Honey and Venom: Confessions of an Urban Beekeeper
Hardcover – June 9, 2020
A year in the life of New York City’s premier beekeeper, who chronicles his adventures and the quirky personalities he encounters while spreading his infinite knowledge of and passion for the remarkable honey bee
“Coté’s charming and poignant essay collection delivers the entertainment and smarts required to make real change in how we look at our planet, and ourselves.”—Andrew Zimmern
From the humble drone to the fittingly named worker to the queen herself—who is more a slave than a monarch—the hive world, Andrew Coté reveals, is full of strivers and slackers, givers and takers, and even some insect promiscuity (startlingly similar to the prickly human variety). Written with Coté’s trademark humor, acumen, and a healthy dose of charm, Honey and Venom illuminates the obscure culture of New York City “beeks” and the biology of the bees themselves for both casual readers and bee enthusiasts.
Coté takes readers with him on his daily apiary adventures over the course of a year, in the city and across the globe. In Manhattan, among his many duties, he is called to capture swarms that have clustered on fire hydrants, air-conditioning units, or street-vendor umbrellas. Beyond maneuvering within a metropolitan populace as frenzied as the bees’, Coté is able to escape from the hive mind and the rigors of city dwelling with his philanthropic, international approach to apiculture. Annually, he travels to regions across the world with his organization, Bees Without Borders, where he teaches beekeepers how to increase their honey yield and income via beekeeping endeavors. For Coté, a fourth-generation beekeeper, this is a family tradition, and this personal significance pervades his celebration of the romance and mystery of bees, their honey, and the beekeepers whose lives revolve around these most magical creatures.
Coté is a celebrity beekeeper, counting Martha Stewart, Instagram influencer Eva Chen, and conceptual artist Pierre Huyghe as confidantes and clients. But Coté is also an advocate. A fourth-generation beekeeper, he’s amassed a treasure trove of wisdom, and doles it out as leader of the New York City Beekeepers Association and Bees without Borders (a nonprofit that trains underserved international communities to keep apiaries with the goal of alleviating poverty). In Honey and Venom, each chapter represents a month, and the anecdotes that make up the essays describe situations Coté confronted during that month at some point during his notable career. His most charming stories bookend the text, and both take place in Africa. In “January,” Coté describes language barriers and an angry swarm in Uganda; in “December,” he describes the hard work and humanity of a beekeeping program he developed in Kenya. While the text is sprinkled with some advice for novice beekeepers, Honey and Venom is best read as a memoir—and a sweet one at that.
—Andrew Zimmern
“Coté’s journey to urban beekeeping is brought to life as he recounts often funny or bizarre situations . . . an informative and entertaining memoir.”
— The New York Times Book Review
“Entertaining . . . In his often amusing, anecdotal memoir, Honey and Venom, Coté offers the latest buzz on keeping an apiary in the Big Apple. . . . Everything is told with Cote’s light touch and excellent comic timing. . . . This book is fun, a near perfect bee-ch book for the summer.”
— Minneapolis Star-Tribune
“A fascinating story of Coté's real-life experiences with bees, full of unexpected plot swerves that take him all over New York City and around the world on bee-related adventures. I enjoyed this book enormously."
— Ian Frazier, author of Travels in Siberia