We have been practicing Ethical Beekeeping on Aruba since 2018
Since 2018 we have been practicing Ethical Beekeeping practices on our beautiful island of Aruba. Through our organic and Ethical Beekeeping we are able to keep complete control of our product quality while not disturbing the delicate ecosystem of our Bees. We have been promoting sustainability in our beekeeping practices but also in our products. All of our products are made by hand and we strive to have at least one local ingredient from Aruba in them. Another important aspect of our Ethical Beekeeping is all of our beehives and beestands where our hives sit are built and made by us by hand. Through this extra effort we can create a home for the bees that is well suited for our dry and desert environment which maximizes the health and happiness of the bees. We can also recycle and reuse materials such as corrugated roof and plywood to build those custom homes for our busy bees. We only harvest when there is enough availability and even then only 60 % of the honey from our beehives while leaving 40% of the honey in the honey comb for our bees. We also only use local Bees Wax for our hives. This assures us that there is no contamination that may get into our honey.
Our Bee A Fosters are our greatest allies
Since we began our Beekeeping journey we wanted to get as much community involvement as possible. We knew there was a great love for our natural flora and fauna in our community and so we took it upon ourselves to work collectively with individuals who wanted to have hives at their homes. Believe it or not the response was overwhelming and currently we have over 20 Bee A Foster locations around the island. Not only do our Bee A Fosters get to enjoy the fact that they are helping to give homes to our Aruba Bees but they also receive 10% of the honey production of the hives that they host. Our Ethical Beekeeping principal not only involves hive management but also community involvement.
Harvest Control
WE ONLY HARVEST 60% OF BEE MADE PRODUCTS – while leaving enough honey and pollen for our Aruba Bees to feed on. Make no mistake, Honey is seasonal, and not available all year long. You can be assured that the honey and Bee made products we source from our hives are 100% local and not imported. We use no additives and bottle our honey Raw, meaning they have not been pasteurized.
Hive Housing
All of our hives are locally built by us and only use naturally occurring materials such as wood. Any materials that we can reuse or refurbish is also part of our Ethical Beekeeping system. All our frames in the hives are made with untreated wood. Chemicals that may be present in the wood to ward off termites may leach into the wax, honey or even worse affect our Bees. Our Bee stands are of our own design and help to protect the hives boxes from the heat, wind and rain. All our Bee A Foster locations house a maximum of 3 to 4 hives per location. It’s more work for us to manage the hives this way but we feel that we need to mimic nature as much as possible. In nature you would never find dozens of hives so close together, this could bring about diseases but also cause food shortages for our Bees in the area that are housed.
Letting the Bees do what Bees do
In our Ethical Beekeeping we allow the Bee’s to make wax and store honey at the speed that they see fit. We do not provide them with large sheets of wax in the frames that may have been imported from other countries, instead we use our own local beeswax as a starter strip to give the bees a direction on where to build their wax cells. We do not feed them sugar water but instead downsize the hives to smaller boxes during the dry months or dearth periods. It’s easier to keep them in the large box when the bee population is low but this may cause issues later down the road since there isn’t enough of a hive population in the Bee box to protect the colony. We feel that this is a more Sustainable and Ethical beekeeping practice.
