I got a bee in my bonnet...

My urban residence and soon to be the bee's!

I never thought I would be the one to get into such a hobby as bee keeping...but here we go. This blog is for all of my research, observations, handling, recipes and general bee keeping practices. I want a place where I can gather the mass amount of information on the web and start keeping a record so I will have one place to come look up what I found. I also want to have this as a diary of all the successes and failures so hopefully I can learn from them.

I decided about a week ago to look into keeping bees in my urban garden in the city of Salem, OR. I am really into growing a garden this year to preserve and eat for the majority of the winter. Due to severe allergies this year, I decided I needed to find some natural remedies for them and local honey kept popping up in my searches. So down the road of research I went. I spent one whole day following the trail of You Tube videos on bee keeping (I will post the one's I found most helpful later) which led me to believe it is possible for me, a city mom/artist to have an urban Apiary.

I just emailed Ruhl Bee Supply in Portland, OR, to be put on their waiting list for a Nuc. Today I am going to research how to build a bee hive with a couple supers to get my bees started, in case I get a call. I feel like an unprepared expectant mother!

Blooming roses and wisteria in early May!

I am also excited to try and make a bee hat. We are artists and have a huge stash of random things for our art including a few spare hard hats. I am going to attempt to make my own out of one of those, and post a tutorial as well.

Next week I want to go to a few bee stores in Portland and maybe pick up a Hive Tool and some gloves. Hopefully my books I requested from the library on Natural, Organic, Bee Keeping will be in as well, and I can read those.

I am excited and nervous; but more excited than nervous. I want to try grow my own food and get as local as I can with my diet. This is just a piece of the over all plan for self reliance.