Kickstarter

Hello Backers!

Bike a Bee is holding a fundraiser to help cover costs for this season of beekeeping. We are having a silent auction with EXCELLENT donors, beer, spirits and a honey-inspired bake sale!

https://www.facebook.com/events/555063344513960/

Please come and support the bees. If you cant, we would greatly appreciate your help promoting the even on facebook. It's going to be a great time!

<3,

Jana (+ the Bees!)

Hi Backers!

This is the very last "official" backer update from me. I mailed out the posters and honey today! Here's a video my friend Greg helped me make: https://vine.co/v/bwKDqUvZqX2

The honey is from my hives at Patchwork Farms at Chicago and California. Since it's raw, unprocessed honey straight from the hive, it has crystallized. Personally I like it this way, it's easier to spread and is more fun to eat by the spoonful. But if you absolutely cant do without liquid honey, place the jar in warm water until its a consistency you like. But be warned, do not microwave it or put it in very hot water. Doing so will destroy it's special enzymes and probiotics. Crystallization is a sign of purity and quality, don't think your honey has "gone bad". Honey can never go bad.

The poster is unbearably cute. It's a 3-screen, hand-printed 11x17 poster, illustrated by myself and printed by Reuse-first.

SO! onto this year of beekeeping! we threw another Hive-Building Party, which was crazy successful (we got everything built in 2 days!) I'm also planning a fundraiser to help foot the bill for this season's SIX new hives! Stay tuned for more info about that!

Love y'all,

Jana! (+ the bees)

Hello! 

Bike a Bee's first year came to a close and what a wonderful year it was. There were many challenges with the drought and continually hot weather, but most of the hives made it through fine. There were some losses, though. We lost three hives just at the beginning of winter and combined one small and weak hive with a stronger, healthier hive. Many beekeepers in the area reported similar losses. A combination of many factors are at play here, including insufficient honey stores, stress, and small populations. 

This is how agriculture goes all over the world. You win some, you lose some, but every year you go back at it again with all of your energy. That's what Bike a Bee will be doing next year and for many years to come.

Allright BACKERS! Firstly, thank you for your patience. This was my first year as a full-time, self employed crazy person, and it was a lot of work. As of today, all of your postcards, stickers and bee drawings have been sent. The poster is 80% designed and will be hand-printed in late February when our printers get back from their honeymoon! At that time you'll also get your honey. It'll be a lovely little taste of summer during these cold times.

Here's a little video dedicated to those of you who backed at the $100+ levels. I hand-painted each of your requested names onto all of my hives, as you'll see here. You backers will also be receiving photos with location information this evening, as well.

The video was filmed by Christina Stradone and Rosa Gaia Saunders. Music by Ned Gawron.

What's next? Well over the winter the bees stay inside their hives, huddled up for warmth. They eat the honey they worked so hard to collect over the summer and right about now they start gearing up for spring. The queen begins laying and the cycle starts all over again. The beekeeper's duties are minimal in the winter, though I am feeding the hives supplemental sugar-cakes to ensure that they do not run out of food. This summer did not provide much bounty for these first-year hives.

As far as my activities go, I am getting in touch with many more community gardens who are interested in hosting beehives. Hands-on classes are in the works for spring and throughout summer. I'm also working with my dear friend Lauren Gill to become a Non-For-Profit so that I can continue to give beehives for free to community-owned and maintained spaces. This way I will also be able to hold fundraisers with fun partners like local breweries! Free beer for bees? Okay!

Allright! That's it for now. Thanks again for you patience, and please, if you have any questions or comments, send them to me through Kickstarter, or I can be contacted at bikeabee@gmail.com!

With love and warmth,

Jana (+ the bees!)

Hello Backers!

It has been a very hot and very busy summer! When I last updated you, we had all of our hive equipment built, and were getting ready to distribute the hives to their new community garden homes. How did that go, you ask? Well, my friend Brandon at Chicago Cargo was a huge help! Steve Vance over at GRID Chicago wrote a follow up article about our beehive bicycle delivery!

