This Amarkaner Life: Bee Curious

11/30/22 • 19 min

There's already a bit of a buzz around this episode — if only because the Amarkaners in question are the island’s hard-working honeybees.
In episode three, we visit Bybi — a bee-powered project based in Amager’s historic Sundholm district — to meet its British founder, Oliver Maxwell.

We learn about Bybi's unusual origin story and location, discover why Oliver prefers to see honey as an "invitation" not a product, and hear about the honey that has some of Copenhagen's best chefs "falling over backwards".
“As soon as you start working with bees, you realise that honey is absolutely magical," Oliver says. "You put these creatures out around the city and over a few days, weeks and months, they accumulate this absolute treasure."
The sound design is by two artists — Squares and Triangles and Scenery.

Previous Episode

This Amarkaner Life: Plane Speaking

Please return your seatbacks and tray tables to their fully upright position because we'll shortly be landing at one of Amager’s best-known restaurants — Flyvergrillen. You'll find it at Copenhagen airport, but don’t go looking for it before your next flight. Because Flyvergrillen isn’t so much at the airport as right alongside it. Indeed, the only thing separating it from the runway is a barbed-wire fence and about 100 metres of tarmac — giving diners a prime view of planes taking off or landing. Fasten your seatbelts, then, as we visit the 50-year-old grill bar to meet Denmark's most dedicated planespotters — as well as an ageing cat who's "worse than Putin". The episode was written, produced, and hosted by James Clasper. The music is by Scenery and Squares and Triangles.

Next Episode

This Amarkaner Life: The Cold Shock

The Helgoland sea-bathing club, at the northern tip of Amager's beach, is home to one of the world's oldest winter-bathing associations, Det Kolde Gys ("The Cold Shock").
In episode four of This Amarkaner Life, we brave the heat of the sauna and the icy waters of the Øresund to talk to some of the association's hardiest members.
We meet a woman who's been winter bathing for 30 years and a local physio who swims in the sea every morning and is one of the club's saunagus "masters".
They reveal why they love winter bathing so much, how it makes them feel, how to get started, and why Helgoland, in particular, is so special.
Further information
Helgoland
Gys og Gus, by Charlotte Ringbæk et al.
Squares and TrianglesScenery

Archipelago - This Amarkaner Life: Bee Curious

Transcript

“I mean, I came home after that first meeting, completely enthusiastic about this possibility, and I went to my wife there and she was pregnant with our second child, and I said, I've decided what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna become a beekeeper. And she was absolutely horrified. And she was like, what about our summer holidays? And I was like, well, we could be like farmers. She was like, that’s gonna be a nightmare with small children and our expectations for living in the city.”

MUSIC