We recently exhibited at FEAST! in Rochester. There were 2 other honey companies there, and we got quite a few questions about how or why our honey was different.
We like to say our honey is pure. It is uncomplicated. It is simple. We don’t add anything to it. We don’t flavor it. We don’t infuse it. Our honey has no added ingredients. We don’t heat it. It goes from the frame to the bottle essentially.
We know exactly what hives our honey came from. We don’t source honey from other bee keepers that have hives. We can tell you which hives we collected from and from which of our locations it came from. With most of our hives out on a piece of RIM (Reinvest in Minnesota) ground, meaning it will always stay as wildlife habitat even if it does get sold, we know our bees are part of a bigger picture of ensuring that we as farmers, are doing the best we can for the environment.
We’d like to tell you that our honey is made with a passion behind it. The first extraction we bottled, I cried, much to my husband’s amusement. We had worked so very hard to get to that day. Raising bees is not easy. They are not set it and forget it creatures. You have to care for them like you would any type of livestock, feeding them, treating them, caring for them in lousy weather, and more. At the end of the day, you can do as much as you can possible, and still lose your entire hive. Our honey has a lot of work behind it, with a lot of passion. We truly love doing it.
We are small. So when you are shopping with us, you truly are supporting a small business. We have 12 hives. It is just us, husband and wife, extracting and bottling honey. I suppose you might say we put Harper to work as entertainment during bottling! 🙂 We have a small number of hives that remain in Minnesota. They aren’t shipped for pollination purposes, which often means our bees have less exposure to disease, mites, and stress. We know that each hive has its quirks and which ones are stronger than others.
So when you ask us why we are different, I guess it is because we like to keep it simple. We like to keep honey uncomplicated. We like to keep honey, well, honey.
-Sara