Shortly thereafter, Brandon and I also installed the packages of bees. All of the packages took well to their new homes, and since then, we've had a very successful start to the first year of Bike·a·Bee! Here are some highlights:

• We lost one queen bee, but the worker bees made a new one. The hive is doing fine now!

• My new intern/partner Jillian and I captured a swarm of bees with the help of the Chicago Honey Co-op. 

• I visited the beehives up at True Nature Foods in Edgewater.

• I WAS ON TV!!!

• I rode my bike down to Breslin Farms to see their amazing organic grains, beans, and corn!

• With the help of your funds, I purchased a $40 observation hive and have been working with Truck Farm Chicago to educate children on the importance of bees! I also visited the Gary Comer Youth Center to talk with their Green Teens about beekeeping. This education aspect is really taking off; It's the most exciting and energizing thing I have been doing with my time lately. Spreading the honeybee love cannot be beat!

• And TODAY, with the help of Chicago Cargo again, I picked up a 4-frame honey extractor! 

As you can see, Facebook is a great place to keep tabs on what Bike·a·Bee's been up to. Please head on over there to "Like" us!

As you can ALSO see, we'll have some honey soon! You backers who supported at the upper levels get first dibs. Those rewards are coming out soon, I promise, most likely with the first honey harvest in August.

Dear kind backers, not a day passes where I don't think about your rewards. They say crime doesn't pay, and neither does beekeeping. So, I've been busy trying to stay personally financially afloat, working illustration and graphic design jobs in addition to my weekly beekeeping duties. Your patience has been critical!

Now that the bees are rockin' steady, more updates to come. Stay tuned!

Love,
Jana (+ the bees!)

Hello Backers and Friends!

This month has been SO busy, and we still have about 2 more weeks of work until the hives are all up and buzzing! The bees have all been ordered, and the hives have all been built. Four hives will start as "nucs" which I am getting from Majenica Creek Honey Farm in Huntington, Indiana. Four will start from packages of bees (yes, literal screened boxes full of bees) from Apple Blossom Honey Farm in Star City, IN, and two others will be coming from southern IL.

So how did we get here?! With SO much help from our generous friends. On Monday the 19th a giant skid of hive equipment showed up at my door. I reeeally wished I had a warehouse space, let me tell ya.

We threw a Hive Building Party that night and it lasted for four evenings. 23 people showed up, a few for multiple nights! HUGE thanks to Laura, Adrianne, Justin, Elaine, Christina, Ned, Andrea, Melissa, Erin, Levi, Todd, Melissa, Rosa, Luly, Tom, Kayla, Justin, "Michael", Dreiske, Brandon, and our littlest helper, Graeme! Special thanks to Ned for coming 3 nights in a row, Levi and Erin for bringing the nail gun, and to Christina and Rosa for working 2 nights each and for filming the process. Together we assembled 65 hive boxes and 700 frames!

Yesterday Max and Anna came over and we painted the 65 hive boxes in daffodil yellow, light chartreuse, sky blue, white, and pink! We'll mix and match them to create really nice looking beehives. These colors will look beautiful in the garden and help the bees identify their home. Today I assembled my Bikes at Work trailer, it looks great!

So as you can see, we've been busy. Over the next few days we'll begin placing the empty hives at their new homes, and then when the bees come in to Chicago from the Indiana farms we'll install them. I must admit that my timing was off now that I've missed the March deadline for getting some of the rewards out to you amazing people. I thought March would be a chill, bee-free month where I could get some serious illustration work done. GUESS NOT! Now I am shooting for end of April. I hope you all understand!

With this crazy early spring we're having in Chicago, the bees that I do have have been going nuts! My friend Will and I went down to visit the hive at Eden place and they're already acting like it's June. Will caught some excellent photos through his bee veil. Check out this sneak peek of the photos he took below, I'm blown away. See more of his work at www.eightonesevenphotography.com