Honey Avocado Face Mask

Ingredients

2 tbsp AUNT SUE’S® Raw & Unfiltered Honey

1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt

1 avocado

Directions

Slice avocado in half, scoop out and mash with a fork. Add Greek yogurt and honey. Mix together and apply to face. Let sit for 10-15 mins. Rinse and add moisturizer.

Easter Dinner Delights

Sink your teeth into these honey-blessed recipes

All the Kenny Rogers Roasters in the United States have closed, but there are still dozens of the chicken roasters in Asia, so if you are craving those famous Kenny Rogers Roasters corn muffins, you’ll have to travel out of the country to find some.

Or will you?

Luckily for muffin-lovers, we have a recipe that tastes just like those famous yum-yums. These muffins will be the talk of your Easter dinner this year, and they’re a cinch to make. The not-so-secret ingredient? SUE BEE® honey!

Honey Corn Muffins (Like Kenny Rogers Roasters)

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup SUE BEE® honey
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 cup yellow cornmeal
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 eggs
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup frozen corn

Directions

• Preheat oven to 400 F.
• Cream together SUE BEE® honey, butter, sugar, eggs and salt in a large bowl.
• Add flour, cornmeal and baking powder and blend thoroughly. Add milk while mixing.
• Add corn to mixture and combine by hand until corn is mixed in.
• Grease a 12-cup muffin pan and fill each cup with batter.
• Bake for 20–25 minutes.

Honey-Glazed Orange Ham

Another must-have at Easter dinner is a juicy honey ham, and we’ve got the ultimate recipe for that, too. Our AUNT SUE’S® Raw & Unfiltered Honey-Orange Glazed Ham is above and beyond what you might expect from an Easter ham recipe. It’s the ideal blend of flavors, and, best of all, it’s easy to make.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup AUNT SUE’S® Raw & Unfiltered Honey
• 5–7 lb precooked ham
• 1/2 tbsp cornstarch
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp cloves
• 2 tbsp spicy brown mustard
• 1 6-oz can orange juice concentrate, thawed
• 1 orange, sliced

Directions

• Using a paring knife, score ham in a diamond pattern, making cuts about 1/4-inch deep.
• Mix remaining ingredients, except orange, and bring to a boil while stirring. Continue boiling and stirring for 1 minute.
• Brush ham with glaze and bake 1 1/4 to 2 1/2 hours at 325 F, brushing with glaze every 30 minutes.
• The last 45 minutes, top ham with orange slices.

Easter Bees

Create a buzz with these colorful eggs this spring

Our cute meter just went kaput. We broke it with these super sweet, off-the-chart homemade Easter eggs. Come on, just look at these cuties!

They’re easy to make and fun for adults and kids, alike. Whether you hard-boil your Easter eggs or use plastic ones, you can make friendly honeybees out of either. Here’s how.

What you’ll need:

• Yellow plastic eggs (fun for hiding candy or coins inside) or hard-boiled eggs dyed yellow.
• Googly eyes (various sizes are extra fun).
• Black paint or a black marker for the honeybee stripes and smile. You can also use black construction paper for the stripes, then glue or tape to your eggs.
• Tiny black pom-poms for the tops of the antennas.
• Glitter felt paper for the wings.
• Black pipe cleaner for the tail/stinger.

Once you have all these supplies, it’s time to get creative. Make a whole hive of Easter bees and hide them around your home. Then, let the Easter egg hunting begin. Happy Easter, honey lovers!

Sustaining Sustainability

For the honeybee’s sake, let’s celebrate Earth Day every day

Consider this our official endorsement to celebrate Earth Day every day. From this day forward, let us expand the support of environmental protection beyond the globally recognized April 22 event. Let us honor the blue marble every day!

Admittedly, our motive is personal. We are on a mission to protect the planet so our beloved honeybee can continue to thrive and help feed the world by providing honey and pollination services for about one-third of the global food supply. (Of the 100 crops that provide 90% of our global food supply, 71 are pollinated by honeybees and other pollinators.)

For us, not a day goes by when we don’t think about honeybees and their health and safety. We think about it more today than we ever have because the sustainability of the honeybee has been more vital to our future.

What exactly is ‘sustainability’?

Let’s start with Merriam-Webster, which defines “sustainable” as:

a: of, relating to, or being a method of harvesting or using a resource so that the resource is not depleted or permanently damaged

b: of or relating to a lifestyle involving the use of sustainable methods

As it relates to honeybees, sustainability means a lot of things but perhaps most important is protecting the natural resources upon which honeybees forage. Honeybees need plenty of flowers, plants, crops, etc. As they pollinate those resources, they also collect nectar to make honey. 

Beekeepers maintain sustainability in a circular motion by keeping their hives healthy and strong year after year. They place their hives in areas rich with forgeable resources and access to nearby water sources. Sustainability by beekeepers means reusing their wooden box hives and the honeycomb frames inside. And, by creating new hives, they are consistently adding to their honeybee populations.

The National Honey Board (NHB) notes that, in addition to the crucial role bees play in sustaining our planet, the honey production process also has a lower impact on the environment than other resource-heavy commodities. And they advocate for the sustainable production of honey. 

“We are committed to ensuring the honey you love is sustainable today and for future generations. This begins with healthy bees and extends to protecting the natural resources they depend on,” says the NHB.

Operated under the oversight of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the NHB is constantly measuring the environmental impacts of the honey industry and recommends ways to lighten its footprint even further. They also partner with synergistic agricultural industries to better understand the impact of their practices on honeybee pollination services and crop production.

