on bees

If you read this blog, chances are you are a lot like me-and if you are like me you probably get Martha Stewart Living (a big shout out to my mother in law, Lesa-thanks for the subscription).

     Have you seen the June issue? There's a big spread on bee related things and I am just freaking out about it!  See, me and bees go way back....

     As you know by now, I grew up Mormon and the honeybee is a huge part of our/their culture.  The Mormons identify with honeybee, which they sometimes refer to as "Deseret". There's a whole bunch that I could get into-but to sum it up-they admire the industrious, hard working bee and Utah is even known as the beehive state. (Yes, I did my fifth grade state report on Utah).

    My brother was deathly allergic to bees, and it always intrigued me to know that at any moment-something so tiny could take him down. One of my first memories is of him-swollen on the couch, sisters hovering over him-panicking and yelling that he'd been stung. He's since grown out of that allergy-a fact which also is strange to me....

     And then there's my sister Allison, who's collecting those vintage beehive ceramic pieces. Every time we saw one-my mom would buy it or talk about buying it for her.

    So this article has once again piqued my interest into the world of bees.

Bee boxes are more than beautiful:

(photo taken by blue star drop)

(photo taken by plucky tree )

(photo by mistubako)

I love it, too, when honeybees make their own, wild nests somewhere-like this:

(photo by Max )

I remember once my Dad found one somewhere and took his grandkids to go see it....funny

I'm not even going to get into how cool I think Vintage bee smokers are....just look them up on ebay.

Here are my two very favorite bee related photos, both by Shari

bee boxes

those bee boxes

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Do you have anything bee related to share?

Comments

[rebecca]

yes! i loved the bee-themed issue, especially the china and those skeps! i've never seen a wild nest like that. awesome photo. would love to see something like that for real. always wanted to keep bees, but i live in the city and have allergies, tho not to bees. still, would worry that too many stings would send me into anaphylactic shock and end my life too soon.

[cindy k]

i loved the article! happily i have two of the bee containers in the story. i'm usually running around trying to find something they've featured.

[Casey]

one of my friends has a "bee thing"; she's got the neatest collection of little bee-related things: jewelry, hair bobbles, fabric! this post made me think of her. hehe!

my mom just got the new MS in the mail... I haven't had time to look thoroughly through it, but now I simply *must*!

thanks for the fun, summery post. :)

[Molly]

my next door neighbor keeps honey bees, and just collected the first yeild of 2 lbs. of clover honey. 2 lbs! can you imagine? They happily shared a jar with us, that we've just devoured over wheat toast. Bees are amazing.

[Jessica]

I saw the latest Martha issue and had to buy it. I admit I judged a magazine by its cover and cannot wait to make the honey-glazed cake. Any recommendations for using a honey jar and drizzler?

[patrick]

ooo, you are stoking the flame of my interest in honeybees. we have a lot of flowers in our garden to attract pollinators, but i do so want a hive. Gonna have to get off the chicken habit first, though...

abby-- there are bees out at Zenger, they've started a pretty intensive beekeeping project. let me know if you want to know more.

[cassie]

i just read secret life of bees. lots of bee trivia, woven around a really touching story. check it out.

[shari]

lovely post. thank you for linking to my photos. :) i will soon be living on a farm owned by a beekeeper! cannot wait. i asked him if he would teach me the ropes. however, when i was younger, i was stung by about 25 yellow jackets (my dog and i were walking through the woods and she stepped on a nest) and my mom thinks my interest in bees is a little crazy. xoxo

[Melissa]

I will now be racing to my local store to buy the latest Martha Stewart mag. I also have a kinship with bees (my name meaning sweet as a honey bee). So much so that I named my business after them. Thanks for the recommendation!

[joanna goddard]

how fun, love thinking about bees and their crazy systems of queens and workers....thanks for this post. xo

[Sherri]

Hi! I too LOVE bees and yearn to have a hive. My bee story is this: our front yard had 79 lavender plants in it (planted by me!). When they were full grown, they of course attracted a LOT of happy bees, bees that were so intent on working that you could gently brush them right off of a flower and they'd just move on to the next; I was never ever stung even while harvesting lavender. Our mailman one day decided to stop delivering mail because he said the bees were a "hazard." We had to remove about 20 plants to please the USPS! They threatened to stop delivering to the entire block if we didn't comply. Sigh.

[sosser]

loved that feature in ms mag. i have always been attracted to the mysterious world of beekeeping and i do collect honey pots and other objects shaped like bee skeps. i have only been stung once in my life (knocking wood right now) and thought someone had burned me with a match! great bee stories, photos and links!

[monica]

I like the idea of bees, how they live, how hard they work, how beautiful honeycomb is... but no matter how hard I try... I just can't like honey.

It's beautiful and natural and super healthy... I just can't like the taste. Makes me a bit sad actually.

[Meg]

How refreshing! Nobody else posts like this. We should ALL be learning more about bees, though, and develop our own fascination with them, considering their dwindling numbers. I love it when someone gives me something new to look at and think about.

[lori]

oh, bees...
the mason bee is a beautiful and endangered creature. It's very easy to build a little box for them, and you don't need a big yard to keep it in. It's just a little piece of wood with holes drilled in it, and it can be attatched, or set on anything up high.
go to this site:
http://www.devon.gov.uk/ndccs-beebox.pdf

[Nancy]

my uncle used to keep bees and he would put on this dramatic bee suit and take me and my cousins to see them.
we would pile in his jeep and he would drive us through the woods and then he would get out and take a whole bunch of bees and their honey and put it next to the glass window and we would all scream
it was terrifying yet fun
kind of like a roller-coaster

[jek]

i can spend hours just sitting out in a garden watching the bees. we have all kinds in our garden and i do, i sit and watch and get close and inspect. bees are amazing!

[katy]

hooray for bees! this weekend, my husband and i were exploring at his parent's house and found stacks of bee drawers - later that day, his dad came home with two hives full of bees! he's decided to take up beekeeping again, and what could be more exciting? he kept us enthralled with bee-related tales and facts, and then we made up a special treat (sugar water) for the bees to soothe them and help them with the settling in part. my favorite bee tidbit: the queens will arrive in the mail, in a little box with a cork on one end and a wax seal on the other. the wax end is set against the hive, and the other bees will eat the wax off to get to the queen. by the time they eat all the wax and she's free, the bees will have grown accustomed to her and will accept her, no questions asked. neat, huh! :) now, i just can't wait for the honey... (yes, it will be a while, but when it comes it will be so good!)

[la casita de wendy]

i love your blog! and i love bees!!

[Alpaca Rose]

I was sold on that issue based on the cover. That hive cake is awsome. I tossed the mag in my cart as soon as I seen it. It is a great issue.

[gracia]

Those bee boxes - they are wonderful!
Here's to all things buzz related...
see you, g xx

[maggienikole]

hi! oh i love this post, my well sort of mother-in-law, my boyfriend's mom always used to buy me that subscription and i miss it.
i think i need to go and buy the june issue, it looks great. i too love bee boxes and you stirred up a little memory for me, so thought i'd share:

when i was little a very dear old friend of mine, george (who passed on last year in his late 80s) kept bees and i always loved when he brought us honey. i still have one of his honey tins which i really love. i kind of miss the excitement that something so simple can bring you as a child, wasn't that amazing, the feeling i mean. :)

[Lynn in Tucson]

Not to kill the "buzz" - no pun intended - but last night's Nature on PBS was a very sobering look at Colony Collapse Disorder and the plight of the world's honeybees. It was so sad.

Beautiful photos of the bee boxes.