Belmont Roots & Shoots, January 2020

By Meg Muckenhoupt

As you recover from a month of pies, plum puddings, sufganiyot jelly doughnuts, fruitcake, fudge, hot cocoa, panettone, eggnog, and every other cold-season excuse to eat sugar, pause to remember that neither sugar cane nor honeybees are native to New England. Sugar cane is a tropical plant, and there were no honeybees north of Florida before 1630–and those bees which did arrive spent more than a month trapped in a hive in the hold of a wooden ship that creaked and lurched its way across the open ocean. Sugar maples did yield syrup, and that syrup was enjoyed in northern New York and Canada, but there weren’t many sugar maple trees in relatively-temperate eastern Massachusetts before European colonization, and there’s scant mention of maple syrup or sugar in southern New England before the 1650’s.

If you wish to have an assured supply of sweeteners as our climate and ecology changes, consider learning to tend bees and trees yourself. You may have considerable success. In 2009, Belmont resident Ottavio Forte was keeping roughly 240,000 bees in his back yard, and harvesting pounds of honey, as you can read in the July/August 2009 Belmont Citizens Forum Newsletter at bit.ly/BCFhoney

The bees will also help your flowers, vegetables, and trees and shrubs thrive; habitat destruction and carelessly-applied pesticides have killed many of the native, non-honey-producing bees and butterflies that used to do the job. Always read the labels before you spray any substance outdoors, and avoid spraying in the daytime during the growing season when bees are out and about. Sugar maples also need care, but they’re a bit more patient.

Backyard Sugaring

Saturday, February 1, 1-3 PM

Drumlin Farm Wildlife Sanctuary, 208 South Great Road, Lincoln

Learn how to make syrup. Drumlin Farm staff will cover everything that you need to know—tree identification, equipment, tapping, boiling, finishing, and storing. Open to youth 12 and older with adult. Mass Audubon members $28, nonmembers $34. Register at www.massaudubon.org or call 781-259-2255.

Beekeeping for Beginners

Weekly, Tuesdays March 3-March 31, 7-9 PM

Drumlin Farm Wildlife Sanctuary, 208 South Great Road, Lincoln

This five-session class includes a brief history of beekeeping, bee biology, basics of beekeeping, locating hives, acquiring bees, and beekeeping resources. Open to youth 12 or older with an adult. Mass Audubon members $110, nonmembers $132. Register at www.massaudubon.org or call 781-259-2255.