Caramel + honey (or miel) = caramiel! Instead of adding honey to an ordinary sugar caramel, this recipe combines three elements (honey, sugar and water) from the very beginning of the heating process, so nothing burns. Although the sugar helps to stabilize these lollipops, they’ll only last a day or two stored in an airtight container. I like to make these as a post-dessert sweet, to serve with coffee. Otherwise, tote some along to the playground with your kids, and make sure they lick ’em before the bees do.

ingredients:

 2/3 cup honey (200g)
 1/3 cup sugar (65g)
 1 tbsp. water
 1 tbsp. salted butter

special equipment: 8 wooden skewers, cut in half

how to make it:

Prepare a sheet of parchment paper for the lollies by laying it flat on a heat-resistant work surface. In a medium saucepan, bring the honey, sugar, and water to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar. The mixture will start to froth and bubble up the sides of the saucepan. Lower the heat to medium-low and simmer for 10 minutes, stirring from time to time – the mix should continue to bubble. Add the butter and stir for 3 more minutes. Working directly from the saucepan, or with a spoon, pour tablespoons of caramiel onto the parchment, making a row as you go along. Stagger the next row so you have room to insert the skewers, and continue until you’ve used all the caramiel. Stick the skewers into the not-yet hardened caramiel – you’ll have to work quickly! Let the lollies cool for a good 15 minutes, and then suck to your heart’s content. Otherwise, store them in an airtight container, placing a small disc of parchment between each lolly.

makes about 16 lollies

 A graphic designer and visual artist by trade, Olivier Darné began his investigation of bees in 2000, when he first placed a single beehive on his house in Saint Denis. Following that experiment with the installation of a dozen hives on the roof of city hall, Olivier was fascinated by the idea of sending bees out into the city as "prospectors" of the urban environment. What, exactly, could bees tell us about our city, about the relationships between wild and urban, between humans and their surroundings, between space and time? What Olivier found was more than gratifying: bees reproduce, in liquid form, the density, changes, and social organization of our city. If you consider that 3000 hectares (or 5000 acres) of city are concentrated into a single pot of honey, the resulting flavors are a gauge of how we urbanites live.
 
 More than ten years of hive installations and several agricultural awards later, Olivier is now an artist-in-residence in Saint Denis, as well as an urban bee keeper and paysan, or farmer. The day I visited his gray and orange-red compound in Saint Denis, an assistant showed me into a serene bamboo-shaded courtyard, where spiky lemon verbena leaves released their fragrance as I brushed past. Purposeful activity filled the courtyard: hens squawked and pecked in their cage (Olivier keeps them for eggs), and two assistants were painting signs for the next apicultural exhibit. Their precise movements were not unlike what I’d seen of worker bees in nature documentaries.
 
 Olivier admits that producing honey was never among his goals, even if he now has too much of the sticky stuff on his hands, so to speak. After directing me into his living area, where four enormous plastic vats of honey sit on a sturdy shelf, Olivier opens one of the specialized faucets and lets honey pour into a small jar, topping it off and deftly pulling the faucet shut just before the jar overflows. As we walk back through the hive-like activity in the courtyard and into the workshop, Olivier explains that biodiversity is the reason his bees produce four to five times more honey than monoculture bees. Eight or nine harvests per year from the same hives produce all the different colors of honey set out before me. Olivier opens and neatly aligns several jars, and then sets out small wooden tasting sticks as he answers his phone. When he hangs up, he turns his attention to me and also takes notes as I ask him questions. Then we taste. A deep orange-gold honey is redolent of chestnuts, but has a faint aroma of sandalwood – it reminds me of a market I once visited in Dakar. Another honey is light yellow and fluid, and tastes of pure, concentrated sunshine.
 
 Not surprisingly, organoleptic (taste) tests have earned concrete honey the name miel du voyage. One laboratory found exotic aromas such as palm, and declared Olivier’s product to be similar to the honey produced in equatorial countries. So all the diversity of ten-plus nationalities living in Saint Denis finds its way into tiny pots of honey. Olivier is proud to say that it is now possible for people in Saint Denis to "eat their neighborhood." By consuming honey produced in and from their own city, urbanites connect themselves intimately to their land, even if it happens to be one that’s filled with concrete, high-rise housing blocks, and if they’re lucky, bees.
 
 See Olivier Darné’s Parti Poétique.