Back in Chicago to visit family, the documentary superheroes at MeerkatMedia.org sent along a mission: find and film urban beekeepers. A few trips to some spectacular farm markets later, I was off and running to visit the Chicago Honey Coop.
I met up with Dr. Israel in a beautiful community garden/urban apiary to talk about colony collapse, the taste of city honey, and everything bee. Over the course of the interview, in a reinvented abandoned lot on the South West side, I was stung three times on the head. Here Dr. Israel walks through his community garden at sunset, towards the apiaries.
Here are some other city pics: an urban garden against the skyline, lovely sprouts from Bill's market stand near Lincoln Park Zoo, and a garage crushed by a tornado near my aunt's house. Yes: tornado.