Neil Gaiman, Tina Seamonster & Bison Beer
August 17, 2009 – 7:42 pmDear me but I’ve been neglecting this blog. I still need to post up the awesome tag cloud of bee-related words and ideas I gathered at Artomatic. In the meantime, here’s a few links to some pretty cool bee-related stuff.
First up, there’s the always awesome Tina Seamonster. You need to stop what you’re doing immediately and go buy some of her great We Will Miss the Bees goodies. The moleskine notebooks are going to make great solstice stocking stuffers. I’m just saying…
Next, congratulations are in order to Neil Gaiman. He deserves congratulations for the sundry literary awards he’s been racking up lately, certainly, but more importantly for his two blue ribbons from the county fair for the honey his bees have been busy producing.
We (and by we, I mean the Birdchick and Lorraine and Woodsman Hans and the Birdchick’s long-suffering husband Bill and me of course and any of our passing guests who have been persuaded to put on a white bee suit and come and hold the smoker, but most of all the amazing 60,000 bees in the Yellow Hive and the just as amazing 60,000 bees in the Green Hive) took two Blue Ribbons in the county fair, for Extracted Honey and for Comb Honey (a Ross Round). We are, of course, over the moon.
The extracted honey is from the yellow hive, and it tastes of mint and wildflowers. It’s a very light yellow (as is all our honey this time of year). The comb honey is from the green hive. I have no idea what it tastes like, but it looks beautiful.
There are other pictures of his bees throughout his blog. I trust you can find them. That Hugo award (as reported in the Guardian) following the Newbery Medal is darned cool, as well, though, no doubt about it.
Last, let me mention the lovely summer brew we found at our local wine shop. It’s Bison Brewing’s yummy Honey Basil Ale. They have an essay on their site explaining why this is a honey ale and not technically mead. I think mead deserves it’s own post on another day, though, don’t you?

