How well do you know the beekeepers in your community? While the idea of suiting up and spending an afternoon among bees isn’t appealing to many people, beekeeping is an important job. Even if you’ve never bought a jar of honey from them, you owe a lot to your local beekeeper. Whether they’re doing it for fun or profit, the service beekeepers provide helps your local economy and environment thrive. Learn more about this valuable profession with these reasons to support your local beekeepers.
They Protect Your Local Pollinators
Honey bees are an essential part of the environment. As they gather pollen and nectar to take back to their hive, they also scatter pollen from flower to flower. This allows plants to grow, reproduce, and thrive. In fact, bees are such valuable pollinators that some farmers will rent honey bee colonies to pollinate their crop fields in the spring and summer. Unfortunately, bee populations face many threats from habitat loss, climate change, diseases, and other complications. Beekeepers do important work in protecting your local bee population. When you support beekeepers, you’re also supporting safe and healthy homes for more honey bee colonies.
You’re Supporting Local Businesses
Beekeepers are also business owners. One of the best reasons to support your local beekeepers is because it helps small businesses in your neighborhood. Whether you’re browsing their stall at the farmers market or stopping by their apiary to pick up a jar of honey, the money you give to your local beekeepers goes straight into your community’s economy. Your support also allows local beekeepers to continue to grow their businesses and provide more products and services to the rest of your community.
You Get Better Honey
Where do you usually buy your jars of honey? If your answer is the grocery store, you’ve been missing out. When you buy straight from a beekeeper, you get a jar of sweet, golden, raw honey. What’s the difference between raw honey and regular honey? Raw honey doesn’t go through a pasteurization process, which means it retains all the enzymes, antioxidants, and other nutrients that make it so good. Raw honey is also more unique and flavorful than regular honey, which tends to always taste the same due to that same pasteurization process. All in all, raw honey is definitely worth the couple extra dollars you’d be giving your beekeepers.
