Products from the Hive!
We love bees! We use our beeswax and beeswax from other Kansas City beekeepers to make apothecary goods: lip balm, deodorant, candles, beard oil, solid perfume and more. All of our beeswax products are all natural, and most of the ingredients are organic. Since our little ladies are city dwellers we can't get them certified organic - but we don't treat them with any chemicals and we keep them naturally.
The whole process of the wax from start to finish is amazing. First we watch our bees build their comb, then we collect it, melt it, filter it, melt it again, blend with oils, pour into our containers, label it and then put it on our lips. It's so rare to see an in ingredient all the way from conception to a finished product and we feel privileged to be a part of it.
Beekeeping is a blast, lovely, hot, scary, a blessing and addicting. How did we get into all of this? It's two-part. Erik has terrible allergies and wanted to get the local honey as a treatment. Rachael read a book about homesteading on their honeymoon that inspired her to keep bees. We asked for a hive for Christmas in 2012 and got one from Erik's grandparents. Best Christmas gift EVER! Thanks Grandma Mary and Grandpa Jerry! We have been in love with bees ever since.
BEES ARE AMAZING!!
A bee colony is a fantastically intricate superorganism in nature, and there is far too much to know about it.
Here are the places we go to learn!
Great Web Resources:
Michael Bush's Practical Beekeeper
Randy Oliver's Scientific Beekeeping
Our Favorite Books:
The Beekeeper's Handbook, by Dianna Sammataro
The Beekeeper's Bible, by Richard Jones
And of course our favorite Midwestern Beekeepers Association!!