National Honey Month: 5 Things to Know About Honey Bees

September is National Honey Month, which makes it the perfect time to celebrate one of our favorite little creatures…the honey bee. Of course, we love honey, but for us, the real reason to celebrate is the bees themselves.

Honey bees are fascinating creatures, incredible pollinators, and an important part of our agricultural system. They also face a growing number of challenges, which makes understanding and caring for them more important than ever. So, in honor of National Honey Month, here are five things worth knowing about honey bees.

1. Honey Bees Are Essential Pollinators

Honey bees do much more than make honey. As they move from flower to flower, collecting nectar and pollen, they pollinate many of the crops we rely on. According to the USDA, more than 100 types of crops grown in the United States rely on pollinators, and honey bees are America's primary commercial pollinator. Pollination contributes more than $18 billion in added value to U.S. crop production. Think fruits, vegetables, nuts, berries, and seeds. So when we talk about protecting honey bees, we're also talking about protecting an important part of our food system.

2. A Hive Is a Remarkably Complex Community

A honey bee colony isn't simply a collection of individual bees flying around together. It's a highly organized community in which thousands of bees work together to maintain the colony's health and survival. Different bees have different roles, and those roles can change throughout their lives. Workers care for the brood, build and maintain the comb, regulate the temperature of the hive, guard the entrance, and eventually head out to forage for food. And somehow, all of this happens without a manager standing over them with a clipboard. It's one of the many reasons beekeepers can spend years studying their bees and still find something new to learn.

3. Honey Bee Health Is About Much More Than Honey

It's easy to think about bees in terms of the honey they produce, but for beekeepers, honey is only one piece of a much bigger picture. Healthy colonies have to contend with parasites, pests, pathogens, nutrition, pesticides, weather, and other environmental pressures. The USDA's honey bee health research identifies parasites and pests, pathogens, poor nutrition, and pesticide exposure as major stresses affecting honey bees. That's why responsible beekeeping involves much more than checking whether a hive has honey. Beekeepers are constantly watching. Every visit to the apiary is an opportunity to learn something about the health of the hive.

4. Bees Need People Who Are Willing to Learn

One of our favorite things about the beekeeping community is how much learning happens between people. Experienced beekeepers mentor beginners. Researchers study bee health. Educators introduce new generations to the hive. Veterinary programs, universities, and agricultural organizations are increasingly recognizing the importance of understanding honey bee health. And beekeepers themselves are constantly sharing what they've learned from their own colonies. There's no single person who knows everything about bees. That's part of the beauty of it. The more you learn, the more you realize how much there is still to discover.

5. Supporting Honey Bees Can Look Different for Everyone

You don't have to manage hundreds of hives to care about honey bees, and you don't even have to be a beekeeper to learn more about pollinators. Plant flowers that provide food for bees, support local beekeepers, buy local honey, and share accurate information about bee health. Or, if you're someone who has always wanted to learn more about beekeeping, maybe this is the year you finally find a local mentor or take a beginner class. And if you are a beekeeper, you already know that caring for bees is about so much more than honey. It's about paying attention, showing up, and protecting something small that has an enormous impact.

Celebrating the Bees Behind the Honey

At Jeometry™, we're lucky to spend a lot of time thinking about bees, but we're even luckier to be surrounded by the people who care for them. From backyard beekeepers opening their first hive to professional beekeepers managing hundreds of colonies, educators teaching the next generation, and researchers working to better understand bee health, we're continually inspired by the people who show up for the bees. That's what National Honey Month means to us. Yes, we'll happily celebrate the honey, but we'll be celebrating the bees, too, because without the bees, there wouldn't be much honey to celebrate. And there would be a whole lot less blooming, growing, and buzzing around us.

Happy National Honey Month, Sister Bees!