COLORADO’S URBAN AND RURAL BEEKEEPERS AND THEIR HONEYBEES ARE BUSY PRODUCING THE RAW MATERIAL FOR AN ARRAY OF SWEET INDULGENCES.
A chunk of honeycomb is an unadulterated sweet treat. PHOTO BY DA-KUK/ISTOCK
“WE DOMESTICATED BEES BETWEEN CHICKENS AND COWS around 8,000 years ago,” says Colorado beekeeper Jake Allread. “They’re our partners in navigating a changing climate and healing the world we have degraded.”
In the Centennial state, more people, farms and even urban outposts are raising and tending honeybees, which not only helps the environment, food crops and the bees themselves, but it gives us more creative—and delicious—ways of using the golden nectar they produce. Think honey Swiss buttercream-frosted cupcakes, decadent beeswax spa treatments and cocktails crafted with honey-infused bourbon.
Björn’s Lara Boudreaux checks the hives PHOTO BY ELIZA EARLE
“Honeybees are very important to agriculture and the ecosystem,” says Hannah Nordhaus, Boulder-based author of the award-winning The Beekeeper’s Lament. “They pollinate one out of every three foods we eat.” As pollinators, bees play a crucial role in helping plants reproduce, which helps maintain biodiversity—and stock the grocery store shelves. While bees, and especially honeybees, are not at risk of extinction, recent die-offs and colony declines have raised awareness about how much we need them. “People are taking better care of bees today than we did 30 years ago, ” Nordhaus says.
In celebration of the hard-working honeybee, we’ve collected 10 ways to enjoy the nectar of the gods.
honeycomb on a frame PHOTO BY ELIZA EARLE
Based in Boulder, Björn’s Colorado Honey (bjornscoloradohoney.com) is a family-run company that practices sustainable beekeeping methods based on three generations of beekeeping and honey production in Sweden. Björn’s offers a wide range of Colorado honey varieties and honey-based personalcare products imported from Europe. Björn’s Double Propolis Colorado Honey is a potent alternative to New Zealand’s famed manuka honey. Propolis is the resinous substance bees make to protect their hives from disease, and Björn’s beekeeper, Pontus Jakobsson, learned about it from his beekeeper parents and grandfather Björn (the company’s namesake) while growing up in Sweden. Double Propolis Honey has local Colorado pollen (beneficial to allergy sufferers) plus antibacterial, antiviral and antifungal properties. Feel a cold coming on? Jakobsson recommends eating a teaspoon daily to boost your immune system.
her partner, Pontus Jakobsson tends the bees PHOTO: BY ELIZA EARLE
In The Beekeeper’s Lament (2011), Hannah Nordhaus (hannahnordhaus.com) illuminates how important honeybees are to our food chain—and thus our lives—exploring the epidemics and problems bee populations face through the lens of a migratory beekeeper. “Bees have always suffered from die-offs. They’re vulnerable little creatures living in large groups,” she says. “But they’re crucial to agriculture and the ecosystem. It’s really important to take care of your bees.”
Like tiny architects, bees build the hexagonal-shaped honeycombs to store honey. BY LARA BOUDREAUX
Denver’s historic Brown Palace Hotel (brownpalace.com) has a history of hosting royalty, but today it hosts five queens at once. With its five rooftop bee colonies, The Brown Palace is a leader in urban beekeeping. The hotel has also donated hives to the Denver Beekeepers Association to help establish more bee colonies in the city. When the bees are producing, the honey can be purchased at the hotel’s coffee shop and is the star attraction in the hotel’s new HoneyMoon package. On arrival, guests are greeted with a custom-crafted, honey-infused Brown Palace Honey Wheat beer from the Denver Beer Co. Sweet treats include in-room cupcakes garnished with edible honeycomb and honey truffles to accompany side-by-side massages at the spa.