Keeping honeybees sustainable

Everyone can do their part by thinking about the environment – not just on Earth Day but every day. We should all be consistently searching for new ways to create forgeable land for honeybees, and we encourage everyone to plant honeybee-friendly plants, flowers and trees in their yards, gardens and community spaces.

It also helps to use honey as your preferred sweetener. Of course, we favor SUE BEE® honey and AUNT SUE’S® Raw & Unfiltered Honey because we like our honey natural, with one single ingredient: honey direct from Sioux Honey’s U.S.-based beekeepers. Not only is honey a more natural sweetener than overly refined sugar, it’s also a more sustainable food.

“I always try to leave the bee yard knowing that, when I drive away, I did the best I could for the bees in the situation,” says third-generation Sioux Honey beekeeper Bryan Beekman. (Yep, that’s his real name!) 

“I learned from day one: It doesn’t matter how tired and hot and sweaty and thirsty you are, you don’t leave that yard until you’re done doing what you think is right for the bees.”

“When you buy honey, you’re directly supporting a beekeeper,” says Danielle Downey, executive director of Project Apis m., which funds research and efforts to improve honeybee health and vitality. (Watch the full interview in NHB’s “Celebrating Beekeeping: Sustainability Matters” video.)

“And indirectly, you’re supporting their ability to keep healthy bees. And healthy bees are connected to our ecosystem, our food supply, so you’re investing in a lot more than just beekeeping.”

Honeybees need our help more than ever. They have been dying at a higher rate in the past 15 years because of things like a decrease in forgeable land due to: monoculture farming; increased use of pesticides and herbicides that are harmful to bees; and loss of biodiversity due to circumstances like climate change.

However, “I think there’s hope,” says Downey. “We’re finding solutions, and we’re learning so much about the problems with honeybees. We can adjust our management, and we can start changing how we support bees. We just have to keep at it.”

Movie Night

Celebrate Oscars week by watching an animated, family-friendly honeybee film

One of our favorite honeybee-themed animated films is currently streaming on Amazon Prime: “Maya the Bee.” If you subscribe to Amazon Prime, you can watch the film for free.

The movie has all sorts of fun facts about honeybees and some good lessons for kiddos who want to know more about these fascinating insects.

Family honeybee trivia fun

After watching the film, here are some fun-fact questions you can ask your little ones to help them learn more about the wonderful world of honeybees:

1. Flip, the violin-playing grasshopper, says to Maya, “What do you know, bees do have teeth.” Is that true, do honeybees really have teeth?
2. Of the 100 crops/foods that provide 90% of the world’s foods, how many are pollinated by honeybees?
3. The Queen jokes to Maya that she is going to have to keep an eye on her, to which Maya replies, “Which one, Queen?” Which begs the question: How many eyes do honeybees have?
4. How do honeybees tell each other where all the yummy, nectar-filled flowers are located?
5. True or false: Archeologists found stored honey in the tomb of King Tut (1341–1323) when it was excavated in 1922, and the honey was still edible!

ANSWERS:

1. Well, kind of. In a sense, honeybees do have “teeth” on their mandibles (jaws) but they aren’t like the teeth we humans have. The honeybee’s mandibles are “toothed” with narrow or rounded points, and they don’t use them to chew food. Honeybees use these “teeth” for tasks like foraging, collecting pollen, digging into flowers, comb-building, feeding larvae (baby honeybees) and defending themselves.
2. 71 are pollinated by honeybees and other pollinators, like butterflies.
3. Honeybees have five eyes – two large compound eyes, which are made up of thousands of tiny lenses, and three smaller eyes called “simple eyes” or ocelli eyes, which are in the center of its head.
4. They do a honeybee dance called the “waggle.” With a few simple moves, the honeybee can relay the direction of the nectar source, how bountiful it is and how far the bees need to travel to get to it. Once she gets the attention of her hive mates – by letting them sample the pollen and nectar she gathered at the source – the dance begins. Read more about the honeybee waggle HERE.
5. True!

Spring Giveaway

Answer our giveaway question to be entered!

Did you know that one of our longtime Sioux Honey Co-op beekeeper’s dad worked as a rocket scientist at NASA before leaving that all behind to start a family honey business?

We’ve previously written about that beekeeper’s son who took over for his dad and continues to run the family honey operation as a proud member of the Sioux Honey Co-op.

What’s this have to do with our giveaway? If you can correctly answer the question below, you will be entered for a chance to win our spring giveaway: a tub of SUE BEE® SPUN® honey; a bottle of SUE BEE® honey; and a bottle of AUNT SUE’S® Raw & Unfiltered Honey.

CORRECTLY ANSWER THIS QUESTION: What is the last name of the family of beekeepers whose dad worked as a rocket scientist at NASA before becoming a beekeeper?

The good news? We have a hint as to where to find the answer. Go to the “Honey Stories” section of our website HERE and find the story with the answer. Hint No. 2: “NASA” is in the title of the story!

As a bonus, you can get extra entries for the giveaway by following Sioux Honey on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.

Once you know the answer, CLICK HERE!

Wait! Don’t Throw Away That Honey Bottle

You can help with sustainability for our beloved honeybee

We have a passion for finding new ways to upcycle our empty honey bottles. Have you seen our Glitter Bear and Night Bear that we posted on our Facebook page? Ever filled an empty SUE BEE® honey bear bottle with colorful pebbles? Voila! It’s a cool paperweight!

