beekeeping classes, made delicious honey cakes and whimsical beeswax candles. I admired his work and thought this was surely something I could do. I attended the class, took copious notes, and passed the exam. It was official. I was a beekeeper
Four years later, my garage is filled with beekeeping equipment. Doorknobs and the dogs are covered in honey, and there are spots
Niki Markoff and Marlon Rios help remove a colony of wild honey bees from Dr. Kate Kirksey’ s barn and move it to the Calleva Farm in Dickerson, Maryland. on the kitchen floor that still feel sticky despite numerous moppings. Bees have always been enchanting creatures in my life. As a child, I read The Honeybear over and over again with my Scottish granny. The Honeybear is a story of a bear who brings a human baby to a honey party at his home. The parents find the baby and the bear deep in the woods happily covered in honey. I grew up with the idea that bees were flower fairies in tune with the magical aspects of nature. Fairy tales aside, I now know that both honeybees and native bee species are valuable as pollinators in our landscape.
Ancient artifacts tell us that King Tut and Cleopatra were dressed in stripes of black and gold. King Tut had honey pots in his tomb to keep him happy in his celestial journey to the afterlife. Many other ancient cultures also used a combination of wax and honey in the mummification process. A 4,300-year-old tomb uncovered in the Republic of Georgia contained wild berry offerings to the dead. The berries were still red and smelled sweet like berries do because they were preserved in honey.
Modern science agrees that honey has antiseptic properties. Honey is used to treat everything from wounds and the common cold to seasonal allergies and neuropathy. Beekeeping can even be used as a type of therapy.
The daughters of my former beekeeping partner, whom I miss terribly, painted Calleva’ s hive boxes in designs and quotes like“ Bee Keeping is a full time job” and“ Bee Happy!,” which makes our apiary a welcoming space for all.
30 plenty I summer growing 2026