WE'RE ALL ABOUT THE BEES

We only sell raw, small-batch honey, and we NEVER add high fructose corn syrup or artificial sweeteners. Our honey is extracted from the hive, strained for impurities, and bottled for sale direct from the bees …  to you!

You may have heard some of the many health benefits of eating honey.  What many people don’t know is that commercially-produced honey has been processed for color, texture and shelf life, which strips it of most of its beneficial properties. So what makes raw, local honey so special?

• Raw honey contains up to 4 times as many antioxidants as processed honey, with health benefits including reduced inflammation and a lower risk of heart disease and certain cancers.
• Raw honey is rich in bee pollen, which contains vitamins, amino acids, essential fatty acids, micronutrients and additional antioxidants.  Studies have found that it may help fight inflammation and improve liver function. It also has properties that may help fight against heart disease and stroke. Most commercially produced honey has NO bee pollen, because it’s filtered out during processing.
• Consuming bee pollen from raw, local honey has also been said to help with allergies, allowing the person to build up gradual immunity to local allergens through small daily doses.  
• Raw honey is an effective prebiotic, helping your beneficial gut bacteria to flourish, which aids in digestion and overall health.

Our busy bees are hard at work in the Spring and Summer collecting nectar, pollen and water. Honey bees convert nectar from flowers into honey, which they use as their food source over the winter.  It takes over 500 worker bees to produce ONE pound of honey from about 2 million flowers.  It's not uncommon for a colony of bees to store 50-100 pounds of honey every year.

In fall and winter when temperatures drop and flowering plants stop producing nectar, the bees retreat to the hive to keep the Queen and her daughters warm. Worker bees flex their flight muscles without moving their wings, creating a vibration that raises their body temperature. This keeps the Queen (and the center of the hive where her eggs and larvae are) at a cozy temperature around 92 degrees. All of this energy production requires a food source! 

Without flower nectar, the bees rely on consumption of the honey they produced earlier in the year.  As beekeepers, we are able to harvest some of this honey without harming the hive or completely removing their food source. As we remove honey after the nectar flow, we replenish their food source by feeding the bees sugar and water.  The bees convert the sugar water into honey to ensure enough honey to feed on throughout the winter.  Fed properly, the bees survive the winter and will be back to collecting nectar the following spring.

Please help #savethebees!!  Spring means allergy season, but it’s also honeybee SWARM season.

When the bee colonies start to expand in the spring, if they feel crowded, they produce the next generation of the queen. The old matriarch then leaves the hive with about half of the workers to look for a new home, but the queen doesn’t fly well (or far). They will stop to rest on any available surface. A resting swarm will usually look like a dark ball of insects about the size of a basketball.  

Bees that decide to move into someone’s house or a hollow tree usually don’t fare well on their own.  As beekeepers, we want to protect these critically important pollinators by putting them in a proper home.  

If you see or hear of a swarm in the Milton (Georgia) area, please reach out to our beekeeper Ed Parsons IMMEDIATELY. If he can’t rescue them, one of our beekeeping partners probably will.  

Ed’s number is (770) 891-5108.

We’re all accustomed to seeing busy bees out and about in the spring, fall and summer when flowers are in bloom, but have you ever wondered what happens in the winter?

Honeybees are cold-blooded, and they don’t hibernate - they must generate body heat to stay alive.  So when temperatures drop below about 40 degrees, worker bees retreat to the hive.  

Deep inside, they gather in a tight cluster around the queen, shaking and shivering to generate warmth for her and the emerging baby bees. The center of the cluster is a toasty 92 degrees, even on the coldest winter nights!

All this moving and shaking requires a great deal of energy, in the form of stored honey.  The cluster moves around the hive consuming honey as it goes. As beekeepers, we’re able to supplement their honey stores with sugar water. 

This practice helps our colonies make it through the winter so the hive can emerge healthy in the Spring, ready to pollinate spring flowers.