Our new favorite way to reuse our empty honey containers is all about sustainability. We often say that our honey is “naturally sustainable” because we produce it ethically. And all of our 200+ family beekeepers ensure our honey is pure and that the honeybees are well taken care of, which means we can continue to offer the best honey today and for future generations.

Sustainability also means we are consistently searching for new ways to create forgeable land for honeybees, and we encourage everyone to plant honeybee-friendly plants and flowers in their yards, gardens and community spaces. This brings us to our latest way to repurpose your empty containers: succulent planters.

As you can see from the images above, we’ve taken an empty tub of SUE BEE® SPUN® honey, a SUE BEE® honey bear and an AUNT SUE’S® Raw & Unfiltered Honey and planted three different kinds of flowering succulents. There are a wide variety of flowering succulents that are ideal for planting in small vessels like our empty honey containers. (Take a look at this article for more types of succulents to use: “18 Popular Flowering Succulents.”)

These are “starter plants” that you can begin in a small container like ours, and then transplant to a spring/summer garden where they can grow and become forgeable food for honeybees.

Help for all honeybees

We’re not picky when it comes to helping the honeybee. Whether it’s creating new forgeable land and plants for our beekeeper families that are part of our Sioux Honey Co-op, or making sure wild bees have plenty of food sources, as well, we want to help.

If you’re a fan of our honeybee friends, you’re probably aware of their plight in recent years. Honeybees have had a tough time surviving, and the honeybee population has been losing significant percentages of their population each year. Fortunately, Sioux Honey and other commercial beekeepers have been able to make up for the losses by helping create new hives of honeybees.

So, why have honeybees been dying at a higher rate in the past 15 years? There are several reasons:

• A decrease in forgeable land due to monoculture farming.
• Increased use of pesticides and herbicides that are harmful to bees.
• Loss of biodiversity due to circumstances like climate change.
• Destruction of habitats that offer shelter for bees via forest fires, floods, tidal surges from hurricanes, and other natural disasters.
• The relentless varroa mites.
• Small hive beetles.
• And mysterious, hard-to-pinpoint reasons that often fall under the label of “colony collapse disorder,” where entire colonies disappear overnight.

Sioux Honey beekeepers to the rescue

As we mentioned, beekeepers like Sioux Honey Co-op members have been keeping up with the losses by helping create new hives through the “splitting” of healthy hives. Beekeepers take a portion of an established colony and transfer it to a separate hive nearby, and thus create two colonies from one. 

At this point, you’re probably asking, “What about the queen?” Beekeepers can either let the new hive create a new queen from the existing brood (honeybee eggs, larvae and pupae) that is transferred to the new hive, or they can buy a queen from a business that produces queens for sale to beekeepers, and then introduce that new queen to the new hive.

But, even with the beekeepers’ ability to create new hives, the prospect of honeybee losses (including feral or wild bees) is concerning news, considering honeybees – the world’s great pollinators – are responsible for pollinating about one-third of the global food supply. Specifically, of the 100 crops that provide 90% of our global food supply, 71 are pollinated by honeybees and other pollinators.

According to a 2018 report from the USDA, honeybees pollinate an estimated $15 billion in crops in the United States alone each year – from almonds and citrus fruits to vegetables like pumpkins, zucchini, cucumbers and many more – LOTS more. Globally, that number ranges between $235 and $577 billion per year, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

Here’s where you come in

So maybe you’ve wondered, “How can I help?” Well, start with those succulents we talked about above. Then, if you are able and have the space, create a honeybee-friendly garden. Planting flowers and plants that honeybees, butterflies and other pollinators can forage not only helps sustain the honeybee, it also adds colorful, natural beauty to a yard. It’s a win-win. 

And you don’t need a sprawling homestead to create a bee-friendly flower garden. It can be a small area of your yard and as modest as a window container or rooftop patch. The goal is to add to the shrinking amount of natural flower-rich habitat for honeybees. In return, the bees will pollinate your flowers and can help provide a harvest of fruits, seeds and vegetables that you and others in your neighborhood might plant.

Before you get started, consider these five tips:

1. Plant native flowers – Plant flowers that bees in your area are used to – ones that are uniquely adapted to your region. It’s a good idea to visit a local garden center whose experts can help you find the perfect bee-friendly flowers. Plus, they will carry seeds and flowering plants that are specifically suited for your area.

2. Single-flower tops are ideal – Try to select single-flower tops for your bee garden, such as daisies and marigolds, rather than double-flower tops, such as double impatiens. Double-headed flowers look pretty, but they also produce much less nectar and make it tougher for bees to access pollen.

3. Variety is the spice of life for bees – Mix up the selection of the types of flowers you plant so you can have blooms during as many seasons as possible. That way, bees have a consistent food source on which to dine. More examples include: springtime bloomers – crocus, hyacinth, borage, calendula and wild lilac; summertime bloomers – cosmos, echinacea, snapdragon, foxglove and hostas; fall bloomers – zinnias, sedum, asters, witch hazel and goldenrod.

4. No need to make it high maintenance – It’s important to remember that a bee-friendly garden doesn’t need to rely on constant upkeep. In fact, this is the type of garden that you can plant and then let grow.

5. About pesticides and fertilizers – Don’t use them in a bee garden. They can be toxic to bees. Ladybugs, spiders and praying mantises will naturally keep pest populations in check. If you must, use only natural pesticides and fertilizers.

Share your garden with us! If you plant a succulent in an empty Sioux Honey container or plant a summer bee garden, we would love to see it. Be sure to post a photo on one of our social channels: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Pinterest.

