For the Love of Honey...and bees!

  A few years ago, my husband was working the auction at a fundraising dinner event for the Wild Turkey Federation in our hometown. We invited our grandchildren to join us as there would be interesting prize drawings and chances for the youth.  This wasn’t the first dinner auction they’ve attended with grandma and grandpa, and they knew how the auction worked.  Throughout the evening we toured and inspected the items to be sold, making mental notes of what we would be interested in when it came up to bid. We had all noticed the beehive thinking, how different.  It was the first time we’ve seen something like that at an auction and passed it by not really showing a lot of interest.

As the auction progressed our grandchildren began reading the information about the beehive in the program.  All the sudden they became very excited, “Grandma, grandma it’s a complete hive and even includes the bees!”. The beehive was next up on the block. Pleading with me, with those adorable faces, and convincing me that they would help with the bees. Normally strong and steadfast, I gave in. Other’s must have been reading the information also because the bidding was very active. “Please grandma pleeeease…….we can do it! Bid again, pleeeease! It can be our project at grandma and grandpa’s house.” I think I even bid over myself once. After a very exciting round, the most exciting of the whole evening, I won the bid. Stunned in disbelief, grandpa looked at me wondering what the grandkids had talked me into now.

Thus began “Grandchildren's Project – Bees”. The first couple of years there wasn’t much to do with just one hive and the grandchildren had many other things they needed to do. My husband and I decided that the one hive would not produce enough honey to supply our family, and we love honey.  ‘Bee-cause’ we were ‘bee-giners’, we added three more hives. One fine day Gracie, now twelve years old and the youngest granddaughter, wanted to show her friend the bees. As they walked closer to the hives, though still fifty feet away, the bees were getting curious. Like a flash, a bee flew straight up Gracie’s nose and stung….ouch! She is one strong little lady, she never cried. Expressing her distress and agitation, but never cried.

Thus ending, the “Grandchildren's Project – Bees”. 

Another year of trial and error and no longer ‘bee-giners’, we decided to expand our little apiary and add more hives. We could now supply our family with healthy honey produced from the local flower pollens collected by “our” bees. Since our grandchildren’s excitement started this “Project”, regaining their interest would be marvelous.

The apiary had grown and would soon ‘bee’ producing more honey than we would be able to use, so we decided to turn “Grandchildren's Project – Bees” into a business. Anticipating a very large collection of honey, it was very disappointing opening the hives and find no honey! Healthy bees, healthy hives, the colonies were very large…so what went wrong? There is a reason you stack the hive the way beekeepers have been doing it for over 2000 years. One restrictor placed at the wrong level makes all the difference. The bees couldn’t get to where they could store honey.

I guess we’re still ‘bee-giners’.

Now we needed to supply the business with honey. Intrigued by how the flavor of honey differs depending on the local pollens collected by the bees in different regions and seasons, we expanded the product line. Acquiring raw honey from apiaries in different regions with different tastes has brought us to this point…and our grandchildren are once again excited and involved.

We hope you enjoy the different varieties of honey.

  Honey Jewels searches for pure raw honey from areas all over the US including collecting from our own hives in Missouri.

The flavor of honey is dependant on the flower pollens within the region then collected in it's natural form.

Pure & Natural, direct from the hive.

Nature's golden jewel!

100% pure, raw, unfiltered, unheated, and unprocessed honey.