December 2025 Read. Honey and Venom. Confessions of an Urban Beekeeper by ANDREW COTÈ

        Do you have to be a beekeeper to enjoy this book? Absolutely not. 4th generation beekeeper, spicy non native New Yorker Andrew shares his experience of keeping bees in large Metropolitan area.  He captures swarms that “inconveniently” land anywhere bees desire, which you can imagine is quite a circus on its own. Most hilariously Andrew’s biggest challenge during swarm collections most often is finding a parking spot !!! ( Bee’n there Andrew  ; )  Yes, parking, and not the nuisance of curious, adoring crowds of New Yorkers, or swarm location itself; traffic signal in front of Louis Vuitton store, fire hydrants, vendor umbrellas, mailboxes and what not (I hope he writes a book about that!!)

Honey:

      I have to say, Andrew seems to have a very cool life. For the very fact that he has access to the coolest views on the rooftops of Manhattan where he tends his bees. His celebrity beekeeper status and actual real beekeeping experience led him to many adventures. My absolute favorite was his involvement with MoMA where he maintained (word maintain doesn’t do justice here)  live bees which were part of a sculpture that portrayed naked woman with a hive for her head.  Look up Pierre Huyghe’s “Untilled” MoMA.  

Venom: 

          Spicy he is, this Andrew Coté. Maybe it's a New York thing. Not bad…, but spicy…,  acquired taste. A decent amount of venom is directed towards other beekeepers or people that appear in his orbit in general, citizens that do something stupid, or let’s say not to his liking.  A bit unattractive feature of the book, kinda like a teaspoon of tar in the barrel of honey…  Throughout the book there is also palpable undercurrent of sorta humble, (but not really) bragging about all the celebrities that he encountered throughout his work. I don’t think I could resist including them either, but still. This is the Venom section, something had to sting a little ; )

• For Flagstaff Locals, borrow this book from  Flagstaff Public Library. 

• Buy Locally,  Bright Side Bookshop (Flagstaff)

• Buy Locally, Bookmans (Flagstaff)

• Buy a book,  Bookshop.org