Bee-gletopia: New Rooftop Bees at Bageltopia
Bageltopia would like to present our newest project “Bee-gletopia”. Not Beagles, but Bees themselves — italian carniolan hybrid . In our continued and dedicated mission to deliver for our Berkeley community, owners Dan Graf and Mike Daillak have invested in a new and hopefully rather sweet endeavor: Honeybees on the roof of Bageltopia. Our new bees “ italian carniolan hybrid ” were sourced from “ Elk Valley ” and just arrived at their new home the second week of July. You might catch them buzzing around the corner of University and Acton, looking for a new flower to pollinate, supporting our local Berkeley bio-diversity. If you can't tell, we are bee-ary excited to welcome our new friends to their new home.
What Does "Topia" Really Mean?
When we ideate on the meaning of the term “topia”, we can look to its usage in both historical and postmodern contexts as a Latin term and also suffix. In many ways the “topia” suffix can be used to exaggerate the setting of a location. In Postmodern philosophy the term topia refers to an environment that is “lived in” as opposed to the non-existent Utopia that we all idolize. At Bageltopia we believe in this “lived in” ethos when it comes to food, to livelihood and our community, and now, to bees. Bee-gletopia is more than just a place to get delicious food. It is now a place where we nourish the local flora and fauna, we pollinate our local ecosystem to help the flowers grow and hopefully, soon, we will be able to offer some house made honey for our customers to enjoy.
How Long Until We Have Honey?
How long will it take for this honey to produce you may ask? Great question, After “rehoming” the bees into their new location, it can take anywhere from 3-6 weeks for them to build up their own comb. Once the comb is present, they will begin to generate excess honey.
Some bee keepers recommend not harvesting the extra honey until after the second season so as to maintain the wellness and thriving environment of the hive. We will be monitoring the situation actively here and will be sure to let everyone know as soon as the first honey can be harvested, so stay tuned to our social media pages for any and all updates.
The Buzz on Local Flavor and Biodiversity
From a culinary perspective... Did you know the kind of flower pollen harvested by bees can directly affect the flavor profile of the honey we humans harvest? Owners Dan and Mike are eager to see what kind of local flavors we will enjoy with our Bee-gletopia Honey! With our Mediterranean style climate, our fair town of Berkeley, California is heavily populated by non-native species, Trees and shrubs such as Eucalyptus from Australia, the Mediterranean and even South America can thrive here. By strengthening local flora and fauna and enabling the growth and flourishing of these plants and flowers, bees contribute to a healthy root system, to healthy mycology and most importantly healthy sustainable soil. When bees pollinate it contributes to local soil moisture and structure, preventing erosion, and enabling beneficial nutrient cycling. Honey Bees travel farther than other pollinators, spreading their pollen far and wide and fertilizing plants up to 5-7 miles away! Did you know bees are friends with other pollinators as well? The diverse plant life fostered by honey bee colonies provide their habitats the necessary conditions to create beneficial foraging grounds for thousands of other native bee species, butterflies, as well as other pollinators. This will bring the same thriving biodiversity directly to the flavors of our local honey! Now if only we can convince the Target across the street to add a green roof to their department store and we would really be in Buzz-ness!
Bee-gletopia Honey on Your Bagel
Of course we are most excited to feature our local honey on our special monthly bagel sandwich and cream cheese offerings. Peanut butter and honey on a cinnamon raisin bagel would be delightful. Honey, fig, arugula, bufala mozzarella? Now we are talking! Any combinations you would like to see on your own bagel? Feel free to come in and “build your own” bagel sandwich using our local roof top honey. Who knows, we may even harvest enough to be able to sell the honey in jars for consumption at home! Time will tell, but a happy bee is a productive bee! And with no real predators on the roof of Bageltopia we see a bright and buzzy future for our new project “Bee-gletopia”! Stay tuned!
Visit Us & Follow Along
And do not forget:
Order online at www.bageltopia.com or in person at our shop at 1401 University Ave (adjacent Fellini Coffeebar), open Tuesday through Sunday from 7:30a to 2p.
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