At this very moment, Melissa Cartwright of Mellifera Bees is most likely on the sticky side, up to her neck in boxes of honey ready to be carted off to The Croatian Cultural Centre for Got Craft? this weekend. To get a little sticky ourselves, we recently went over to Melissa’s to learn a little more about her and her honey.

Three things about Mount Pleasant that make you want to live there: I like being near everything whether it is by foot, bike or transit. The streets are quiet and in the spring the trees down my street form an archway of pink blossoms, which I enjoy cruising through standing up on my bike.

Where are you originally from? Born in Chile, raised in Vancouver.

How did your connection to food begin? I’m fortunate to have grown up with an awareness around presentation, nutrition, and food production, so a base connection to my food is natural. My grandmother used to get me to do things I was scared of by bribing me with the promise of a pack of radish seeds that I could plant in the spring. That’s my first real memory of being excited about food. With honey the connection comes primarily through the bees; they are incredibly complex and fascinating creatures.

How did you fall in to the business of bees and honey? It started with reading a book on bees, which lead to more reading, and a beekeeping course. I started with one hive as a hobby and it slowly grew out of a hobby into making specialty infused honeys.

What was your background before taking on Mellifera? My background is in Fine Arts, design and fashion. I’ve worked in costume shops for Theatre, Opera and Ballet. I’ve also worked in footwear design and product development.

What is your favorite Mellifera creation right now? I’m pretty jazzed on the gift boxes that I have for the holiday season. I have one with a trio of my ‘hyper-local’ honeys. I have three city locations, and I extract the honey from each separately so to create honeys named after the intersection where the bees are kept. Whatever is planted in the neighbourhood is what lends itself to the flavour profile of that honey. I have “Main & East. Georgia” “St. George & 28th” and “Maple & 36th”

What are the main differences between the honey in this trio?  “Main & East. Georgia” – thick and dark, nutty dark caramel;
“St. George & 28th” – medium bodied, honey comb and pepper; “Maple & 36th” – smooth, light and easy going.

Something about bees or honey that most people don’t know: Each bee in her lifetime will make approx 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey.

Most unusual place you have seen a beehive: I saw a whole sculpture in Amsterdam about 2 storeys tall with a beehive at the very top. I couldn’t tell if it was actually stocked with bees or figure out how a beekeeper would get up to check on them if it actually was.

A Vancouver location (or two) you would love to set up a hive.  I don’t really have a hit list of spots, but nice neighbours are key.

You learn about bees by reading about them and by working with and watching them, but you also have a mentor. Who is he and what is an example of something that you have learned from him recently? My bee mentor is so great. His name is Frank and he’s been wonderful and so generous with me. The coolest thing he taught me was to find queen cells. You can remove them, this helps to prevent swarming. If the queen cell is mature you can gently open it and the fully formed virgin queen will come out, you can start a new colony/ Add her to a queen less colony or re-queen one too. Cool.

Absolute favourite thing to pair honey with: cheese.

What types of honey can we expect to see on your table at Got Craft? Lemon, Vanilla & Cardamom-infused; the 3 hyper local honeys; and by special request, a seasonal special sage and thyme-infused honey.

If you are headed to Got Craft (of course you are!), you should be sure to make a bee line for Mellifera to pick up a hyper-local honey sampler. That’s a 4oz jar of each very limited Vancouver neighbourhood honeys from the 2012 beekeeping season, so 1 jar each of ‘Maple & 36th’, ‘Main & E. Georgia’ and ‘St. George & 28th’ for $33. Another option is a tea gift box that includes 4oz jar of Vanilla infused honey, a pouch of Organic English breakfast tea, and a hand stamped silver tea spoon for $40 (this is a collaboration with The Loving Spoon). Mellifera products do have a nasty habit of selling out, so don’t sit on this one!

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