Apiopolis

Apiopolis Nonprofit Urban Bee Sanctuary
Conservation | Community | Collaboration | Celebration

Natural beekeeping, pollinator habitat, collaborations, green jobs.

03/08/2026

Happy International Women’s Day to you all you beautiful lady and lady-identifying beings! Grateful for every big and little thing you do to make our wonderful world better and brighter. When we were little girls our beloved Oma taught us how to make magical dandelion crowns. I saw a post recently that said ‘My daughter forgot the word “dandelion” so she described it as “the one that explodes into wishes.” I like that better.’ Wishing all of yours come true including more flowers and that today’s reporting that women and girls still only “enjoy” 64% of the rights men will be history sooner than later. I wonder what our current administration is doing to celebrate and uplift us today and this month and always in all ways?

03/06/2026

“To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, — One clover, and a bee. And revery. The revery alone will do If bees are few.” Emily Dickinson, 1755. On breathing and bees and embodied action. Piedmont prairie making in progress. Found this chilled little sister on the wire suspending a platform bird feeder while filling them at dawn. Warmed her with my breath in the early morning light until she flew off to join the reverent making of tiny and huge new worlds of wonder and sustenance and beauty.

02/28/2026

“… Let the beauty of what we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground…” from A Great Wagon by Rumi. Happy final day of the littlest love month of February, friends. The wonder. This was on an “unseasonably” warm winter day in December when the plum blossoms had begun to burst, fragrant and beautiful with busy foraging bees, before the many hard freezes and ice and snow storms nearly knocked back their will and capacity to bloom. Instead of a brilliant month or so long decadent display, we received smatterings of flowers that persist today. So much wisdom.

Hooray for a brand new 2026 and 1 year and moving into the year of the Crimson Fire Horse! Slow celebrated yesterday wit...
01/02/2026

Hooray for a brand new 2026 and 1 year and moving into the year of the Crimson Fire Horse! Slow celebrated yesterday with the stunning natural beauty of the sun’s rise and set, tomorrow’s Super Wolf Moon shining big and bright, immense gratitude, black eyed peas and collard salad shared with , an always joyful puppy play date, and many other tiny giant miracles. My dear sister, ’s New Year’s Day birthday always seems particularly fortuitous and this year’s 1:1:1 portal especially so. Remember when I began with the bees and made labels for each honey harvest with collages of pics and drawings? I was thinking of this particular one yesterday. Excited for this New Year and finally moving forward. Wishing everyone and Regina, the best, most magical year ever. The chickens are of course in on the seasonal shifts and with the light increasing after the solstice have begun laying again. Thankful for all the blessings and kindnesses.

Hooray for a brand new 2026 and 1 year and moving into the year of the Crimson Fire Horse! Slow celebrated yesterday wit...
01/02/2026

Hooray for a brand new 2026 and 1 year and moving into the year of the Crimson Fire Horse! Slow celebrated yesterday with the stunning natural beauty of the sun’s rise and set, tomorrow’s Super Wolf Moon shining big and bright, and immense gratitude, black eyed peas and collard salad shared with and an always joyful puppy play date. My dear sister, ’s New Year’s Day birthday always seems particularly fortuitous and this year’s 1:1:1 portal especially so. Remember when I began with the bees and made labels for each honey harvest with collages of pics and drawings? I was thinking of this particular one yesterday. Excited for this New Year and finally moving forward. Wishing everyone and Regina, the best, most magical year ever.

“What a desolate place would be a world without a flower! It would be a face without a smile, a feast without a welcome....
12/22/2025

“What a desolate place would be a world without a flower! It would be a face without a smile, a feast without a welcome. Are not flowers the stars of the earth, and are not our stars the flowers of heaven?” ~Clara Lucas Balfour

Ah, yes, here is my tall shadow, cast in yesterday’s late afternoon sunshine on the eve of the shortest day and longest night. It is with me, as ever, as I chase the light, once again on a last minute quest for twinkly strands for my Christmas tree. We stopped to admire the sunny golden flowers and airy white moon seed head of the dandelion growing brightly and sturdily against the curb. Dandelions represent resilience, strength, healing, transformation, and renewal. A perfect pause and reminder on the Eve of Solstice. And today our own sun star seems to stand still in the winter sky, marking the return of the light.

12/20/2025

Did you wake on the morning of the New Moon kissing everything? The dark surround, the sleeping dogs close and warm beside, the spectacular dawn, The rain still dripping from bare limbs and clinging leaves. The seemingly serious toad staring intently into my eyes. Beloved Pablo Neruda’s “Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair” translated by W.S. Merlin presented itself, an origami crane folded on graph paper from a long ago notebook with my own writing falling from the pages, the making and meaning long forgotten. From one wing I read “Xmas Rambler Yonder All U Know”. And from the Song of Despair, “I made the wall of shadow draw back, beyond desire and act, I walked on.” One small seed and baby bee step and tiny toad hop at an extraordinary time.

