Mad Urban Bees

We joined the honey CSA this season and it’s been a real treat. Silly me — I thought honey was just honey until this year. Every few weeks we get two new jars and it’s been a ton of fun to stockpile them and do taste tests with them as more roll in. They really do look and taste surprisingly different from week to week, month to month! Nathan does a nice job of listing a few tasting notes on each jar so it really helps people like me who need a few cues as to what we’re tasting. ;)
You can buy jars at stores around town (nice gift ideas) but I’d highly recommend the CSA because it’s probably the best way to get to actually try all the different variations. The price is right ranging from $ 40 – 180 for the season — you can even do a taster CSA for only $ 30! I even was able to turn it into an activity for out-​of-​town guests, letting everyone try samples from all the different honey jars I’d stored up — they loved it.

What Kate said!
Thursday’s this summer are magical, because I get to pick up my honey CSA, conveniently in my hood at Mothers Fools. Jars change slightly with the season, so each pick-​up brings something unique, and it’s been fun to try to name flavor profiles and note subtle differences between them all. Eye over their site for the next one. You can totally pick up Mad Urban Bees Honey at grocers throughout town, but the CSA is pretty spectacular!

Thank you Nathan for sharing your home with us and thank you Corey for setting us up with yet another amazing educational event!
We ended up at the Northeast residential neighborhood, and was brought into a spacious backyard. Nathan set up his farmers market booth to share some items for us to purchase. The far end of the yard had 3 hives filled with buzzing bees!
It was an amazing story. Nathan loves making mead. and was curious to how mead would taste with his own made honey. He stuck out through his late-​developed allergy to Bees and took endless allergy shots, till he was recently declared resistant since he was getting stung more than once a week.
A beautiful day outside Nathan’s backyard, we heard many of his beekeeping stories! Currently has 80 hives scattered all around Madison, and the waitlist is double that number! There’s some on top of a third floor building, and some in backyards. All feeding in various type of gardens and plants. You get paid with honey and that’s so amazing!
Nathan is the beekeeper of the Olbrich gardens and make honey that is solely sold in the Olbrich gardens gift shop. According to Nathan, it is floral unlike honey from other areas. In addition, if you see the groupon with beekeeping classes, Nathan is probably the instructor as he is the only instructor around. The Red Rock Honey, a beekeeping school from Texas, has entrusted Nathan to conduct beekeeping classes in Madison and share the knowledge!
Get some of this urban honey, harvested every 2 weeks, chemical free and delicious! The newest one is light and fragrant, yet the ones from last year are more intense. So excited for the honey CSA from July to October, can’t wait to taste flavors throughout this summer!

Mad Urban Bees runs an awesome honey CSA — yes, you heard right, a honey CSA. Because of their cool approach to urban beekeeping, the honey changes throughout the season and every jar you get has a unique flavor.
Not ready to commit to a full summer of honey? You can also pick up a jar at many local stores. They’re not only a great addition to your pantry, but they make fantastic gifts as well.