I have my own wonderful apiary in my garden in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, called The Beemuda Triangle – aptly named, as so many unusual bee related things seem to happen here. I’m not allowed to have more than 3 – 5 beehives (due to the size of my property), so most of the year, I’m limited to just three, but I love each and every bee!
RAW HONEY
I sell raw honey from my beehives, completely untreated, unprocessed, straight from the hive – lightly strained/filtered. This is the closest you’ll get to reaching into the hive and tasting the honey as the bees have made it. Although I do sometime bottle my honey into glass jars, I prefer to use BPA-free food grade REUSABLE squeezy bottles, for two reasons: The most important one is HYGIENE – too often people double dip into a jar of honey and this can introduce small droplets of water, or germs (if someone has just put that spoon into their mouth) – and with these squeezy bottles, the nozzle never touches the spoon. It is 100% hygienic. The second reason is that if you drop an empty glass or jar, the shards can scatter all over the room or house – and then add honey to the equation, and you have a real mess. It happened to me when I was first bottling honey, I dropped a jar full of honey and it went EVERYWHERE – the honey itself almost needed a full hazmat team to come and clean up – no matter how much I tried, there was STILL honey mixed with tiny glass shards on the kitchen tiles months afterwards, with delighted ants scurrying all over the place. At least with the squeezy bottles, they have tight caps/lids, so if you drop one, it’s no big deal – it won’t break. I know I’m not alone, in dropping a glass honey jar that shattered! Having said that, I also offer gourmet glass jars, 6 oz, 10oz and 32 oz glass – unique and hand decorated by myself. I find it so soothing and restful for the soul to create mandala designs that I just can’t help myself – I believe I’m creating peace for that jar of honey, and each jar takes a long time for me to make – all designs are unique, and so far, people LOVE them!
I can also provide custom labels for these jars, so if you have a special occasion, or just someone’s birthday, or Valentine’s day – let me know and I’ll create a custom label for your gourmet jar. All my honey is wildflower honey i.e. I don’t focus on harvesting after any particular blossom. Interestingly enough, scientists experimented and offered honey bees the choice of nectar from a single blossom/flower (single varietal or monofloral) or from wild flower (a collection of multiple wild flowers and blossoms – polyfloral) – and they all went for the POLYFLORAL. I guess they’re like us – if we only ate ONE type of food, we would find ourselves lacking vitamins and minerals and nutrients, so we should eat a well rounded diet – same with the bees! Monofloral honey can taste great, but I believe that polyfloral honey is better for the bees and better for US!
Something a lot of people do not know – in the US, there is no such thing as “organic honey made in the USA“. You can buy organic honey in supermarkets, sure, but look at the label – you’ll see all organic honey is imported from other countries. There is nothing wrong with that – but it MUST be stated on the label. I have taken huge commercial honey producers to task when they do NOT explain either on their websites or on their labels that their “organic honey” is NOT produced here in the USA, that it is imported. I even had to report one producer to USDA/FDA because they refused to change their labels or their website and stated that their honey was USDA grade A certified Organic Honey made in the USA. It can be USDA certified, but again, it comes from other countries. YET THEY STILL DO IT! Saying their honey is “CERTIFIED ORGANIC By the USDA’s strictest standards”! They also state: “We partner closely with beekeepers from around the world to source the highest-quality and best-tasting USDA certified organic honey.” but NOWHERE on their website do they state that their organic honey is imported from Brazil and Uruguay (which it is). I believe in truth in labeling – the label is the law, so if you import organic honey – just put there which country it comes from. Simple! The USDA does not certify any organic honey made in the USA. A lot of smaller beekeepers state that their honey is organic – and what they mean is that they don’t treat their bees with any chemicals. That is still incorrect because their bees may be foraging off flowers nearby that are coated with pesticide residues or weed spray or mosquito repellents – so unless those beekeepers can follow every single bee, and make sure that those bees are only foraging on pure, UNTREATED flowers, then they cannot make that statement that their honey is organic. They can say their bees are not treated, but again, ORGANIC means absolutely NO chemicals. A brief “AI” overview is below: Organic honey means it’s made from nectar gathered by bees from plants grown without synthetic pesticides, herbicides, or GMOs, and the hives themselves are managed without synthetic chemicals or antibiotics, ensuring a cleaner product free from chemical residues, though it might still be heated or filtered unless also labeled “raw”. The key is chemical-free foraging areas and hive management, which is challenging as bees fly miles, requiring large, regulated, clean territories, often leading to certified organic honey being imported from places like Brazil with stricter standards
Having said that, I was recently made aware of an absolutely fantastic honey producer (and so much more than that!) called Killer Bees Honey https://www.killerbeeshoney.com/ located in the picturesque Smokey Mountains of North Carolina. While technically their honey is not certified as “organic” honey, I believe they are the closest thing to it – they are surrounded by 512,000 acres of the Pisgah National Forest, their honey is glyphosate free because the bees can forage on completely untreated flowers and blossoms – and if you just look at their website, not only will you immediately find your blood pressure going down (just look at those photos!!!), but you’ll see why their honey is absolutely astounding, award winning and ranks among the highest in Total Activity (TA) found anywhere in the world – boasting stronger antibacterial and healing properties than even manuka varieties. I can’t recommend them highly enough, if you’re looking for astounding, absolutely PURE, untreated raw honey – I think it’s probably one of the best in the world. Anyway, I digress…..
My honey is raw, wildflower honey – it is not organic (due to reasons stated above), but my bees aren’t treated with chemicals (fortunately haven’t needed to as yet, for varroa) – I use mechanical means to cope with small hive beetles etc., and I don’t heat my honey or process it in any way – it’s only filtered/strained through a fine mesh – and that’s the only human interference it has.
PRETTY BEEHIVES
I also custom design/paint beehives (the brood boxes/deeps and honey supers/mediums), called “Pretty Bee Hives”. “Pretty Bee Hives” are unique, custom painted and decorated genuine pine wood bee hivesthat I purchase from a reputable bee supply merchant. They are already assembled when I get them, but they have not been painted. I paint them with TWO coats of non-toxic low/no VOC exterior latex paint to protect them from the elements, and then add my custom designs with a unique and bright flare. Bright colors can actually help bees memorize what their hive looks like when they do their orientation flights and (in my opinion) can greatly help them findtheir way home again. THEIR hive is unique! No two beehives are alike. I include a deep/brood chamber or box and a honey super or medium – no frames or other hive components are included – and the designs are designed to fit one way and one way only i.e.the honey super pattern is designed to fit perfectly on top of the brood chamber – and there’s a very good reason why I do this. Why? Well, as we beekeepers know, sometimes when inspecting ourhives or harvesting honey from our supers, we lift the supers off and sometimes have to place them on the ground or on 4×4’s while we inspect. It can sometimes be confusing to remember which way you took that super off, and it’s important to put it back exactly the same way – so that it is facing the same direction it was when you originally took it off. By my designs, if you look at the super, you can tell immediately which orientation it belongs, so you cannot make a mistake and put the front of the honey super at the back, i.e. the wrong way around. Not only do Pretty Beehives look stunning in your apiary or garden, IT’S ART FOR YOUR GARDEN AND ART YOUR BEES WILL LIVE IN. I ship anywhere in the USA.