Of we and whales and birds and bees and butterflies. My friend and fellow bee steward, .moylan, shared this gorgeous pho...
11/14/2025

Of we and whales and birds and bees and butterflies. My friend and fellow bee steward, .moylan, shared this gorgeous photo she snapped of a monarch nectaring on hardy ageratum recently. I can count on one hand the number I’ve seen this strange year and each sighting takes my breath away. Seeing them in the fall reminds me of the incredible journey they are embarking on. These are the great-great grandchildren of the butterflies that undertook the astonishing one to three thousand mile trip to their very specific overwintering grounds in the oyamel fir forests in the mountains of Mexico last year and returned north in the spring, mating and laying their eggs on butterfly w**d. Like the honey bees, the late season brood that emerge from their pupae will live far longer than the summer generations, in their case the difference is a span of 8-9 months versus 3-5 weeks, and the experiences endured during that lifespan is stupendous to consider. Monarchs are the only butterflies that undertake the 2-way migration which is more similar to that of birds or whales, though other species do travel on 1-way emigrations to more generous habitats. Speaking of migrations and generosity, or rather generosity’s obscene opposite, in yesterday’s human news, US Customs and Border Patrol Commander, Gregory Bovino left Chicago to participate in the CBP’s next “immigration enforcement” operations in Charlotte, NC and New Orleans. In 2018, the US Justice Department at the behest of the administration, directed US Attorney Offices to use the dehumanizing language “illegal aliens” rather than “undocumented immigrants”. Actual Nobel Peace Prize winner and holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel once said “no human being is illegal”. The operation is Charlotte is grotesquely being called “Charlotte Web”. My German-born mother was an infant during WW2 and emigrated with my Oma and Opa to Canada after it ended where they became citizens. By marriage she became a legal resident in the US but maintained her Canadian citizenship. Perhaps the administration and its minions should return to reading children’s books.

11/13/2025

In Celebration of and in Thanksgiving for the Life of Dr. Jane Goodall. Well, here is my own Jane, named for the great lady herself, which I think would delight her. There was that morning on World Bee Day what year of the pandemic that I was listening to an On Being podcast with Dr. Goodall talking about what it means to be human while driving to Raleigh Memorial to move in the family of bees school children had playfully named Elizabuzz. Dr. Goodall always describes her curiosity and determination even as a four year old when she climbed into an empty chicken coop and waited, hiding quietly in a corner, for 4 hours for a hen to come in and lay an egg so she could discover how exactly that was possible. The grownups had no idea where she was and were frantically searching for her. After witnessing the miracle for herself, she excitedly ran home to share the news and as worried as they had been, did not scold her but rather listened to her excited story. The honey bee transfer went well but is always an intense experience for me and I imagine is especially so for the bees. Driving home several hours later, a research scientist was on NPR discussing recent studies proving that fruit flies have feelings and experience emotional states much like humans. Of course. Of course. Yesterday I was elated to join the livestream of the memorial for Dr. Goodall at the Washington National Cathedral and my little giant heart is still bursting. A constant theme throughout the service was how blessed we are that we shared the wonder of this world with Dr. Goodall and how each of us can make a difference with our own unique gifts and devoted actions. I’ll put the link in the bio. Prepare to be weepy and laughy and inspired and in awe. Mantel accepted again and again, dearly beloved Jane.

So urgent. Thinking about the devastating 100-year storm and strongest hurricane to ever strike Jamaica leaving it a dis...
10/29/2025

So urgent. Thinking about the devastating 100-year storm and strongest hurricane to ever strike Jamaica leaving it a disaster area and now pummeling Cuba and Haiti and the 1000-year storm that struck western North Carolina a little over a year ago. I’m eager to be back in Burns Auditorium tonight to hear landscape architect and environmental designer, Megan Foy speak on Nature, Community and Recovery as part of the fall lecture series on Building Resilient Futures: Ecology, Community and Our Habitat.

10/27/2025

So wonderful to spend what turned into a beautiful Sunday volunteering with the at the state fair with old and new friends. It was a chilly morning but when the sunshine broke through in the afternoon, I enjoyed watching several species of native bees visiting the sprawling climbing aster on the fence. Ampelaster carolinianus is a larval host to Pearl Crescent butterflies. Not only are the fragrant fall blooming lovely lavender flowers attractive to numerous bees and butterflies, the winter fruit and seed set provides food for songbirds and small mammals. The native plant garden at the fairgrounds is a beautiful, nourishing respite from the crowds and clamor for many creatures, the animal Alice included.

Address

Raleigh, NC
27604

Telephone

+19194498775

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Apiopolis posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Organization

Send a message to Apiopolis:

Shortcuts

Share

Category