MADDIE ZALOOM

The idea of raising bees came to Maddie after learning that a hotel in New York City served honey to their guests from its rooftop hives. She marveled at the inventiveness of their efforts and contemplated whether she could do this as well.  After careful research and persuasion, she convinced her parents to let her build an apiary in their backyard.

Maddie signed up for lessons with a local commercial beekeeper, Bill of Bill’s Bees. Once a month, she would drive an hour into canyon country, suit up, enter the bee yard and work with some of Bill’s 2,000 hives. Each hive contained a swirling cloud of bees -- an intimidating sight at first glance. Bill taught her how to maintain a colony, treat for mites, and harvest honey. Most importantly, Bill taught her the importance of bees in our ecosystem. Without bees, there would be no pollination, no plants, no food, and no us!  Learning this made her more passionate about becoming a beekeeper and doing her part to save the bees from extinction (a modern-day threat due to enhanced pesticides). After months of training, Bill believed she was ready to start her own apiary.  She will never forget driving home with 25,000 honeybees in the backseat of our car; truly, an un-bee-lievable experience!

Maddie’s weekends are not those of a typical 21-year-old. When she is home in LA, she wakes up every Sunday morning to manage the hive; the bees are creatures of habit, and so is she. After putting on her bee suit, she fires up the smoker to calm the bees and begins inspecting the colony.  It is her job to check the frames, occasionally supplement the bees diet with sugar water and pollen patties, and make sure that the queen is laying brood. While this routine may sound simple, she has run into her fair share of beekeeping nightmares. Last summer, angry, feral, Africanized bees invaded the hive. They killed the queen and installed their own. The vicious intruders stung anyone who came near them, including Maddie, her dogs, and the poor gardener. There was only one option: replace the African Queen with an Italian. Abdicating a feral queen from a “hot” hive is the ultimate test of skills for a backyard beekeeper.  After searching through 50,000 bees, Maddie finally found her, in the last frame of the lowest super in the hive! A simple pinch to the abdomen ended her reign. Three months and many bee stings later, the new queen’s brood hatched. The colony became accessible again.

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After a year, Maddie’s sticky business was beginning to pay off: thirty pounds of silky, smooth honey. The taste? A bouquet of neighborhood flowers with subtle hints of jasmine and orange blossom. Goes well with? Toasted sourdough bread or plain yogurt. This finished product was the reward for all the hard work and dedication that goes along with being a responsible beekeeper. However, the greatest satisfaction was not the honey she harvested, but “the fact that [she is] doing a little pollinating of [her] own by spreading the word about the importance of bees." Maddie was recognized for her efforts and invited to the Los Angeles County Fair to educate school children at the Bees & Honey Pavilion. Being able to share what she had learned was pretty sweet.