Buy Local Honey
Local honey is fresh, and tastes great! It is made by bees collecting nectar and pollen from flowers near you!
Supporting local beekeepers, supports local bees!!
Some local beekeepers also use bee-made-materials to produce products like CREAMED HONEY, BEESWAX, PROPOLIS, POLLEN, CANDLES, SOAPS, and LIP/SKIN BALMS.
Use the list below to find a LOCAL Beekeeper near you!
(BCBA does not screen or endorse beekeepers or their products.)
Honey:
A colony of honey bees must collect nectar from two million flowers to make a pound of honey! The bees store the honey to eat when nectar is scarce. Luckily for us, they make more honey than they need, so beekeepers can share the bounty. Creamed honey is 100% honey with nothing added. It is converted into a white, smooth, spreadable consistency by a special mixing process.
Fun Facts: In her lifetime, a honey bee worker, will only produce about 1/12th of one teaspoon of honey. Honey bees have to visit on average 2 million flowers to produce one pound of honey. Honey bees carry the nectar they gather in their "honey stomach" and the nectar in their honey stomach weighs 25-40 mg or 50-85% of their body weight.
REMEMBER: Honey should not be fed to infants less than 12 months old.
Beeswax:
Honey bees excrete tiny plates of wax from glands on the underside of their abdomens. They use this wax to create wax comb, the hexagonal (six-sided) cells used to store nectar, pollen, and to raise new bees. People use beeswax to make candles, lip balm, soap, etc.
Fun Facts: Honey bees must consume eight pounds of honey in order to produce one pound of wax. Beeswax production in most hives is about 1.5-2% of the total honey yield.
Pollen:
Pollen grains are microscopic cells that plants use to propagate. Pollen is rich in protein, so honey bees collect pollen from blossoms to feed their young. As the honey bee flies she builds up a positive electrostatic charge, plants produce a negative electrostatic charge so the pollen sticks to the honey bee's body. She then grooms the pollen grains back to specialized hairs on her back legs (pollen baskets) where she carries it back to the hive. In order to collect the pollen from the bees, the beekeeper must put a special reducer on the entrance of the hive that will knock the pollen off of the bee's back legs and into a collection tray as she enters the hive.
Fun Facts: One colony collects between 40-125 pounds/year. One colony eats between 44-65 pounds/year
Propolis:
Propolis, also known as bee glue, is a sticky substance that bees use to fill in gaps smaller than bee space in their hive. They make it using plant resins they collect and mix with their saliva.
Fun Fact: Propolis is thought to have anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, and anti-viral properties.