Zen and the Art of Beeing, LLC
I initially started Zen and the Art of Beeing to document and share my bees, experiences and handmade products and honey with others. It has since morphed into much more than that. It’s my mission to share my passion for bees (and all pollinators) and encourage others to not be scared of all the stingy insects, but instead appreciate and protect them. I do this by educating about honey bees, native bees, other pollinators, and beekeeping on social media and through my blog, sharing information for both beekeepers and non-beekeepers.
I now offer mentoring services for fellow beekeepers or wanna-be beekeepers, advice on keeping native bees, and particularly enjoy spreading the word on how everyone – yes, even you! – can help save the bees (please reach out if you want to know more).
For the bee-curious out there, I offer hive tours, during which you don a bee suit and we open up a hive together and learn all about the amazing things going on inside. Of course, no hive tour would be complete without a honey tasting at the end.
In addition to the above services, I make electroformed copper jewelry out of honeycomb and offer a few bee-centric designs on stickers and other merch. I also support USA-based women-owned small businesses by offering their products in my curated bee gift collection. I am thrilled to be able to support various pollinator health and research organizations by donating a portion of proceeds from all product and honey sales directly to them. Do you know of a good organization to support? Please let me know!
Crowd Sourced Beekeeping
There are many different approaches and decisions to everything in beekeeping and it’s easy to get analysis-paralysis; but most of them are perfectly valid and the bees do just fine! So, In 2022, I initiated a Crowd Sourced Beekeeping Project on Instagram as a way to involve a community of both beekeepers and non-beekeepers in learning together and trying different things.
The project works by putting every single decision for a colony of bees in followers’ hands, from where to source the bees (the winning vote was for a swarm catch) to what kind of hive to keep them in (the winning vote was for a top bar hive). I cover different options in depth with the advantages/disadvantages of each in posts and then put choices to a vote in stories, moving forward with managing a real colony of bees using the decision with the most votes. Future decisions depend purely on what’s actually going on in the colony.
Despite not having a picture perfect colony for most of the 2022 season and running into all kinds of crazy circumstances, the project was a huge success, with 294 people from more than 21 countries and 28 US states learning alongside each other. The project will live on to involve you in another season of beekeeping on the same colony in 2023 – if you’d like to join in or see all of the things we discussed this year, search #crowdsourcedbeekeeping on Instagram.
My Story: How I got into Beekeeping
I started beekeeping in 2019 in my Aurora, Colorado backyard. When I decided to move from a tiny townhouse to an actual house with a big, beautiful, private yard in 2018, I found myself down a youtube rabbit hole (you know the type!) one day while daydreaming about and researching cool things I would soon be able to do. A rewiring video led to a DIY chicken coop video, which then led to a backyard beekeeping video… The moment the hive was cracked open on the video, exposing thousands of bees inside, was the moment when I discovered that I was so drawn to these cute little insects, I just had to start keeping bees. Those moments were followed by a birthday filled with gifts of beekeeping equipment, and by then there was no turning back. I spent the winter reading every bee book I could get my hands on, joining a bee club and taking classes, building and decorating a couple hives and anxiously awaiting the arrival of my bees.
Fast forward and I still can’t learn enough about bees. In 2020, I joined the Colorado State Beekeeper’s Association’s master beekeeping program. It has been an incredible experience so far! I’ve met many wonderful people and am learning so much. The program includes a couple of intensive bee camp weekends for hands-on learning in queen rearing and bee science, as well as many guided studies which are completed by performing in-depth reviews of the scientific literature. I earned my journeyman certification in January 2024, and I’m currently working on my master certification, for which I will plan and execute a scientific study on my own bees (the hardest part will be narrowing down the list of potential research topics I have to just one to focus on – I still have no idea what I will do for my project!).
In October of 2023, I had the great fortune to join the Boulder Bee Lab as a part time lab manager. The Boulder Bee Lab is led by one of the top bee researchers in the world, Dr. Samuel Ramsey, and the lab group he is building is the best group of people around to work with. I have already learned so much, it has been the most fun job ever, and I’m thrilled to be able to share a bit of the behind-the-scenes of the bee research world and break down the science side of beekeeping for the masses. I’m also currently serving on the board of the Mile Hive Bee Club in Denver (if you’re part of the club and have any requests or programming ideas – please let me know!).
Whether you’re happy just watching from a distance, wanted to get some tips on how to start beekeeping yourself one day, or just wanted to read about a specific experience I have had (such as the queen-less EFB-infested hive that was my very first nuc!), thank you so much for stopping by Zen and the Art of Beeing! I hope that by sharing what I’m doing, I can spread appreciation and love of these incredible little creatures and the people who care for them.