Blue Honey
July 26, 2023 – Rustburg, Virginia, USA
Natalie Souriac loved the sound of clucking chickens in her backyard. She loved the shade of her cherry and apple trees and the mounds of fruit they produced. She loved walking out to her garden and loading a basket with vegetables as if she were in a supermarket. And she especially loved her beehive.
The fruits, vegetables, and chickens were easy enough to manage that her seven-year-old son and four-year-old daughter helped. The bees required more skill. Natalie took a class on hive care and honey collecting. She did not go so far as labeling herself a farmer, but she admired the lifestyle of living close to the earth and harvesting a good portion of her food.
As Natalie’s backyard produced more of her family’s meals, her distaste grew for highly processed foods. She saw them as the worst aspect of modern society. She especially hated refined corn syrup and white sugar and worked hard to keep her kids away from what she considered “unnatural sweets”. If they craved treats, she was happy to make cakes, cookies, and lemonade sweetened with her plentiful honey supply.
“Doesn’t that taste better than anything you can buy at the store?” Natalie asked her kids after providing honey-based treats.
“Yes, Mom,” the dutifully replied.
In mid-spring, only one month before school ended for summer break, a new family with four kids moved in up the street. The Hansens’ backyard started with nothing but a lawn and patio. They quickly filled it with a trampoline, swing set, playhouse, tree fort, and a sandbox. The house became a magnet for everyone in the neighborhood under the age of ten. That included Natalie’s son and daughter who were the same age as two of the Hansen children.
Natalie decided she should investigate before allowing her kids to join the Hansen backyard mania. She walked up the street and introduced herself to the mother of the family – Mae-Lynn Hansen.
“I’m Natalie Souriac, just a few houses down. My son and daughter rave about your backyard,” Natalie said. “They keep asking if they can play, but I don’t want them to be a burden. You shouldn’t have to be the neighborhood babysitter.”
“No burden at all. The more the merrier,” Mae-Lynn answered in a carefree voice. “They stay outside and I like when a big group can play together.”
“Maybe your kids can come visit my yard too.”
“Sure thing.”
While Natalie was willing to share her yard, when summer arrived, kids on her street were only interested in visiting the Hansens. Her own children were there at least two hours each day. Natalie assured herself that it was fine and they were getting healthy outdoor exercise. Then one day they returned home with blue tongues and sucking on Otter Pops.
“Spit those out! Do you know how bad those are?” Natalie cried.
The kids reluctantly handed over their Otter Pops.
“Where did you get these?”
“Mrs. Hansen.”
“Doesn’t she know they’re nothing but sugar? I don’t want you going over there anymore.”
“No, don’t say that. We have to go back!”
The next day, Natalie returned to Mae-Lynn’s porch, this time looking judgmental and holding a plate of cookies.
“My children absolutely love coming over here. And I appreciate you opening your yard to them. But could I ask just a tiny favor?”
“Of course. What is it?”
“I try not to give them any processed sugar. If you’re handing out sugar treats, can you skip my children?”
Mae-Lynn blushed. “Is this about yesterday’s Otter Pops? I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“I don’t have anything against treats, as long as they’re healthy.” Natalie held up her plate. “I brought over some cookies made with my backyard honey and eggs. I can send over more when my kids come play.”
“That sounds great. Okay, from now on, no sugar for the Souriac kids. And I’m sorry again about the Otter Pops.”
The new Souriac Rule was carefully followed. To make sure her children were not missing out, Natalie sent a steady stream of honey-flavored treats to the Hansens. In a fortunate coincidence, her beehive’s honey production surged to help keep up with the snack demand. Natalie’s only explanation for the extra honey was that her bees found a new flower source. They were very smart bees.
Natalie expected the flow of honey to decrease, but instead it kept growing. She soon had more honey than her family or the Hansen backyard snackers could eat. Natalie put it in glass jars and handed it out to friends and neighbors. She labeled her jars with a cute picture of a bee and flower and the words, “Souriac Bees Honey.”