‘Organic Go Bragh’

Try this delectable Irish Soda Bread recipe for St. Patrick’s Day – or anytime!

This lucky recipe is perfect at any time of year, but we especially love making it for St. Patrick’s Day. It’s a honey-kissed version of Irish Soda Bread that we simply can’t resist.

Fun fact about Irish soda bread: Although it might seem like an age-old recipe, Irish soda bread has only been around since the 1830s. (OK, a couple hundred years is quite a while!) It became popular when baking soda (or bi-carbonate soda) was first introduced in Ireland.

But … even before that, those recognized as the first to use soda to leaven their bread were American Indians. They are documented as using pearl ash – a natural form of soda created from the ashes of wood – to leaven their breads without the presence of yeast.

So, now that the history lesson is over, let’s make some deliciously sweet AUNT SUE’S® Irish Soda Bread! Here’s how:

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup AUNT SUE’S® Raw & Unfiltered Organic Honey
• 2 1/2 to 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 3/4 cup buttermilk
• 1 egg
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/3 cup margarine or shortening
• 1/2 cup raisins

Directions

• Mix together flour, cinnamon and baking soda in large bowl; cut in margarine until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
• Stir in raisins.
• Add buttermilk, egg and AUNT SUE’S® Organic Raw & Unfiltered honey to flour mixture; stir to make soft dough.
• Turn out onto lightly floured surface to knead 1 to 2 minutes, or until smooth.
• If dough seems too dry, add a little more buttermilk. If it seems too sticky, add a little more flour.
• Shape into flattened round ball and place on greased cookie sheet.
• Brush top with additional milk and cut an “X” in the top with a sharp knife.
• Bake at 375 F for 40 minutes or until golden brown and crusty.

Sounds Nutty, Tastes Yummy

Try this fruit pizza recipe for a fun after-school snack

Tired of your kids eating potato chips, candy and other unhealthy snacks after school? Here’s something a little different, and it even includes fruit!

But your kiddos won’t mind eating fruit when you tell them it comes on a Honey-Drizzled Strawberry Nutella® Pizza. You heard right. Nutella pizza. Rather than traditional marinara sauce or tomato paste, we use Nutella, our favorite sweetened hazelnut cocoa spread. And rather than pepperonis, we use strawberries and drizzle them with SUE BEE® honey!

If you follow trends on TikTok, Facebook and other social media channels, you might have seen versions of this tasty treat. We’ve kept ours simple and easy to make. Because, when kids come home after school with the hungries, you gotta act fast! (Or, better yet, make it ahead of time.)

Ingredients

• Your favorite pre-made pizza crust, or dough (we like the Pillsbury® Pizza Crust Thin & Crispy Mix)
• 2 cups sliced fresh strawberries
• 1 cup Nutella
• SUE BEE® honey for drizzling
• Powdered sugar for dusting

Instructions

• Bake pizza crust per instructions on package and let cool.
• Spread Nutella on crust.
• Layer strawberries on top of Nutella.
• Drizzle SUE BEE® honey over strawberries.
• Dust top of pizza with powdered sugar.
• Enjoy!

Take a Mardi Gras Dip

Our honey mustard recipe will be the talk of the party

This not-so-secret recipe is said to taste a lot like the beloved Mardi Gras Honey Mustard at a certain fried chicken establishment. We can neither confirm nor deny that, but we do know that this homemade concoction tastes delicious!

It’s one of our favorite dipping sauces, and it adds a sweet zest to fish, chicken and a variety of vegetables. The best part? It includes a sweet kick of SUE BEE® honey! Try it out for Mardi Gras this year.

Ingredients

1 tbsp SUE BEE® honey

2 tbsp mayonnaise

2 tsp horseradish

1 tbsp whole grain mustard

1 tbsp spicy brown mustard

1/4 tsp crushed red pepper

1/8 tsp garlic powder

1/16 tsp cayenne pepper

Instructions

Add all the ingredients into a bowl and stir well; then place in refrigerator and let sit for about an hour.

Stir before serving.

Where’s Your Honey?

Why honey is taking over as America’s favorite condiment

Everyone has their spot; their go-to location where the honey is kept. On the kitchen counter, in the cupboard, maybe inside the refrigerator – wherever it is, honey should always be within arm’s reach.

Especially at the dinner table. 

According to a recent study by the National Honey Board, more and more honey lovers are keeping their beloved natural sweetener right next to the salt and pepper shakers. It’s fast becoming one of America’s favorite condiments.

And for good reason. Honey is far better than over-processed sugar. It’s naturally pure – from our beekeepers’ hives to your dinner table. With no additives and no preservatives, our honey has been (and always will be) just one, single ingredient: honey.

It lasts a long time … no matter where it’s kept

While we prefer our honey at the dinner table for quick and easy access, there are plenty of honey lovers who keep SUE BEE® honey in their pantry or cabinet. Which makes sense. After all, honey has a shelf life of historic proportions. (Remember the honey archeologists found inside an ancient Egyptian tomb? It was still edible after 3,000 years!)

Yes, even if it crystallizes

Sometimes honey – especially if it’s kept in the refrigerator or in a cool space – will crystallize. It’s a sign that the honey is a good, quality honey. Low-quality honey doesn’t crystallize as easily.

Honey will crystallize in the hive if temperatures dip below 50 degrees. Likewise, honey will crystallize in a container if it is stored in a pantry with cool temps, or if it is kept in a cool place, like a cellar or a garage in the winter. You can even speed up the crystallization process by taking the lid off the container of honey and putting it in the refrigerator. 