The Rooted Revelry cocktail from Honey Elixir Bar PHOTO BY KATE IVY PHOTOGRAPHY
For a bee-inspired spa treatment, try the Honey Dream experience at Spa Anjali (spaanjali.com) at the Westin Riverfront in Avon. This warm massage includes the application of a beeswax thermal pack to the back to “balance the vital energy of the body.” A combination of honey ginger oil and beeswax nourishes the skin. The Westin is also celebrating the publication of Viva Abejas (2023), a children’s book by Stoke & Rye chef Richard Sandoval, who was inspired to raise awareness of the critical role bees play in our food system. “Children are the future stewards of our planet, and instilling a love and understanding of nature in them from an early age is crucial,” Sandoval says. Viva Abejas (“Long live bees”) is available at the hotel’s Riverfront Market.
The Brown Palace has bees on the roof and doormen on the street level. THE BROWN PALACE
Tucked in an alley between Walnut and Larimer streets in Denver, Honey Elixir Bar (honeyelixirbar.com) offers apothecary-inspired cocktails with infused honey, botanicals and high-quality spirits. The drink menu’s “potions” are artfully prepared nonalcoholic elixirs infused with flower and crystal essences. The bar also serves Jun, an ancient and somewhat mysterious kombucha-like brew made from honey and infused with medicinal herbs and superfoods.
A sweet course at Hotel Jerome’s Prospect restaurant PHOTO COURTESY OF HOTEL JEROME
Prospect at Hotel Jerome (aubergeresorts.com) has a tasting menu that features locally sourced ingredients, including a dish with Durango’s Belford cheese drizzled with Carbondale honey and topped with a honeycomb. The plate is paired with Wildflower Honey Mead from Slaymaker Cellars, an Idaho Springs meadery that sources its honey from Colorado apiaries.
Honey House Distillery has a beehive-shaped still. PHOTO COURTESY OF HONEY HOUSE DISTILLERY
Kevin Culhane’s family has been in the honey business since 1918, and he and his parents, Danny and Sheree Culhane, still run Honeyville (honeyvillecolorado.com), a honey purveyor in Durango. He says the idea for a distillery started as a dinner conversation with his buddy (and now partner) Adam Bergal. Marrying the ideas of a local micro-distillery with the Culhanes’ honey business, Honey House Distillery (honeyhousedistillery.com) incorporates Rocky Mountain wildflower honey into its lineup of spirits. “It’s a niche, and it’s been very successful,” Culhane says. The distillery has sold over 20,000 bottles of its flagship product, Colorado Honey Bourbon. Honey House also produces cinnamon honey whiskey, botanical gin and Hex Vodka, which is distilled from mead (honey wine). Visit the tasting room at the distillery in Durango to see the “Queen Bee,” a custom 250-gallon beehive-shaped copper still.
Rooftop bees at the St Julien in Boulder help pollinate the hotel’s vegetable gardens. ST JULIEN HOTEL
At Bishop’s Lodge (bishopslodge.com), a historic retreat-turned-resort on 317 acres in Santa Fe, guests can spend an afternoon with the bees. For this new guided experience, guests don beekeeper suits and follow Indigenous beekeeper Melanie Margarita Kirby along a path behind the gardens to visit the property’s two hives, set along picturesque Tesuque Creek. Participants receive a jar of honey to commemorate their outing.
the distillery makes a honey-infused bourbon PHOTO COURTESY OF HONEY HOUSE DISTILLERY
For a decidedly deluxe honey experience, the St Julien Hotel & Spa’s (stjulien.com) Bee the Change package includes a bottle of locally produced mead (honey wine) and a pot of whipped honey sea-salt body polish to enjoy in your room. The hotel is known for its sustainability efforts, including on-site culinary gardens and two rooftop bee colonies that produce up to 100 pounds of honey per year. The colonies are maintained by beekeeper Chris Borke, who is also head beekeeper for the University of Colorado’s BioFrontiers Institute. The bees help pollinate the hotel’s vegetable and herb gardens, and their honey sweetens cocktails in the T-Zero Lounge.
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