The Bees
Bee Sustainable provides bees with a high quality food source nearby, so they don’t need to travel and scavenge for nectar. They have nutritious flowering plants available in both the spring and summer, and are protected from harvesting pollen in areas with high pesticide levels. Access to a long-lasting source of food and avoidance of chemically-treated plants will produce healthier bees and, in turn, healthier food products for us.
The Chef’s Garden has partnered with the Honey Bee Treasure, LLC of New London, Ohio to manage the bee hives on the land we’ve reserved for Bee Sustainable. The Honey Bee Treasure does not use chemicals or pesticides on or near their honeybee colonies in line with our own efforts to achieve a chemical-free growing environment. Furthermore, the cooperation between The Chef’s Garden and the Honey Bee Treasure helps us both provide customers with the highest quality products available.
Honey Bee Treasure owners, Wayne and Valerie Weiss have kept and nurtured beehives for eight years. “After obtaining hives, we found we have larger size and more quantities of fruit and vegetables in our orchard and garden,” Valerie said. “We began with three colonies and have gradually increased our number of colonies over the last several years to 32 colonies. We also have apiaries in various locations to pollinate crops for farmers and also to obtain a different nectar source.”
The Chef’s Garden’s is one of those locations. The Weisses have produced five working hives at the Bee Sustainable plot, helping to revitalize the bee population near a nutritional, sustainably grown source of nectar.