A DATE WITH THE BEES

Emilia Arnold is a valued member of our service team. Below she talks about her recent visit with Corky Luster, our rooftop bee curator.

After helping me suit up in a big, white jacket with attached beekeeper's veil ("You look like Kenny, from South Park!") Corky Luster, owner of the Ballard Bee Company, introduced me to the more than 50,000 bees of the two busy hives on Bastille's rooftop.

Corky takes apart the hive so we can see its inner workings, calming the bees down with smoke as he goes.

He places a docile drone, a male bee, in my hand. The drones live to eat and make conquests, Corky says. "They're basically Italian boys," he adds, with a laugh.

But really, these bees are Ballard bees through and through. Like Bastille's owners, James Weiman and Deming Maclise, the bees like to keep it local. They collect nectar within a five mile radius of their hive, and they especially love the blackberry bushes near the neighboring railroad tracks.

Their honey is destined for the Bastille dining room, just a few floors below the hives. Having the bees at Bastille is all part of the restaurant's focus on using existing spaces in an innovative way to add true local flavor to the menu.

Corky scrapes some fresh honey from inside the hive and gives me a taste. So far, that local flavor is delicate and floral and delicious.

Our queen bee, Marie Antoinette, and her workers are busily making the honey that will soon appear on Bastille's menu. Harvested honey just needs a quick strain and then Corky hands it off to Head Chef Shannon Galusha.

Shannon's got some big plans for the honey, which will likely land in everything from entrées to cocktails. For the summer, he's talking about hibiscus honey iced tea, a goat cheese, honey and Charente melon salad and honeycomb bars for the plateau au chocolat. And the rooftop honey will be oozing its way into even more dishes come fall.

But if a date with bees doesn't appeal to you so much, don't worry! You won't find Bastille's bees hanging around the patio (which opens May 10) trying to get into your soda. Hornets and wasps go after trash and sugar, Corky says, but honeybees have a more sophisticated diet. They eat water, nectar and honey.

And they turn those simple ingredients into more delicious honey, and lucky for us the bees don't seem to mind sharing. With Corky keeping the bees buzzing upstairs, and Shannon hard at work downstairs, it's sure to be a pretty sweet summer at Bastille.

From the Rooftop: Colin's View: Bees!

Colin McCrate and Seattle Urban Farm Co. make Bastille’s rooftop garden possible. Colin has agreed to write a garden update for our blog, giving readers monthly status on what's growing upstairs.

I am sure that you have been impatiently awaiting an update on the rooftop garden. I apologize if anyone had difficulty sleeping, tossing and turning while thinking “For crying out loud, I need to know what is going on in the Bastille rooftop garden...NOW!” Fear no longer, locavores.

Particularly of note, even in the colder weather that we have had the past few weeks, the bees have been very active and have started storing quite a bit of honey.

Corky Luster, of Ballard Bee Company, says we are ready to start harvesting honey from the hives. The photo below shows us examining the hive frames to assess how healthy the bees are (very healthy).



Below is a frame that the bees are packing full of honey as we speak:


Elsewhere on the roof, the salad greens are growing well and have been enjoying the past few sunny days tremendously, we can see them here catching some rays late last week…


More to come in the next few weeks!

Colin

From the Rooftop: Colin's View

Colin McCrate and Seattle Urban Farm Co. make Bastille’s rooftop garden possible. Colin has agreed to write a garden update for our blog, giving readers monthly status on what's growing upstairs.

As you have probably noticed, spring has arrived a few months ahead of schedule (or maybe winter never actually happened). In any event, the rooftop garden is ready to celebrate.

Last week we harvested the last of the winter Savoy cabbage (see photo below). This week we started to clear out some of the winter salad greens (spinach, claytonia, etc.) and are now planting our first spring crops.


So far, we have seeded both arugula (photo below) and curly cress. Over the next few weeks, we will be planting a few new varieties of baby head lettuce (look for these on your plate in April). If the ridiculously warm winter is any indication of coming attractions, look for plenty of early spring salad greens coming from the rooftop.


Until next time!

Colin