Why Local Honey?

I was talking with a new friend recently, and she asked me, "Why local honey?" It had never occurred to me that y'all might want to know that, too.

The short answer: I wanted to start a business, my sister had an abundance of honey she didn't want to bottle and sell, and I was accepted into a food entrepreneurship program. These three things converged together almost simultaneously.

Here's the longer version: This business started on a whim. One of my sisters was a beekeeper, but she was only interested in working with her bees. She had no interest in bottling and selling the honey. And, since she had almost 30 hives, she had a lot of honey to get rid of!

Around the same time, I applied for, and was accepted into, the FreshLo Food Entrepreneurship program offered by the Center for Great Neighborhoods in Covington, KY. This now defunct program helped me develop my idea for Laughing Bees.

But the reasons I still use local honey are quite simple. I love bees. I love local honey. And it just so happens that I figured out how to make really good Honey Caramels and other honey based confections.

• I love bees. If you ever get a chance to spend some time in an apiary, do it! It is fascinating to watch the bees fly in and out as they collect nectar and pollen. Speaking of, the bees collect pollen on their back legs, in what is commonly called pollen baskets. The correct term is corbiculae, which is fun to say but not as descriptive.

• If you've had local honey, you know how good it is! Besides the many health claims made about local honey, there are lots of reasons why I buy local. I support the beekeepers so they can continue raising bees—we all know how important bees are to our flowers and produce! I also like to use my local small business to support other local small businesses when I can.

• I really lucked out the first couple of times I made Honey Caramels, they were delicious! I decided to work on perfecting my recipe and technique...and spent the next three months ruining almost every batch I made. I apologized to all the bees whenever I had to throw out a batch. Did you know a bee works her entire life just to make 1 teaspoon of honey? After those disastrous three months I knew how NOT to make Honey Caramels so I could make them perfectly every time.

Y'all know local honey is the best honey, and the best Honey Confections are made with local honey!