I think when most people buy honey off the grocery store shelf they don't realize that they're likely buying a honey with added sugar rather then a pure unadulterated honey. Even when you're buying from a local beekeeper it's important to ask questions on how their honey is processed (is sugar fed to the bees during honey flow, is the honey heated or heavily filtered)? And more importantly how healthy are their colonies (bee hives) - do they survive the winter or do they buy new bees every year? Some are in the business of making honey while others recognize honey for what it is...the sweet reward for hard work (keeping the bees alive through the seasons).

On our farm we only process the raw/pure honey that the bees are bringing in, our honey is only heated by the sun, and our final honey is only filtered with a larger bore metal filter (to remove large wax pieces but the healthy pollen particles that help with reducing allergy symptoms in some people are preserved in the final product. And we only take a small amount every year to ensure that the bees have enough to eat through the winter months.

Our honey sells for $20 per a pound. That cost goes towards much more that just covering the cost of running a small apiary. All of our proceeds go directly back to the honeybees AND other important pollinators:

Hive maintenance -in a typical season we are doing hive inspections every 7-14 days to ensure that our honeybees have everything that they need to survive not only the spring/summer but through our tough Michigan winters (we are happy to report 90-100% survival the past few years).

Pollinator gardens - to continue to expand & improve our Michigan native pollinator gardens, to provide seed packets for local garden projects, to support local education programs (both adults & children) on how to build a pollinator habitat. More info here: https://www.chubbeacresfarm.com/pollinators

Educational programs - providing fun learning opportunities for kids (including but not limited to: Girl Scout troop projects to learn how important native bees (mason bee, leaf cutter bees, etc.), farm sprouts preschool program (beekeeping for kids) and teaching kids how to raise monarch butterflies. See previous programs here: https://www.chubbeacresfarm.com/speaker-schedule

Sentinel Apiary program - this year our farm is part of an early warning system to alert local beekeepers of potential problems due to increases in Varroa/Nosema (or changes in hive weight with the addition of a hive scale). We hope that by doing our part we can help better colony health and cooperative colony management. Check out more info here: https://beeinformed.org/citizen-science/sentinel-apiaries/

Continuing education - just like veterinary medicine honeybee medicine/health is constantly changing and evolving. For this reason I play an active role in the community to not only seek out education but to help teach others. While 2020 has proven to be a challenge, we are still teaching our intermediate beekeeping course through webinars.