Image courtesy of Jordan at Hive-Mind

The past 3 days have been sunny and warm here in Seattle, the weather coaxing open cherry blossoms to open in pink and white petaled glory. And the score to the unfurling? A persistent and low buzz, little bees drunkenly hopping from blossom to blossom.

Honey is not just sweet. It’s amber-hued, magical in its longevity and touted as a medicine. I own a necklace made of amber and like to think of it more as honey droplets (lovely!) than as hardened pine resin (how prehistoric!).

Recently I went to my first Seattle Dorkbot, and the theme was “Geeking Out on Green”. The first two talks were each of interest on an artistic and technical level, but didn’t get me laughing and really thinking like the last presentation titled “Jordan Schwartz: Adventures in Earthly Technologies: Sundials and Beekeeping”.

Jordan’s talk mainly focused on beekeeping as a hobby, with the significant rewards of more honey than he can handle combined with a good deal of interest from local eateries. We were told that Molly Moon’s uses his honey for their honey-lavender ice cream flavor, and he mentioned a deal in the works with Thomas Douglas restaurants.

Opening up the idea of not just local food, but food from one zip code over from the heart of an urban downtown sounds delightful. Probably not very likely when it comes to crops of sustenance, but for honey, herbs, mushrooms, and edible flowers grown in the backyards of willing citizens – a much more likely proposition!