Want to learn more about crystallized honey? Read our blog posts, “A Precious Gem” and “3 Simple Steps to Decrystallize Honey.”

Let’s Do the Honey Swap

Next time, try SUE BEE® honey on those pancakes instead of maple syrup

First things first: No one is suggesting that maple syrup is a bad choice when it comes to a pancake topping. Indeed, maple syrup has been the go-to for pancake connoisseurs for ages. But … have you ever tried honey on your pancakes?

Breakfast lovers have been making the swap, and there are several reasons why they now prefer honey over maple syrup when it comes to pancakes and waffles. For example, some consider honey a more healthful choice because it contains more protein and less fat and has less sodium compared to maple syrup.

Honey also has higher levels of iron, copper and phosphorus, which is needed to build strong bones.

The great flavor enhancer

Of course, the best part about the honey swap is that honey – in our humble opinion – has a more delicious and natural flavor. And that’s just our traditional SUE BEE® clover honey. Have you tried our flavored honeys? They’re perfect for pancakes!

We have introduced three naturally flavored honey infusions to our SUE BEE® lineup: Strawberry, Vanilla and Lemon. We especially love the SUE BEE® INFUSIONS™ Strawberry Honey on our pancakes!

Breakfast at home

With more and more Americans working from home these days, it’s easier to have a delicious breakfast that includes favorites like pancakes. 

So here’s the honey swap challenge: Sometime this week, before beginning your workday, whip up some pancakes for breakfast and try one of our SUE BEE® honeys as the topper in place of maple syrup. We’re sure you’ll love it.

And if you do, tell a friend – help us spread the word about the great honey pancake swap!

‘Charcuterie’ – Fancy Word, Simple Snack

A few tips to give your charcuterie board flavor and fun

The two best things about charcuterie:

1. There are no rules – it can include whatever you want it to include.
2. Honey goes well with ANY kind of charcuterie.

So, what exactly is “charcuterie”? Pronounced “shar-coo-ta-ree,” the term comes from two French words: “chair,” which means “flesh,” and “cuit,” which means “cooked.” And it typically entails the art of organizing various cuts of cured meats and cheeses on a tray or board in a beautiful, edible display.

But that’s just the basic definition. Again, the beauty of charcuterie is that it can be whatever you want it to be. If you desire pickled herrings on your charcuterie board, go for it. If you want chocolate-covered hot dog bites, by all means. Just remember whatever you decide, it’s always going to taste better when drizzled with honey – from sweet AUNT SUE’S® Raw & Unfiltered Organic Honey to zesty SUE BEE® INFUSIONS™ Hot Honey to spreadable SUE BEE® SPUN® honey.

But, if you’re looking for some best practices when it comes to charcuterie, here are some tips from our experts:

• Try brightly colored fruits (berries, olives and grapes) and vegetables (carrots, celery, cucumber).
• For meats and salamis, go with a variety – use at least three or four different kinds.
• Use an assortment of cheeses, too – some soft and some hard.
• Include sweets, such as chocolates, to your board.
• Don’t forget to go nutty – a mix of nuts (cashews, walnuts, pistachios) add a nice salty flavor.
• Dill, sweet, spicy – pickled cucumbers, olives and veggies are a popular choice.
• And, of course, honey! From fruits and veggies to spicy meats, cheeses and chocolates, honey drizzled on top is the perfect finishing touch to these charcuterie treats.

Finally, you want your charcuterie board to look fun. Get creative with how you organize and arrange everything on the board. 

When you get it all put together, set your wood cutting board inside a tray that has raised edges when transporting to a party. That will help keep all those various goodies in place.

And to wash it all down? Wine is a popular go-to for charcuterie, but you can serve whatever beverage you like. YOU make the rules!

Winter Getaway

Candles, bubbles, warm water – go ahead, relax

It might be cold and windy outside, but indoors you can create a warm, soothing escape from winter right in your own bathtub. And we’ve got the perfect bubble recipe to send this comforting bath to the next level.

By mixing AUNT SUE’S® Raw & Unfiltered Honey with vanilla, you’ll be creating the perfect medley for a relaxing and rejuvenating bubble bath. Just follow these simple steps and let the ingredients work their magic.

Ingredients

1/4 cup AUNT SUE’S® Raw & Unfiltered Honey

1/2 cup coconut oil

1/3 cup liquid body soap


2 egg whites


1 tbsp vanilla extract

Directions

To make the bubble bath, combine AUNT SUE’S® Raw & Unfiltered Honey and the other ingredients in a bowl. (Note: You can transfer the mixed ingredients into an empty AUNT SUE’S® Raw & Unfiltered Honey bottle for a cute, easy-to-use container.) Next, pour 1/4 cup of the bubble bath under running water and enjoy. Make this Honey Vanilla Bubble Bath recipe for yourself or give it as a gift!

After-school Snacks

Need ideas? Try these recipes for a more natural snack alternative.

After a long day of studying, kiddos are ready for a snack. Of course, as parents, we don’t want to ruin their appetite with a bunch of over-processed junk food, so we’ve come up with a few health-minded snacks. Best of all, they all include natural AUNT SUE’S® Raw & Unfiltered Honey, AUNT SUE’S® Raw & Unfiltered Organic Honey or SUE BEE® honey.

Aunt Sue’s Nutty Honey Dip

If your apples are feeling lonely, introduce them to this deliciously addictive Nutty Honey Dip. With the perfect combination of peanut butter, honey, Greek yogurt and cinnamon, we’re pretty sure your apples will have found their forever partner.

