What is the difference between the honey we commonly see on supermarket shelves and the honey we offer here at BeeCamp? And what makes our honey different from the “raw honey” sold by other local beekeepers at farmers’ markets, roadside stations, and elsewhere?
To be honest, we don’t feel it is our place to compare ourselves with other beekeepers by saying, “They do this,” or “They don’t do that.”
Every beekeeper has their own philosophy, priorities, and way of keeping bees.
What we can tell you about is what we ourselves put into making honey that we truly want to eat. Honey that we would be happy to give to our own children.
If you ask us what we spend our time and effort on to make that kind of honey, that is something we can share. And we believe that all those little choices and all that extra work are probably part of what goes into the cost of BeeCamp honey.
There is a saying that beekeepers like us — people who started keeping bees as a hobby and somehow ended up completely hooked — often find ourselves saying:
“It’s cheaper to buy honey than to make it yourself.”
…And honestly, it’s true.
So, what exactly do we put so much time and effort into?
We explain the details in the “About Our Honey” section of this website, but here is a brief summary of how we keep our bees.
We—
- Put the health of our bees first, harvesting only twice a year, and only as much honey as we can take without putting unnecessary pressure on the colony, carefully considering when the bees have sufficient food reserves of their own.
- Place our hives in a safe environment where the use of agricultural chemicals is avoided, and keep the hives sufficiently spaced rather than concentrating them in one area, so that the bees can live as naturally as possible.
- Plant wildflowers that bees love around our apiary, choosing plants that require little or no fertilizer or regular watering, while creating more natural forage for the bees.
- Avoid interfering with the bees’ brood-rearing. As a general rule, we do not harvest honey from frames containing larvae or pupae. Instead, we take honey from combs where the bees have stored it and allowed it to naturally mature.
- Do not heat our honey, and keep filtration to the minimum necessary, so that we can preserve its natural flavor and character as much as possible.
- Because this is food that we are asking you to put on your table, we take great care to maintain a clean, food-appropriate environment from honey extraction through bottling.
- And, mindful of our environmental footprint, we use Japanese washi paper for our jar labels and starch-based adhesive, while our shipping materials are made from recycled cardboard. We make every effort to ship our honey without using plastic at all.
All of this means spending a year alongside the bees — watching the seasons unfold, caring for the hives, harvesting the honey, and finally filling each jar. Only then can we put a jar of BeeCamp honey in your hands.
What matters most to us is simple:
“To make something we genuinely want to eat ourselves — and to make it properly.”
We don’t want to cut corners when it comes to the time and care needed to do that. And when the honey is finally ready, we want to be able to taste it ourselves and say, “This is delicious.”
Then, and only then, do we feel ready to share it with you.
Our BeeCamp Honey Tasting Set is the result of this approach to beekeeping.
Spring flowers and summer flowers.
The very same bees gather nectar from different flowers as the seasons change, and the honey changes with them. Different season, different flavor.
And each year brings something a little different from the honey we made the year before.
We never quite know what this year’s honey will taste like until we taste it ourselves. And that is something we look forward to every year.
We hope you’ll take your time and discover how the different seasons have been transformed into flavor by our bees.
Maybe this year’s honey will offer you a taste you’ve never experienced before.