Urban Bee Farming in Salt Lake City

The Main Library has a new addition: two hives full of hard working bees. Housed in the rooftop garden courtyard, roughly 40,000 Western European honeybees are hard at work inside two Langstroth hives producing wax and honey. Inhabited by female workers that forage pollen and make honey, and by male drones that support the reproduction of the queen, the hives will be on the roof until late fall, when they’ll be taken away to be safely stored for the winter.

The hives can be viewed from the staircase between the Main Library’s fourth and fifth floors. The City Library’s staff is happy to find answers to any questions you may have about beekeeping, honey production and the importance of pollinators. Drop by this summer, and check out what the buzz is all about.

For the Love of Lost Stories

In the past three months, Rachel Quist has posted more than 50 stories about Salt Lake's history.

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Rachel Quist loves a good story. As an archaeologist who conducted field schools for the University of Utah and is currently the lead archaeologist at Dugway Proving Ground, she knows that some stories are buried in the ground. As a writer with a passion for history, she knows other stories hide in the pages of old newspapers or in the architectural details of buildings. In Rachel’s view, stories need to be shared, especially when they have been lost or forgotten, which is why she started to blog as the Salt Lake City History Examiner three months ago. She has already written over 50 articles.

Want to know about the Fremont people who lived here a thousand years ago? Check out “Ancient History Under South Temple.” Ever hear about the tragedy at the Buena Vista Airfield near the Jordan River or that there was once a China Town in downtown Salt Lake where a parking structure now stands? Did you know that a Salt Lake City traffic officer invented the world’s first electric traffic signal or that the community known as Hobbitville was built as a bird sanctuary?

The Hive visits the Utah Arts Fest 2010

Every summer the Utah art community descends upon Library Square to host a four day celebration of art called the Utah Arts Fest. This year, The Hive was on hand to interview six artists about their work and process.

Beth Fischer jokes about her photography and unique subject matter. Jesse Stern discusses his handcrafted guitars and even strums a few chords. Matt DelPorto drops by in the 337 Project truck with an enormous ball of string and a thousand thoughts on strings. Leia Bell walks us through her screen printing process and narrowly avoids a spider attack. Shawn Hayes tells us the story of his apprenticeship in leather shoe making, and Amber DeBirk talks about her recycled glass belt buckles.

The Utah Arts Fest, going on now through Sunday, June 27.

Urban Farming, Salt Lake Style

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Steven Swanson combines urban gardening with inner city basketball in Sugar House. Robert Eckman from the University District keeps chickens and bees and cultivates vegetables in a community garden. Lisa McClauahan of Highland Park would like to see people who don’t harvest their fruit offer it to the public through a website.  And Kenvin Lyman has kept rabbits, chickens, goats and bees during the 43 years he has gardened in the Avenues.

How would you implement urban farming in Salt Lake City?  If you are already an urban farmer, how do you do it?

These are the questions The Hive asked folks waiting in line to talk with bestselling author Novella Carpenter after she regaled an enthusiastic crowd in the City Library

Art in the Garden

Pilar Pobil's painting of the path to her studio gives a sense of the enchanted world visitors enter during the 15th annual "Art in Pilar's Garden" event, June 18-20. Work from local artists Hadley Rampton, Polly Plummer, Edie Roberson, Susan Slade, and Judith Romney Wolbach is also on view.

You could imagine stumbling across the big, persimmon-colored house with its arched windows and wild, enchanted garden on a hilly street in a Spanish village.  Instead, it is an Avenues Neighborhood landmark, a quirky but harmonious synthesis of Pilar Pobil’s childhood on the island of Mallorca, off the Mediterranean coast of Spain, and her life in Utah where she raised a family and became a renowned

Where Do You Get a Drink in This Town (Part II: Brave New Brews)

Check out Part I:  Cool, Clear Water

Salt Lake's new beers feature labels that are as bold as the contents inside. We at The HIve admit a particular fondness for this one. Courtesy Uinta Brewing.

A marine biologist and a geneticist walk into a brewery.  It sounds like the first line of a joke but it’s more fun than that: it’s the backstory of Salt Lake’s newest oasis for beer, Epic Brewing, which opened earlier this month at 825 S. State Street. When it’s founders, David Cole (the marine scientist) and Peter Erickson (the geneticist) moved to Utah from San Francisco in 1992 to start a brine shrimp fishery, they brought a love of craft-made beer with them. After they sold their shrimp business in 2002, they began looking for a new entrepreneurial opportunity. As Cole told SLUG Magazine, “We like to manufacture things, make things that are special. Beer is one of those things that has always been pulling at us.” When Utah’s liquor laws changed in 2008

High on the List of Best Cities

Kiplingers featured the 9th and 9th neighborhood in its video tour of Salt Lake. Carmen Gage Ackert photo, Creative Commons license.

Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine has named Salt Lake City fifth among the top ten cities in which to live, work, and do business in the next decade. The article noted that our city is a particularly good place for new business because of its strong venture capital community, low cost of living, and the fact that the University of Utah “is ranked by one measure as first in the country (along with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) in launching start-up companies from research-based inventions.”  It also stressed the quality of life here, from pedestrian and bike-friendly neighborhoods to great skiing and other outdoor recreation opportunities.

Read “Best  Cities 2010:  Salt Lake City, Utah” in the June, 2010 issue of Kiplinger’s Personal Finance.

Watch Kiplinger’s video tour of Salt Lake.

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Where Do You Get a Drink in This Town? (Part I: Cool, Clear Water)

(Stay tuned for Part II: Brave New Brews)

Paula and Gary Evershed built the dog fountain and soaking pond by the side of the Terrace Hills Drive entrance to the Bonneville Shoreline Trail.

For years, Paula and Gary Evershed would find tired, thirsty dogs in the reflecting pond by their front porch, and just as often, dusty hikers would ask for a drink from their hose. The Eversheds lived right next to an entrance to the Bonneville Shoreline Trail, and they might have tried to keep trespassers out with signs or a tall fence. Instead, they built a fountain and pond to cater to the hikers’ needs.

Look Up to Public Art

The eagle perched atop a beehive on Eagle Gate in downtown Salt Lake City is one of the earliest examples of public art in Salt Lake City (though the original wood sculpture carved by Ralph Ramsay in 1859 has since been replaced by an enlarged bronze casting). "Three Hummbingbirds in Blue and White" by Greg Ragland is part of "Flying Objects 2.0," presented by the Salt Lake City Arts Council. SLCPL photos.

In a city built along the front of a great mountain range, much draws the eye upward, but here in Salt Lake, you don’t have to look as far as the Wasatch Range to find inspiration. Utah has long had a high regard for public art and you can find it in public buildings, along the streets, and soaring overhead.

The Utah Arts Council is the oldest arts council in the country, formed in 1899 when Alice Merrill Horne, Utah’s second female legislator, won passage of an act that

It Only Takes 36 Hours to Fall in Love

The New York Times Travel Section recently mentioned the local music scene at Kilby Court. Photo by Paul Mayne, Creative Commons License

If you’ve ever had trouble describing Salt Lake City’s cool factor to a friend who has never been here, you can get some help from the New York Times Travel Section this week, whose lead article is titled “36 Hours in Salt Lake City.” The author, Jaime Gross, clearly fell in love with a place that surprised her at every turn, from its design scene