The American Beekeeping Federation held their 83rd Annual Convention in Mobile, Alabama. The new American Honey Queen and Princess have been crowned.
Queen Cheyenne and Princess Emilia flew on an airplane to many states in 2025! We flew to Wisconsin, Nevada, Florida, Kentucky, and more! This made us think…are honeybees better flyers than airplanes?
Honeybee can beat their two pairs of wings at 11,700 times per minute, that is pretty fast! That fast buzzing is also what makes their distinct buzzing sound. Additionally, bees don’t move their wings up and down, like birds; or have motors like an airplane. Bees move their wings in a figure-eight pattern which allows them to have more lift and control when they fly.
Because of this, there are some interesting things that honeybees do that planes cannot:
Hover in place like a helicopter
Fly backwards and sideways
Turn quickly in mid-air
Land on flowers without crashing
Carry heavy loads like nectar and pollen while still flying 12 mph!
Scientists were unsure of how honeybees and bumblebees could fly because their bodies are too big for their wings to typically handle! However, they defy the odds because of their strong flight muscles in their body and fast speed.
So even though bees are small, they are some of the best pilots in the natural world!
The holidays are all about cozy flavors, warm kitchens, and a little extra sweetness — and this honey pumpkin log checks all the boxes. It’s festive, beautiful on a dessert table, and has just the right balance of spice and natural sweetness thanks to a swirl of honey in the batter. If you’re looking for a dessert that feels like the holidays but still keeps it real with simple, wholesome ingredients, this one’s for you.
Honey Pumpkin Log
Cake Ingredients:
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 large eggs
1/2 cup raw honey
2/3 cup pumpkin purée (not pumpkin pie filling)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Filling:
8 oz cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup honey
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350°F. Line a 10x15 jelly roll pan with parchment and lightly grease.
In one bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, spices, and salt.
In another bowl, beat eggs, honey, pumpkin, and vanilla until smooth. Add dry ingredients and stir until just combined.
Pour batter into pan, spread evenly, and bake for 13–15 minutes, until the top springs back when touched.
Immediately turn cake onto a clean towel dusted with powdered sugar. Peel off parchment, then roll the cake (with the towel inside) starting from the short end. Let it cool completely.
Mix filling ingredients until smooth. Once the cake is cool, unroll, spread filling, and gently roll back up (without the towel this time).
Chill at least 1 hour before slicing. Dust with powdered sugar before serving if you’re feeling fancy.
This honey pumpkin log is soft, spiced, and naturally sweet — perfect with a hot drink and some twinkle lights. It’s festive without being fussy, and the honey gives it that little golden glow that just feels like holiday magic.
Recipe and Photo Credit to the National Honey Board
As the holidays come closer, the temperatures start to drop! Luckily, there are wonderful drinks that you can enjoy while staying warm, and enjoying honey this fall and winter season.
Honey Lemon Tea: Mix warm water (not boiling), a spoonful of honey, and a splash of lemon juice. It’s cozy, soothing, and great for your throat, especially if you catch a cold!
Honey Hot Cocoa: Hot chocolate is a fun holiday drink to enjoy. Instead of adding sugar, try a tablespoon of honey to remind you of the springtime that will come back around soon with its smooth sweetness!
Spiced Honey Milk: Sweetness (from honey), spice, and everything nice! Warm up some milk and add honey with a sprinkle of cinnamon or nutmeg.
Also, if you are wondering what gift you should get your favorite family member, school teacher, or friend… give them a bottle or jar of honey so they can also try these recipes, and enjoy honey in their cooking or baking!
It’s easy to overlook the quiet work happening behind the scenes in nature, but pollinators are doing big things for our food supply every single day. From almonds to apples to that avocado toast you love, much of what we eat starts with a honeybee doing its thing.
So, What Foods Come from Pollination?
A lot of common foods rely on pollinators:
Fruits: apples, blueberries, strawberries, watermelon, cherries, peaches
Veggies: cucumbers, pumpkins, squash, peppers
Nuts: almonds (they're 100% bee-pollinated!)
Coffee, chocolate, and even vanilla get help from pollinators, too
How Much Do Pollinators Really Matter?
A lot — like, billions of dollars a lot. Around 75% of global food crops depend at least in part on pollination. In the U.S. alone, pollination contributes $20+ billion annually to agriculture. Without bees, we'd still have some grains and root veggies, but the variety and nutrition in our diets would seriously suffer.
Next time you grab a piece of fruit or drizzle honey into your tea, give a quiet shoutout to the bees. They’re tiny, but their impact is massive — and our plates (and grocery stores) are way more colorful because of them.
Photo Credit to Genetic Literacy Project
Happy National Honey Month!
Have you seen honey in your local grocery store? The farmer’s market? Your own kitchen at home? Have you ever tasted honey on toast or in tea? You may know that honeybees make it…but how?