By the end of June, Natalie noticed a slight blue tint to her honey. She concluded that her smart bees found a field thick with blue flowers. Each time she took another batch from the hive, the honey looked bluer. She changed the color of the flower on her jar label to blue.
“This is the best honey you’ll ever taste,” Natalie bragged as she handed out jars. “These bees have found a blue wildflower source and the honey is light and sweet.”
Natalie talked a lot about her bees and the blue honey. It was so delicious, she decided to enter it into a honey contest. She was preparing contest samples when she overheard her kids talking about blue water over at the Hansen’s.
“It looks like your honey, Mom.”
“What does?”
“The water we make.”
Natalie furrowed her brow and decided it was time for another trip to the Hansen’s. She walked over with her kids and rang the doorbell. A voice inside called, “Come in!”
Natalie was not accustomed to simply walking into a neighbor’s home. She called out, “Hello! It’s Natalie Souriac!”
“Sure, come in! We’re in the kitchen.” It was Mae-Lynn’s voice.
Natalie’s kids knew exactly where they were going. They walked through a hallway stacked with boxes waiting to be unpacked from the Hansen’s move. They found Mae-Lynn and eight other kids in the kitchen. A collection of mismatched pots boiled on the stove. An older child scooped white sugar from a bag into the pots. Around a center island counter, other kids stirred pitchers and glass jugs. Sugar spills and water splashes covered the counter. Mae-Lynn squeezed drops of blue food coloring into the swirling liquid of one of the pitchers.
“Welcome to the hummingbird cafe,” Mae-Lynn said with a bright smile. “We’re getting nectar ready for their feeders.”
Natalie looked around in bewilderment. “Why do you have so many pitchers?”
“We’ve got lots of feeders.”
“And you’re filling them with sugar water? And dying it blue?”
“A little bit of fun. Makes it easier to see how much nectar is left in a feeder. Come out to the backyard and we’ll fill some up.”
Natalie and a line of kids followed Mae-Lynn along a sticky blue trail of spilled nectar that led to the back door. Mae-Lynn pointed out over twenty hummingbird feeders hanging from trees, roof eves, and fence posts.
“We love our hummingbirds. They’re so fun to watch,” Mae-Lynn said as she disassembled a feeder and filled it with the blue liquid.
One of the older kids found a ladder and dragged it to the next feeder. Natalie followed the group, still trying to understand the large scope of the operation. She watched hummingbirds hover and dip their long beaks inside a feeder above her head. Then she heard the buzz of bees.
Natalie examined the feeder more carefully. Bees swarmed the plastic outlets that were designed to look like flowers. The bees sucked up the blue sugar water before flying off to their hive. Natalie immediately recognized the bees. They were the smart bees from her backyard that she bragged about. They had not found blue flowers. They had found a convenient source of dyed sugar water.
Natalie dropped her head in disappointment. Her hive was not producing wildflower honey. Her honey was as artificial as it could possibly get. Her honey was only one step away from the white sugar poured out in the Hansen’s kitchen.
“I’ve gotta go,” Natalie said to Mae-Lynn.
“Don’t you want to watch more hummingbirds?”
“No, I’ve seen enough.”
Natalie was filled with mixed feelings during her walk home. She was disappointed in her bees, but was that fair? They were simply doing what came naturally to them and using the easiest food source available. What if she asked the Hansens to stop putting out sugar water and interfering with nature? Was she willing to start a neighborhood fight? The Hansens obviously loved having hummingbirds around and what right did Natalie have to dictate what they did in their backyard? She would not want people dictating what she could and could not do on her property.
Natalie agonized for days before finally deciding her bees needed a new home. She contacted a farmer far from her neighborhood and arranged to move her hive close to an apple orchard. The bees would have to work a little harder for their food, but that was what nature intended.
In the space vacated by her beehive, Natalie added to her chicken coop. She had grown to like giving away honey and decided she would give away eggs instead. She could ensure the chickens stayed in the yard and avoided eating any junk food that might be available. Souriac eggs were going to be healthy and all natural, and definitely not blue.
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