Ingredients

1 cup peanut butter (or almond butter)

2 tsp AUNT SUE’S® Raw & Unfiltered Honey

2 tbsp vanilla Greek yogurt

Dash of cinnamon

Directions

Mix together the peanut (or almond) butter, honey, yogurt and cinnamon and you’re ready to enjoy! … Oh, and if you’re feeling extra saucy, sprinkle some cinnamon over your apple slices, too.

Banana Peanut Butter and SUE BEE® Honey Roll-ups

A new twist on a traditional school-lunch favorite, your children will soon call this their favorite meal!

Ingredients

1 whole wheat tortilla

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/2 cup each sliced bananas and strawberries

1 ½ tbsp SUE BEE® honey

Directions

Spread peanut butter evenly on tortilla.

Top peanut butter with sliced bananas and strawberries.

Drizzle with SUE BEE® honey.

Roll gently but tightly. Cut in half, then cut each half again.

Serve with celery and carrot sticks with our Honey Green Goddess Dressing for a sweet and fun school lunch!

Honey Cranberry Granola Bars

We can’t make these fast enough! They’re tasty and perfect for kids on the go.

Ingredients

2 cups old-fashioned oats 

3/4 cup raw almonds 

2/3 cup dark chocolate chips 

1 tsp ground cinnamon 

1/2 tsp salt 

1 cup almond butter or peanut butter 

1/2 cup AUNT SUE’S® Raw & Unfiltered Honey 

2/3 cup coconut 

1/2 cup dried cranberries 

Directions

In a mixing bowl, combine all dry ingredients. 

Add honey and nut butter to dry ingredients and mix. 

Line the bottom of an 8”x8” or 9”x9” square baking pan. Pour in mixture and press down as firmly and evenly as possible. 

Cover the pan and refrigerate for at least one hour, or overnight. Use a sharp knife to slice the bars. 

Keep in airtight container or freeze them.

Blueberry Yogurt Smoothie

“Scrumdiddlyumptious” is the only way to describe this heavenly blend of blueberries, bananas and honey. It’s great for a delicious morning and afternoon boost of energy.

Ingredients

2 tbsp AUNT SUE’S® Raw & Unfiltered Organic Honey

1 cup Greek vanilla yogurt

1 cup blueberries

1/2 a banana

1/2 cup of milk

1 cup ice

1 tbsp almond butter (optional)

Directions

Simply blend all ingredients together in a blender until well mixed. Then pour and enjoy!

Honeybee Hot Spot

Honeybees turn on the heat when temperatures drop

In the summertime, bears can be a big pain in the stinger for honeybees. They’ll tear apart an entire hive in search of honey, the golden cure for their sweet tooth craving.

But, in the winter, honeybees get a reprieve while bears hibernate. And while honeybees don’t hibernate, they do hunker down inside their hives for the season. However, there’s no time for sleeping – their “busy as a bee” maxim rings true year-round.

No rest for the weary

For honeybees kept by commercial beekeepers, like those of the Sioux Honey Co-op, they are often shipped to cold storage facilities or warmer climates (Texas, Florida, etc.) after beekeepers finish with the August harvest of honey.

In cold storage (potato sheds are ideal, for example), bees stay dormant, which helps them build strength and body fat. Plus, the bees are broodless, which means the queen can get a rest because she isn’t constantly laying eggs. The cool temps also help kill off hive pests like varroa mites, which can’t live if they don’t have new brood to eat.

In warmer climates, honeybees can also rest and build up strength because, if you’re a honeybee that belongs to a commercial beekeeper in the U.S., chances are your downtime lasts from September to December, and then it’s time to travel to California for the almond pollination season, which lasts from late-January to mid-March.

For the others

For the honeybees that remain outdoors in the winter climates, whether commercially kept or feral, they head inside their hives when the temps get below 50 degrees. Their number one job: Keep the queen warm. Really warm.

Honeybees inside the hive – only the queen and female worker bees remain at this point; the male drones have been kicked to the curb – form circle clusters with the queen at the center. To generate heat, the ring of honeybees closest to the queen shiver, and then use their wings to fan the heat to the center. As they fatigue, the rings rotate and the inner ring of bees moves to the outer ring.

At the center, temperatures reach a toasty 95 degrees. The outer-most ring stays at about 50 to 60 degrees. Honeybees eat stored honey for food and the queen takes the winter off from laying eggs (queens lay about 2,000 eggs each day in the summer) so that the hive can maintain its food source.

Longer lifespan

Compared to summer honeybees, winter bees have larger hypopharyngeal glands and more fat body reserves. Their different physiological characteristics from those of the summer population make them more plump and able to keep up the heat. 

Winter bees also have a longer lifespan and can live through the winter (about three to four months). That’s because they spend most of their time inside the hive, whereas summer bees devote their days to flying several miles back and forth daily between nectar sources and the hive. Summer bees literally work themselves to death and live only about six weeks.

Bathroom breaks

When winter temperatures outside the hive reach above 50 degrees, the bees rush outside to relieve themselves. They hold their waste and wait for the temperatures outside to warm up enough to quickly fly outside, take a bathroom break, and then return to the hive before the temps drop back down.

Thermal imaging

The photograph above is a thermal image of a hive in the winter. Using thermal imaging – the process of converting infrared radiation into visible images that depict the special distribution of temperature differences seen through the camera’s viewfinder – we can see how the center of the bee ring cluster is the warmest, and how the temperature cools as it gets farther from the center. 

