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Making cereal leads to some interesting adventures. My Thesis project, A Simple Cereal, is on its way to be unveiled this April; in the meantime, I have to gather ingredients to actually make said cereal. My first stop in this ongoing blog series is the Chicago Honey Co-Op, where I have been in contact with Farm Manager Michael Thompson. I visited Michael at the CHC’s production site to learn about beeswax, local honey, and the state of urban apiaries. [flickr id=”6876052183″ thumbnail=”medium” overlay=”true” size=”original” group=”” align=”none”]

The first thing to note here is the location of the CHC site: the Kinzie Industrial Corridor. When I think of local, organic honey production, I tend to ere on the callow optimistic side. I picture green hills and farm houses a la Ansel Adams. In reality, CHC is situated in a large warehouse on a block of other large warehouses in the Corridor. It is not much to see from the outside. Concrete. Service trucks. Garage doors. When I was buzzed in (pun intended) though, the CHC on the inside was another story.

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Like any workshop or studio, the place feels lived in and in media res. Mason jars and beekeeping books sit on worn, wooden tables. Tools hang from hooks as if a hand placed them there a moment before. The place is not for show. It’s for work. And for Thompson, this is work that has stretched over fifty years to his beginnings as a kid learning about honey bees. The CHC reflects its Farm Manager in stature–as a site of history, experience, and warmth.

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Thompson describes honey bees in a site-specific way as well. He explained how an earlier take on the CHC was in a more rural location in Illinois. The bees, he said, collect pollen in an estimated two-mile radius from the hive. What they collect to cultivate honey will reflect the ecological identity of the immediate landscape. In the rural location, the bees pollinated from miles and miles of soybean and cornfields. The limited diversity produced a limited tasting honey.

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As for city location? Contrary to public mindset, the bees collect from a relatively diverse palate of plants. The honey has a specific taste to the city in which it was made. It’s delicious…so delicious, I bought 20 pounds of it for my cereal-making endeavor. I’ll abstain from prattling on, but if one overlooks the poetics here–the symbiosis of land and animals–then perhaps closing this blog and eating a Big Mac is a better use of one’s time.

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The website for the CHC has an online store of products ranging from honey and wax candles to body scrubs and chapstick. None of what the honey bees produce goes to waste. Thompson spoke about the popular buzz words (…there I go again…) of local, organic, and sustainability. There is raging debate about how those words apply to meat, dairy, vegetables, and grocery store advertisement. Honey, in some ways, is much more simple. If humans respect them, honey bees cultivate their honey in a local, organic, and sustainable way all by themselves. No need to interfere. They take the best of their surroundings and produce.

With CHC and my own project, such a work ethic is a good thing to remember.

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