Recommended Magazine on Gardens and Bees and More

If you're looking for reading material, I'd like to recommend an interesting, new-ish independent publication out of Colorado called Greenwoman Magazine. The editor publishes a selection of nonfiction, fiction, poetry, and visual art. It's an 8.5x11 size of magazine with newsprint pages and a stapled binding--the color cover always looks nice, and the inside pages include some color images, too.

There's a nice variety of topics, from gardening to art. I especially enjoyed a long interview with an artist who often paints images of backyard chickens in a formal portrait style. If you enjoy creative writing about gardening, plants, and backyard wildlife (including domesticated animals), I think you'll like this magazine.

I just received some copies of the current issue (Winter 2012/2013) as I have two poems about bees published in it. Greenwoman is definitely a bee-friendly magazine!

Happy Friday to You

Thanks very kindly for reading our new blog and following us on Facebook, where the blog feed shows up on our Hands off Bees page. Several people have just started reading/following us this week--hello and many thanks!

You may not know that in addition to being a fan of bees, I write poetry about bees. (My day job is teaching English at a community college.) Trish suggested that I share a bee poem of mine to end the week, so here's one that also appeared in the literary magazine, Softblow. The title is the scientific name for the European honeybee.

Apis Mellifera

From the Latin for honey-carrier,
from the Greek for healer,

bees may fly six hundred miles
if not squashed, sprayed with insecticide

eaten, or killed by disease. Worn-out
worker bees will die in about

six weeks and must quickly
be replaced if the colony will take

all the pollen and nectar of summer.