Urban Farming and a Giveaway Winner!

I ♥ things I can do by myself. I'm not a headstrong, independent first-born for nothing! And furthermore, I like unconventional things I can do myself. So when I met some new friends that lived in the middle of the suburbs and kept rabbits and bees (y'all, they had a beehive on their roof!), I was super excited. I got inspired by reading up on honey bees disappearing due to CCD (Colony Collapse Disorder) and I spent a huge amount of time researching different types of beehives and methods of beekeeping. And I approached my poor parents with the seemingly innocent request to have "just one little beehive that I could keep next to the house." My parents, being the absolutely incredible homeschooling-DIYers that they are said ok. 

And so I built a Kenyan top-bar beehive.

And I ordered a pound of bees (approximately 12,000 bees) to be shipped through the mail. I made cool friends at the post office that day!

This is how they're shipped:

And I did all the things my new bee-friends advised me to do. And pretty soon I had a fully functioning beehive with 50,000+ honey bees sitting not one foot from my house!

They gathered a lot of different types of pollen. It was fascinating to watch them go in and out of the hive.

Now, things happened a year later that were beyond my control and my hive ended up creating lots of new hives and then my hive "died". It was sad, but I'm so glad that I had the opportunity to learn what I did. And it has seriously inspired me to look into what is being labeled the "Urban Farming" movement. 

It's so cool, y'all. 

Positive Detroit

People take their backyards and rooftops and apartment patios and instead of letting them sit empty and "wasting space", they flourish with colorful plants and incredible animals.

Brooklyn Grange

National Geographic Urban Farming

Backyard Farmer: Honey I Shrunk the Farm

I'm totally and completely ok with this movement. I fully intend on owning a small farm someday, and I'm an Agriculture Education major, so I may be a little biased though. My sister is still trying to convince my dad that chickens make great conversation pieces as they run around backyards. (He hasn't bought it, or the chickens, yet.) 

If you're a current urban farmer, what are some tips you could offer would-be farmers? 

If you're interested, what would be something you'd have to know before you started your own backyard farm? 

If you hate the idea, why?

GIVEAWAY WINNER:

I used the Random Number Generator to pick a comment number fair-and-square, and Tamara's comment was chosen! Tamara will be contacted and her lovely recycled clutch will be shipped to her ASAP.