In the center of the red section is where you’ll find the queen bee, all nice and toasty warm. (Outside the frame of the photo, way off in the distance nestled inside a cave on the side of a hill, is that bear. And, hopefully, this healthy hive can escape his claws when he awakes in a few weeks.)

Take Hot Honey for a Spin

This honey was made for drizzling … and that’s just what we’ll do!

Adding our new SUE BEE® INFUSIONS™ Hot Honey to your favorite foods is not only delicious, it’s easy, too! With our convenient flip-top cap, our Hot Honey is just a squeeze away from bringing your favorite foods into a new, zesty realm.

From pizza, burgers and corn on the cob, to chicken wings, cornbread and breakfast burritos, you can drizzle SUE BEE® INFUSIONS™ Hot Honey on just about anything.

Ready to try it out? Here’s a fun way to experiment with our Hot Honey (available on Amazon). Click on the “prize wheel” below and see where it lands – we listed 12 inventive items made for drizzling.

Here’s a hot new recipe

Our new SUE BEE® INFUSIONS™ Hot Honey is especially tasty on BBQ, and we’ve got the proof. Try this fresh recipe featuring both SUE BEE® INFUSIONS™ Hot Honey and SUE BEE® Original Style BBQ Sauce (also available on Amazon).

Ingredients

3 pounds of pork ribs

2 tbsp salt

1 1/2 cups SUE BEE® Original Style BBQ Sauce (available on Amazon)

1 tbsp garlic powder

1 tbsp ground cumin

1 tsp black pepper

SUE BEE® INFUSIONS™ Hot Honey for drizzling (also available on Amazon)

Directions

Preheat grill – gas grills on high, or stack charcoal on one-half of briquette grill – and lightly oil grate.

Combine salt, pepper, cumin, garlic powder in small bowl and mix to create the spice rub.

Add rub to both sides of ribs.

Place ribs on upper rack and reduce heat to low on gas grills, or place on the side without coals if using a briquette grill.

Close lid and leave undisturbed for 1 hour.

Brush ribs with SUE BEE® Original Style BBQ Sauce and grill for an additional 5 minutes.

Serve ribs as whole or cut between each rib bone and arrange on a platter.

Now, the final touch – drizzle some of that oh-so-zesty SUE BEE® INFUSIONS™ Hot Honey over the ribs.

Welcome to Yumville!

Blueberry Yogurt Smoothie

Ingredients

2 tbsp SUE BEE® INFUSIONS™ Vanilla Honey

1 cup Greek vanilla yogurt

1 cup blueberries

1/2 a banana

1/2 cup of milk

1 cup ice

1 tbsp almond butter (optional)

Directions

Simply blend all ingredients together in a blender until well mixed. Then pour and enjoy!

Sioux Honey Co-op’s Rob Towler keeps beekeepers on track

Rob Towler didn’t know much about honey when he began working at Sioux Honey 17 years ago. But he knew how to schedule honey pickups for the co-op’s 200+ beekeepers, get it to distribution centers where it’s bottled and packaged, and then get it delivered to grocery shelves in stores across the United States in a timely and efficient manner.

That’s because Rob has a degree in transportation and logistics from Iowa State University. At Sioux Honey, Rob works in the Member Relations Department where he helps coordinate collecting millions of pounds of honey each year from Sioux Honey beekeepers – ranging from bee yards in Hawaii to California to Florida.

“One of my main focuses is lining up trucks for the beekeepers to ship their honey and delivering them empty drums or totes,” he says. “Anything related to raw honey, our department handles.”

Rob, the assistant VP of membership and community, was born and raised in Sioux City, Iowa, where the honey co-op began, and where its headquarters is located today. 

Rob might not have known much about honey when he started at the co-op, but he certainly does now. From determining honey color profiles and various floral sources, to being able to detect the difference between clover and wildflower honey, Rob is one of our honey experts today, which is why we wanted to sit down and ask him a few questions we thought our honey lovers might find interesting.

Q: Where does Sioux Honey get all its honey, and where are the majority of co-op beekeepers located?

Rob: Well, most of the honey in the United States is produced in the upper great plains – South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Minnesota. … So that’s where a large concentration of our members are. But we have member beekeepers all over the U.S., including some in Texas, some in Florida, California – we’ve got a pretty good number out there – and some up in the Pacific Northwest – Oregon, Washington, Idaho.

Q: Is it hard to become a beekeeper member of the Sioux Honey Co-op?

Rob: We take applications, but we are very selective. First, we conduct stringent testing on all member honey. We have an in-house lab where we test the honey to make sure it’s pure honey and that the quality is the best available. We also want to get to know the beekeepers personally and to understand their beekeeping practices. That’s one of the differences between us and other honey packers. We know the beekeepers, we’re familiar with them and their families. Most of them are 2nd, 3rd, 4th generation beekeepers that have always been members of Sioux Honey. 

Q: Are any family members of the original five Sioux Honey beekeepers still part of the co-op?

Rob: We don’t have any kin of the original five, but we do have a member up in Minnesota whose family’s membership certificate number is 44. I believe they are on their 4th generation of family members. To put that in context, we’re now on membership certificate number 3,083 as far as how many beekeepers we’ve had over the years. 

Q: Are these long-lasting relationships with the beekeepers part of what makes Sioux Honey so special?

Rob: Certainly, the relationships we have with the beekeepers, but also the fact that they are all based in the U.S. Our SUE BEE® and our AUNT SUE’S® honeys are all domestic honey – it’s all produced by U.S. beekeepers and we’re very proud of that. That’s why our testing is so extensive, so that we make sure that we’ve got the purest honey on the shelf.