When bees visit flowers, they drink a sweet syrup called nectar using their straw-like tongue called a proboscis and carry it back to their hive in their honey stomach. There, they exchange the nectar with other bees in the hive using their proboscis, which they insert into their honeycomb cells. The bees flap their wings at 11,700 times per minute to dry it out (dehydration), and then allow the nectar to mature into thick, sweet honey! Once it’s ready, they seal it up with wax to keep it fresh. Like adding a lid to their very own honey jar!
Not all honey is the same. It can look and taste different depending on the flowers the bees visit. Orange blossom honey is light and fruity, while buckwheat honey is dark and bold. Some honey is runny, and some is thick like buttery fondant! There is a honey for everybody!
Want to try honey for yourself? Visit a farmers' market in your town with your family or friends and taste different kinds made by local honeybees. You can also try cooking with honey at home using the recipes from our blog, drizzle it on toast, stir it into yogurt, or sweeten tea with a spoonful.
Next time you enjoy honey, make sure to thank the busy bees who made it!
Bee stings are never fun, but they may happen! The good news? They're usually harmless and easy to treat, especially if you know what to do right away. Whether you got a little too close to a curious honeybee or stumbled into their flight path, here’s how to handle the sting and a little insight into how bee venom is actually used in healing.
How to Remove a Bee Stinger
If you’ve been stung by a bee act fast:
Wait, Bee Venom Can Be Healing?
The answer is yes, with Apitherapy! The use of bee products (like honey, propolis, royal jelly, and even venom) in natural healing. Bee venom therapy is actually used in some wellness circles to treat inflammation, arthritis, and even chronic pain. So yes, bee stings hurt — but knowing how to handle them quickly makes all the difference.
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Photo Credit to Bee Culture
Did you know that honeybees can dance? But they don’t dance just for fun; they dance to share important information with the other bees in their hive. This special bee dance is called the waggle dance, and it helps honeybees communicate about the floral sources they find. When bees visit flowers, they also help plants grow through something called pollination.
When a honeybee finds a flower full of sweet nectar or pollen, she flies back to the hive to tell her sisters. Instead of talking, she dances! The waggle dance is a special kind of bee behavior where the bee wiggles her body while moving in a figure-eight shape. The direction, angle to the sun, and the intensity of her vibrations that she dances tell the other bees which way to fly, and the speed of her wiggle shows how far the flowers are.
Why do bees need flowers, and why do flowers need bees? Flowers give bees nectar and pollen. Nectar is a sweet liquid syrup that bees drink and then turn into honey, and pollen is a yellow powdery substance that bees use for protein. When bees collect pollen, they also drop some of it from flower to flower, which helps the plant reproduce. This is called pollination. Pollination helps flowers grow seeds, and seeds grow into fruits and vegetables. Without bees, we wouldn’t have many of the foods we eat, like apples, blueberries, cucumbers, and pumpkins.
Their waggle dance helps the hive find the best flowers for the honeybee colony, and their visits to flowers help plants grow and make our food. So the next time you see a bee buzzing by, remember she might be dancing soon to tell her friends about the tasty flowers she found! Try planting bee-friendly flowers like lavender and sunflowers in your garden.
Imagine you are a beekeeper, and you are checking your hive! The white wooden hive box is buzzing with bees around the entrance! After removing the lid, you see inside the box, where there are 10 wooden frames. On those frames, the bees are crawling around, seeing who the new visitor is!
When you pull out a frame, you see the many bees walking across the beeswax with the hexagon-shaped cells. Did you know that honeybees have the instinct to make their comb into hexagons? It’s the best shape for the worker bees to store their honey and pollen in!
As you continue looking at the frames, you come across one that appears to have tiny rice-grain-like eggs inside the comb, and nearby, you see the queen bee laying them! She has a larger thorax and abdomen, and she lays 1000-2000 brood eggs every single day! She’s a very busy bee!
~Princess Emilia
The spring season is quickly approaching, and with that we will soon hear the chirping of birds and the buzz of honeybees. With the weather warming, and sometimes being unpredictable, this is the perfect time to take up a new hobby of gardening while supporting our buzzing friends.
If you are planning on supporting honeybee populations, while also taking in the beautiful sunshine, consider planting the list of plants below to ensure the honeybees have something to eat!
Some flowers that are perfect for spring bloom include:
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As March comes along, so do sneezes and coughs! The flu season has begun, so it’s very important to wash your hands and cough or sneeze into your elbow bend. Just like we get sick, so do honeybees!
Honey has many uses, which even include beauty care! As a nature humectant, or moisturizer, which can be perfect for the winter months. This three-ingredient mask will gently exfoliate your face, balance your complexion, and leave your skin feeling soft and fresh.
Ingredients
Steps
You can use the mask once a week, but it's best to make a fresh batch every time.
