Six Figs Farm LLC

Many very educated and food-health-conscious people are still not aware of the un-told truths about honey. Honey, especially locally produced honey, is very good for you, right? Or is it? I’d like to take a few minutes to tell you what’s different about our honey, a honey we believe is as close to actual wild-bees-honey as you can get. Our honey is 100% Pure, Treatment Free, Never Fed Sugar.

We started beekeeping to have pollinators for our elderflowers. As many of you do, we believed locally produced honey is good for you, and always had some at home. We already knew that much of store bought honey has added ingredients, is not even necessarily honey, and can have pesticide residue, so we decided to also provide honey for our family.

Learning about beekeeping, we were taught it is absolutely necessary to regularly feed our bees sugar water. In build up phases, but also when sufficient resources are not available. We were told that sugar water is cheaper than you can sell the honey for, is just as healthy as honey for them, so you take the honey and feed them sugar water to survive. We remember being told, “you wouldn’t not feed your children, so feed your bees!”

How can it make sense to feed bees sugar water? Doesn’t their honey contain more nutrients- won’t it keep them healthier than sugar water? Won’t stronger, healthier bees be more resistant to disease? Humans can exist on Twinkies and Sprite for quite a while, but what does that do to our health?

We were also taught it is absolutely necessary to treat the bees with pesticides to protect them from mites, otherwise our hives would die out at an alarming rate. Yes, you read that right! Honey bees, who often fall victim to people indiscriminately spraying pesticides, themselves are treated with pesticides against mites!!! Our first couple of years beekeeping, we did these things, as taught. We only used organic treatments, however, we began to really question this. Oxalic acid, an organic pesticide treatment, requires you to wear a respirator and smoke it directly into the hives. We soon realized that you’re really supposed to treat with multiple pesticides many, many times throughout the year. This didn’t feel right to us.

You might have heard about the situation honeybees are in- declining health and population, and hives dying at a huge rate. Any pesticides used to prevent this, by nature, are only effective for so long- any pests that live develop some immunity. The cycle then becomes to develop stronger and/or different pesticides. We do not choose this cycle on our farm for anything we grow- we know that means we take some production loss, but we don’t want to risk pesticide residue in our family’s food.

We think you need to be aware that much of locally produced honey is produced this way. With feeding sugar water, and frequent pesticide treatments. So where does the residue from all these pesticides end up- In the honey? In the wax? Does any of the sugar water syrup end up in the honey? We encourage you to ask before you buy if the bees have been treated, and/or fed sugar water.

How does it make sense to continue to breed bees that are reliant on pesticides and sugar water to survive? Is it financially driven? Is it driven by the multi-million dollar bee-selling-industry? Surely it makes more sense to breed thriving healthy hives that can withstand the challenges they face?

We began delving into Natural Beekeeping, or Treatment Free Beekeeping, a rapidly growing movement of beekeepers who think like we do. At this point, our bees have not been treated in 2 years- no pesticides, organic or otherwise, have been put into their hives. Nor have they been fed sugar water. We leave plenty of honey in the hives when we harvest honey, and we keep some of their honey to feed back, in case the bees run into a shortage of resources at some point during the year.

We also work hard to do everything we know of to keep our hives strong, including planting and allowing to grow acres of never sprayed pollinator plants around their hives. Did you know that bees will fly up to 3 miles to collect nectar and pollen? Our goal is to keep them close so that they don’t run into challenges with pesticides away from our farm. We’ve purposely planted many plants that bloom during the “dearth”- the time when there are limited resources in the late summer/early fall.

We harvest honey in mid June for a number of reasons. This gives the bees plenty of time to amass more resources for the winter after we take some honey from them. In addition, most of what they have gathered is from the wild blackberries that grow around their hives, our elderflowers, and clover. This gives a light, rich honey that is so delicious. We believe this is as close to actual wild-bees-honey as you can get.

Finally, we do not heat our honey in any way. We strain it, bottle it, and it’s ready for you. We have a limited amount of honey to offer, so we expect to sell out of it by the end of July. We are selling our honey in one pound glass jars.

To order- email at sixfigsfarm@gmail.com.

or send a text to (678) 488-3318

Thank you!