2017 Oregon Honey Festival

Just went to the 4th Annual Oregon Honey Festival!

I have participated in three of the Oregon Honey Festivals so far.  2017 was the fourth year this festival has happened.  This year I didn't have a vendor's booth.  I didn't sell my greeting cards & art, so it was much less stressful, and I got to fully enjoy the festival.  It was awesome!  

This year I participated in the festival by leading an art workshop in May to help raise funds for the festival, and I also painted a bee box set (bee hive boxes) that was auctioned off at the festival yesterday during the silent auction.  Last year I designed the poster & T-shirt Logo for the festival, and this year they re-used the same design again by flipping it sideways.  

Here is a photo of me last year - wearing the shirt with the artwork I designed:

The original artwork was actually black ink on a white background, but it looks awesome with white on black, don't you think?

Here are some photos of the painting event I did this year to help raise funds for the Honey Festival - back in May:

Here are photos of the Bee box (Bee hive boxes) that I painted last month:

Here are the three boxes that were up for auction - each by a different local artist:

Each one auctioned for between $150 & $180 dollars - last I saw - when I left the event a little early.  Maybe people did some last-minute bidding at the end!

I am happy to be part of these events and in my small way contributing to Bee education, awareness.  And, who doesn't like to eat/taste honey?!  I got to taste/try probably about 30 or more different varietals of honey by several beekeepers who were from Oregon, California, Hawaii and I think there was some honey from Colorado(?) too.  

I went with my daughter.  She got her face painted, kept busy with some of the children's art/craft projects, tasted honey, went to a book-reading by an author who had written a children's book (with songs) about bees.  

Here's a link to the book "Amazing Adventures of Melissa Bee"

I walked around and around tasting honey, talking to people about my art on the bee box being auctioned, about the bee shirt I was wearing, by another amazing Bee artist - Matt Willey from "The Good of the Hive" - everyone wanted one of his shirts!  Wish he had been there!

You can find out more about Matt Willey and his "Good of the Hive" project here.  He has taken on the task of personally painting 50,000 bees on murals across the world!  (50,000 is the average number of bees in a healthy honeybee hive.)

There was great live music, and mead tasting.  I attended a talk about how to judge honey - in honey contests.  I also attended a honey tasting - where each one was tasted, discussed how it differed from others, what the different flavors were from (which flowers/plants).  It was awesome!  Here are my two favorite honey varieties I tasted:

You can purchase this honey at this link.

You can purchase this honey from Bee-Licious here.

I am definitely looking forward to future Oregon Honey Festivals.   I may vend a booth again next year.  And, I might be working on a coloring book and/or some Bee paper dolls with Sharon from Cascade Girl (she organizes the Oregon Honey Festivals).  Sounds fun!

I'll leave you with the artwork I created prior to the first Oregon Honey Festival.  The festival is held in Ashland, Oregon each year (home of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival) - so this painting was named "Two Bee or Not to Be?" - a play on the famous Shakespeare quote from Hamlet - but this time asking the important question of embracing & helping save the honeybees, or not.  Are you in?