Our bees are Italian honey bees that have been with us for a year or longer. We keep anywhere from three to eight hives depending on time of year, environmental conditions and other factors. Bees face many threats including predators, pests and pesticides that cause their populations to be threatened. Our hives have the same issues as wild bees but beekeepers try to assist them to overcome those threats and thrive.

We love our bees! We do our best to not harm them. We do not take more honey than is needed for the hive at any time to keep them over winter. The honey we take is what is stored that is additional to what they would need. If we take the honey they need then they won't survive the winter which is never the goal of a beekeeper.

We spend the winter worrying about them and trying to peek into the hives to check on them to make sure they are safe. We can't open a hive unless the temperature is over 70 degrees or the hive risks having the temperature drop too low to be brought back to the required approximate 95 degree temperature they keep.

We are located in Santa Clara, California and have been keeping bees for almost 5 years. During that time we have learned a lot about beekeeping, making products and assembling beehives.

The whole family gets involved with mom's beekeeping because honey is sticky and bees love to follow me into the house. My daughter helps with processing honey, making products and art. My son and daughter both help with distributing to our friends, family and neighbors. My husband is in charge of getting those bees out of the house because they are always too high for me to reach, heavy lifting that doesn't involve bees, and cleaning up the sticky doorknobs all over the house when I am dealing with honey.

When we started we didn't realize all that would come with beekeeping. We just expected to have some honey to give away here and there. It turns out there is a lot more honey and wax than we expected. We started making the products as a way to use what was coming out of the hives as I worked on them. What we never expected was how many friends and family would be interested in honey and our products. We enjoy making them and trying new recipes so it has been a great hobby that has been evolving as we go.