Facts About Honey Bees

• It is believed that the Egyptians were the first to care for the Bees and harvest their honey
• The greeks engraved images of Bees on their coins
• In the Spring, When the outside temperature reaches 54 degrees the Bees leave the hive to forage for pollen and nectar
• A flower cannot produce seeds to create new plants without the pollen from other flowers.  The Bees are like a pollen delivery service.  The pollen that sticks to the bee’s body will fall off as it visits new flowers
• A beehive can produce 500 lbs of honey in a year.  A beekeeper usually can take about 100 lbs of honey from each hive
• Bees can fly forward, backward or even sideways
• Antarctica is the only continent that doesn’t have Bees
• Utah is called the beehive state and the honey bee is the official insect of 17 States
• In the United States, there are over 300 different kinds of honey, depending on what type of nectar and pollen the Bees have visited
• Wax that the Bees produce is used to make candles, furniture polish, lipstick, and crayons
• The United States is ranked third worldwide in honey production
• Bees aren’t the only creatures to take nectar from flowers, hummingbirds are frequent visitors also
• A worker bee keeps so busy that she will work over twelve hours a day without stopping
• In the spring and summer, Bees live between 28 and 35 days
• Honey is antiseptic and can be used to treat burns and scrapes.
• The Healthy Bees from a hive can produce over 150 lbs. of honey each year.
• The Bees collect pollen and nectar from flowers. Bees bees use the pollen as a food, the nectar that is collected from the flowers is mixed with enzymes, then the bees put the nectar into wax cells that the Bees make with their wax glands, as the cells get filled they are capped with wax to hold the honey in the honeycomb.
• As the Bees produce more honey then they can eat, we take the surplus honey and extract it from the wax frames and pour it into jars.
• The HoneyBees here on our farm are never feed any corn syrup, sugar water or man-made antibiotics.  Our Bees have been collected from wild swarms here in Sonoma County.  The Honey is considered raw because it has small flecks of pollen in it and has not been heated.  Heating the honey destroys the important enzymes and most of the unique flavor from the nectar is lost.