“Grimm,” a television series filmed in Portland, is packed with gruesome images — vomiting spider people, bloated bodies poisoned by bee venom and dismembered body parts from any number of the show’s hideous creatures — that are all losely based on The Brothers’ Grimm Fairy Tales.  Although the show, which just completed its first season (2011-2012), is based in a fairy tale world, producing it requires real time and talent that often comes from Northeast Portland.

Glenn Andersen

Glen Andresen, beekeeper and resident of the Wilshire neighborhood, was offered a chance to share his expertise last summer when he received a knock on his door.  His neighbor, a set designer on the show, was frantic.  The crew had rented several palettes of bee equipment for the episode “Beeware” about a diabolical beekeeper, and now thousands of bees were flying around the set.  Ironically, that episode was partially filmed at a mansion on Northeast 35th Avenue and Fremont Street, next door to one of Andresen’s hives.

“I’m sure most of the bees flying around the set were my bees,” Andresen said with a chuckle. However, he didn’t share that thought with the set designer; instead, he identified the culprit, a few hives still containing combs of honey, and offered to remove them.