About
The bee-autiful honey bee...
A new family, on an old farm...
Honey bees are a social colony, living together in the hive and consisting of a hierarchy which includes a single queen, a few hundred drones, and thousands of worker bees. As social rather than solitary insects, honey bees have developed communication skills, complex hive construction, temperature control, hive defense, and a system of divided labor which make them fascinating to observe.
Once honey bees collect nectar from flowering plants, a natural enzyme in their stomach breaks down this nectar from its primarily water and sucrose (table sugar) form into the simple sugars fructose and glucose while dehydrating it to create the thicker sticky honey we have come to enjoy.
Honey Bee Fun Facts:
+ Honey bees fly at a speed of around 15 miles per hour, beat their wings 200 times per second, and will travel up to 2 miles from the hive.
+ The average worker bee lives for just five to six weeks, while the queen can live up to 5 years and will lay up to 2,500 eggs a day in the summer months.
+ Each bee has 170 odorant receptors. They use this remarkable sense of smell along with their "waggle" dance to communicate.
+ If the queen bee dies, workers will create a new queen by selecting a young larva and feeding it a special food called “royal jelly“ which enables the larva to develop into a fertile queen.
It all began with a dream to move back to our home town and restore what was left of the once prominant Castle Calder historic 1876 brick farmhouse as the perfect place to raise our newborn daughter. With just under 3 acres of what was once a nearly 5,000 acre estate, we knew our desire to breath new life into this historic farm was going to take some spacial creativity. Traditional crops and large livestock were out of the question.
At about the time this 'new' home became livable again, we discovered a local bee keeping program and our interest was peaked. Honey bees are facinating, and our property is idealy suited to support their foraging range for nectar and pollen in addition to our pollinator friendly wildflower and goldenrod plantings. With delivery of our first hives, Sweet Bee Honey Co. was born!
All Sweet Bee Honey Co. products are packaged onsite at our historic Castle Calder Farm. We handle all the day to day operations with our daughter Katie by far the most popular sales person at local events and markets. Keep your eye out for her, she'll be the one waving bottles of honey in the princess dress!
All Sweet Bee Honey Co. products are packaged onsite at our historic Castle Calder Farm. We handle all the day to day operations with our daughter Katie by far the most popular sales person at local events and markets. Keep your eye out for her, she'll be the one waving bottles of honey in the princess dress!
We hope to meet you soon!
Amy, Steve, & Katie