Deep Honey: Profile of a Sustainable Beekeeper

She calls her tens of thousands of bees her "girls" and thinks of them as part of her family. Local architect and designer Christina Joy Neumann keeps her family in a hand-decorated hive in the backyard of her Shaler Township home.

Tradition is important to Neumann. She lives in the house her great-grandfather built on a semi-rural hilltop between Etna and Millvale. As a furniture-maker by hobby, she welcomed the challenge by her brother to create a unique piece having to do with "treats and animals". She immediately thought of "honey and bees", and it's been the buzz ever since. Her backyard is now home to three hives, and she holds a lifetime of beekeeping in front of her.

Beehives are a tightly run and respectful community; those who are not respectful are driven out. Just ask the drones, or male bees about that. Neumann has seen them being chased out of the hive by the heavily female population in the winter. The main role of the drone bee is to mate with the queen and create the future worker bee brood, and during the winter months, their role is expendable. After months of work to bring nectar and pollen back to the hive during the warm parts of the year, the female worker bees sustain themselves on the deep honey, the honey that's at the bottom layer of the hive. Neumann harvests the honey produced later in the season in "supers", trays which rest closer to the top of the hive.

Neumann joined the Western Pennsylvania beekeeping community, and although the proportion of her female to male bees is 99:1, at this community it's nearly reversed. Neumann reckons that there is about a ten year window when most information from older, established local beekeepers is lost. "Burgh Bees" is Neumann's new way of continuing the development of this beekeeping community in Pittsburgh. Currently working with Grow Pittsburgh, Burgh Bees hopes to create a program and become mentors for future beekeepers.

Neumann's "girls" have produced over 60 pounds of honey this spring, which she has given away to friends or sold in small quantities... Fresh from the hive.