I won’t lie: Beautiful honey packaging matters more to me than it should.

“Why are we spending $80 on labels?” my husband asked. “We don’t even sell our honey!” And he’s right. Our 1040 reads a fat zero on the “Honey Income” line but, I might argue, if the IRS measured quality of life, mine would skyrocket every time I bottle a jar of honey. This weekend I harvested 2 gallons of honey from my Nob Hill hive, and the bottling process was pure pleasure.

My honey jars, inspired by the Chicago Honey Co-op

If you’re an aesthete like me, or if you aim to sell your honey, here are a few ideas for inspiration and sourcing.

Inspiration

Beeline cylinder jars	Abella’s custom jars	Concept by Ah&Oh
Chicago Honey Co-op	Classic hexagon revisited	Honey trio by Bee Raw

Jar Sources

For interesting jars, consider alternative glass sources like candle jars or salve jars. Here are a few low-cost options to move beyond the plastic honey bear. Click an image to find the product page.

Tall French square	Candle bottle	Blue straight jar
Black lid straight jar	Unusual round jar	Tall cylinder jar

Find a few more ideas at: http://www.sunburstbottle.com/glass-jars

Label Sources

• www.myownlabels.com
• www.dionlabel.com
• DIY: Etched glass labels
• DIY: Decal glass labels

The City of Albuquerque is seeking a beekeeping intern!

Besides getting free beekeeping training from TBH superstar Les Crowder, you’ll also get to hang with me out at the Candelaria Farms hives in Albuquerque’s North Valley. It’s a rural quiet spot amidst the City’s bluster; a place that creates moments of comet-like beauty such as a flock of Sandhill Cranes flying overhead as you walk up to check the hives between client meetings or classes or otherwise dreary deadlines. The result? Pure connected creaturely bliss.

[Download an internship application | Deadline is March 14, 2012]

Just this afternoon, I was greeted by a group of Sandhill Cranes near my hives at the Candelaria Farms Open Space in Albuquerque, NM

Guard bees no match for Pepper Spray Cop

Wonder what time the pub opens tonight... there's a honey wheat on tap I really enjoy.

Lighten up, ma'am, what's a few dead bees when you've already lost your civil liberties?

Find more Pepper Spray Cop at:

• His very own Tumblr
• Macing Thanksgiving
• Full gallery of images

What I imagined in Sweden were Ikea-designed hives filled with winged mini-Vikings quaffing Absolut vodka. The reality, however, is much like beekeeping in the U.S…. plus styrofoam.

Last month, I lived in Gothenburg, Sweden where I encountered obscene amounts of daylight, smoked fish, and craggy green nature. Surprisingly, however, I saw very few honey bees. But that’s a different story.

Let me introduce you to the bees I was lucky enough to meet in Sweden and one special hive we took a peek inside.

Bronze Age Carvings & Bees

All watery green and granite, the Bohuslän coast north of Gothenburg is home to a series of Bronze Age rock carvings. It’s all part of a UNESCO world heritage site replete with hunting scenes and phallic might. On the road in between one ancient carving spot and another, we encountered this bright little apiary owned by the Johansson family.

Bronze Age rock carvings in Tanum

The Johansson hives

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It’s bee blogger exchange week! Yesterday, I highlighted 3 Albuquerque beekeepers on the Sunset website and today we have Margaret Sloan from Sunset’s “Team Bee” returning the favor.  Margaret blogs about bees for Sunset Magazine’s One-Block Diet. When she’s not tending to Sunset’s 3 hives,  she also is a production coordinator, fact checker, and map maker for the magazine.

Sunset Magazine’s One-Block Diet didn’t start out to build a better work team. It started as a project to help our readers learn to produce their own food in whatever space they have available. Like many of our readers, we had to learn from the ground up to do urban-homesteady things such as make cheese, brew beer, and, yes, raise bees.

As it so happened, the One-Block Diet’s beekeeping project did have a team-building effect. Communication flowed more freely between departments as Team Bee members buzzed around, talking bees, honey, and yes, Sunset Magazine.

I wanted to know whether other companies who keep bees were having the same team-building experience that we‘ve had at Sunset. And what company is more trendy and in the news for its apiary than Google and the Hiveplex?

Members of the Google beekeeping team

I called Rob Peterson, software engineering manager and one of the many beekeepers at Google in Mountain View, CA, only about 20 miles from us at Sunset. In their park like campus-by-the-bay, 120 employees have signed up to tend 4 beehives, sharing the duties of hive inspections, honey extraction, and general bee stuff. (more…)

Witness the “Bee Song” by Zach Sherwin aka MC Mr. Napkins at The Aspen Rooftop Comedy Festival 2010.

Each year, a giant pair of honey bee balloons at the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta take off and kiss in the sky.  At this year’s fiesta, the consequences became clear as a new purple baby bee ascended at dawn and floated up in triad over the Rio Grande.

And then there were three