Q: What have been some of the biggest challenges for beekeepers in recent years?

Rob: One of the biggest challenges each year for beekeepers is keeping their bees alive. The varroa mite is an issue every year and destroys thousands of hives. And colony collapse disorder – where entire colonies of bees disappear overnight for unknown reasons – is a big factor in honeybee populations being down in recent years. But beekeepers continue to rebuild hives and create new hives to make up for ones that are lost. If it weren’t for the beekeepers, bee populations wouldn’t survive.

Q: So-called “fake” honey has been in the news in recent years. Can you explain what it is and where it’s coming from?

Rob: Fake honey can be a few different things. Adulteration is where corn syrup would be added to the honey. Corn syrup is a lot less expensive than pure honey, so, sometimes, whoever it may be, they may dilute the honey with corn syrup, which like I said, we would call it adulteration. 

Q: How many pounds of honey is collected by beekeepers in the U.S. in a given year?

Rob: The domestic honey crop can vary from 140 million pounds up to probably 200 million pounds. And that obviously depends on any given year with crop conditions, and this year it was a drought around most of the country. So the overall domestic crop was down.

Q: Did the recent COVID pandemic affect the honey business the way other commodities were affected?

Rob: The demand for honey went up quite a bit during COVID; everyone was eating at home, baking at home, restaurants weren’t open. So we did see consumption and sales go up during COVID. As for the supply, that’s based so much on crop conditions. And, like we said, drought this year made for a short crop. So COVID didn’t really affect that end of the business, the production end. But our sales were strong through COVID because people were forced to stay home and bake.

Q: How does Sioux Honey keep up with trends, like changing tastes and new flavors?

Rob: We’ve got a few new products that we’ve released over the last year. We’ve got three flavored honeys – a vanilla, a lemon and a strawberry – and that’s, again, a 100% pure U.S. honey with natural flavorings. And then also we’ve got a hot honey, which is, like it says, hot. It’s spicy.

Q: Before we let you go; we need to know: What’s your favorite way to eat honey?

Rob: On ice cream, for sure.

Is Honey Vegan?

Hot debate swirls around the question, and it’s not a simple answer

Infants younger than 1 year old should not eat honey. That’s because their young, undeveloped bodies aren’t ready to digest it. So, aside from the first 12 months of life, most humans can enjoy the sweet, natural golden goodness of honey.

However, some people have strict diets. Fortunately, honey is gluten free. Honey is kosher, too, for those who follow the Jewish dietary regulations of the kashrut. But what about honey for those who adhere to a vegan diet? Is honey considered vegan? 

Yes … and no.

Vegans avoid foods derived from animals. That means no meat, eggs and dairy. Because veganism is a way of life and not simply a diet, vegans also avoid products made from animals, such as leather shoes, wool scarfs, fur coats, etc. Nevertheless, we’re talking about diet here, and the question remains: Can vegans eat honey?

A strict vegan will say no. Honey comes from an animal. End of story. But, as ESPN’s Lee Corso famously says, “Not so fast, my friend.”

That’s because some vegans say it’s OK to eat honey. They say honey comes from flower nectar, and honeybees are simply carriers who turn the nectar into honey and release it.

On the other side, strict vegans say that honey exploits the labor of bees and that eating the honeybees’ energy source is immoral.

But wait, if you can’t eat honey because it depends on the labor of a bee then you also can’t eat any other foods that depend on the labor of a honeybee, right?

If that were the case, the non-honey-eating vegans would have to skip the blueberry-almond-milk smoothies and avocado toast, too.

The honey-eating vegans point out that farmers employ honeybees for vital pollination services for foods like almonds, avocados, blueberries, watermelons, apples, lettuce, oranges and so on. The farmers hire beekeepers to bring their honeybees to their fields to provide those crucial pollination services.

The honey-eating vegans believe that honey is just a byproduct of the pollination of these plants and crops, and, therefore, honey should be acceptable to eat.

Our take

At Sioux Honey, we want as many people as possible to enjoy our wonderful honey, which is collected by our co-op member beekeepers across the United States. We can only speak for our Sioux Honey beekeepers, but we know that our co-op members go above and beyond to protect their beloved honeybees. They do their best to shield their honeybees from predators like varroa mites and small hive beetles, and they make sure they have plenty of good, quality land on which to forage. 

Furthermore, our co-op beekeepers who provide their honeybees to farmers for vital pollination services care first and foremost about their bees. Before taking their bees to places like California for the almond pollination season, they take them to warmer southern climates so they can continue to forage in the fall season, build up strength and store honey for the trip to sunny California in late-February.

We know that without the pollination services of hard-working honeybees, the world’s food supply would be greatly affected. In the U.S., we can thank honeybees for about one-third of the food we eat. That’s because the commercial production of more than 90 crops rely on honeybee pollination. In the U.S. alone, honeybees pollinate an estimated $15 billion in added crop value. 

And by the way, we haven’t even mentioned other products derived from honeybees and their hives, like wax for candles, lip balm, cosmetics, artists’ materials, wood polishes, and waterproofing. Beeswax is also used as binding agents, time-release mechanisms and drug carriers for pharmaceuticals. The list goes on and on.

The point is, our Sioux Honey Co-op beekeepers love their honeybees. They take care of them and make sure they live healthy and strong lives. And if we are able to enjoy the honey produced as a result of all the pollinating and nectar collecting honeybees do, then we are happy to share that honey with everyone in the world.