“If you want to harvest honey, don’t kick over the beehive.” –Abraham Lincoln
		The U.S Department of Agriculture estimates that there are between 140,000 and 200,000 thousand beekeepers in the United States, most of them hobbyists with fewer than 25 hives. Commercial beekeepers are defined as those with more than 300 colonies.

“Nothing but honey is sweeter than money” – Benjamin Franklin
A typical colony of honey bees has about 60,000 bees and can produce over a hundred and fifty pounds of honey in one season.
Each honey bee makes an average of one twelfth of a teaspoon of honey in her lifetime. To make one pound, a colony of bees will make about two million nectar-gathering visits to flowers. The resulting honey requires the bees to fly a total of 55,000 miles collectively.

		Bees focus exclusively on one type of flower each time they embark on a foraging trip, so if a collection journey begins on dandelion, or tulip, or apple, it will end likewise.
		“To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, One clover, and a bee, and revery.” – Emily Dickinson

Generally, bees are pacifists; they would rather flee than fight. They sting to protect their honey, their young, and their queen, and only when provoked.
“He is not worthy of the honeycomb, that shuns the hives because the bees have stings.” – William Shakespeare
The National Honey Board estimates that Americans consume about 400 million pounds of honey each year, or about 1.3 pounds per person. For more interesting facts about bees and honey, visit their website, at www.honey.com
In Judaism, the New Year is still celebrated with apples dipped in honey, a wish for a sweet and blessed year to come.

		Before beer and wine, gods and mere mortals alike drank mead, powerful alcoholic ambrosia made from fermented honey.
	“Life is the flower for which love is the honey.” – Victor Hugo

Link to Donald Smiley's website

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