As the American Honey Princess from Wisconsin, I travel all across the country to teach students, 4-H groups, and many other groups about the importance of honeybees and pollination in our everyday lives. I also attend many different events such as fairs, festivals, and farmers markets, and have interviews with tv, radio, and newspapers.
To find out if the American Honey Queen or Princess can visit your school or community, please visit the American Beekeeping Federation website.
December
As my travelling wound down for the year, December allowed me to prepare for the North American Beekeeping Conference and Tradeshow which will be held in Galveston, Texas from January 4-8, 2011. At the beekeeping convention, the American Beekeeping Federation, American Honey Producers Association, and Canadian Honey Council are coming together for a sweet future, the theme of our joint convention this year. They are gathering together to learn more about the latest research, newest products, and the future of beekeeping.
As the American Honey Princess, both the American Honey Queen and I will be the hostess’ for the convention. We will be speaking to the beekeepers about our travels to help teach students, like you, about the importance of honeybees in our daily lives. Both Queen Lisa and I will be giving speeches about our year and the beekeepers we represent. We also have scrapbooks to show them our accomplishments as well as our recipe brochures to hand out, just like the ones we gave to you when we visited your state.
This year we have 3 young ladies who have applied for the 2011 American Honey Queen position. During this beekeeping conference, they will help with the queen’s auction and sell raffle tickets (which raises money for the honey queen and princess to travel to your state), help with the honey show, and participate in the Queen’s Quiz Bowl. The Queen’s Quiz Bowl is a fun activity for all beekeepers to attend which tests the beekeeping knowledge of the 3 candidates who are trying their best to become the 2011 American Honey Queen.
Being the 2010 American Honey Princess has been an experience of a lifetime. I have visited 17 different states, gave over 200 presentations to 8,500 people, and gave 30 media interviews. No matter where I visit, I continually strive to share my knowledge of beekeeping with everyone I meet. After all, honeybees pollinate approximately 1/3 of our diet. If we didn’t have honeybees, we would have to completely eliminate, or take away, an entire meal out of our day, EVERDAY, for the rest of our life!
November
I had a great first week of November when I returned to Wisconsin for school presentations, media interviews, and a beekeeping convention. I spoke to over 1,200 students in 5 days to encourage them to come to the Wisconsin Honey Producers Association (WHPA) convention Kids’N’Bees Expo.
At the Kids’N’Bees Expo, we had many activities for people of all ages to learn more about honeybees. I really enjoyed teaching people about honeybees in the observation hive. Honeybees are very organized insects. Each honeybee has its own job inside the hive. One of the first jobs a honeybee has is to clean the cells, which is kind of like us having to clean our rooms. We are a lot more like honeybees than you may think. Other activities included dressing up as a beekeeper for the day, rolling beeswax candles and enjoying delicious honey treats (recipe). At the WHPA convention, 135 beekeepers met to learn more about the buzz within the beekeeping industry. I also had 2 radio interviews and 1 TV interview.
I buzzed down to Illinois for the dedication of Wanda’s Honey House at Klein Creek Farm before I flew to New Hampshire. When I was in New Hampshire, I spoke to over 500 people about honeybees and shared my honeybee song with them so they could remember what we talked about. The song goes to the tune of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” but I changed the words to incorporate honeybees. Try learning one of the verses to the song yourself:
Honeybees are here to help us live for many reasons. First, honeybees help pollinate 1/3 of our diet. Second, honeybees make extra honey. The extra honey is what we can enjoy in many ways. Third, honeybees make beeswax which we can find in candles, soap bars, and lip balm.
October Part II
I rounded out the month of October in Florida where I spoke to 160 second grade students. They learned about honeybee pollination. If we did not have honeybees to pollinate our foods, we would have to completely take out an entire meal out of our day, every day for the rest of our life. I also attended the Florida State Beekeepers Association convention where I spoke to the beekeepers about my year as the American Honey Princess and had the opportunity to crown the 2011 Florida Honey Queen. There are honey queens across the nation who help teach people about the importance of honeybees in our daily lives.
October
December
As the American Honey Princess, both the American Honey Queen and I will be the hostess’ for the convention. We will be speaking to the beekeepers about our travels to help teach students, like you, about the importance of honeybees in our daily lives. Both Queen Lisa and I will be giving speeches about our year and the beekeepers we represent. We also have scrapbooks to show them our accomplishments as well as our recipe brochures to hand out, just like the ones we gave to you when we visited your state.
This year we have 3 young ladies who have applied for the 2011 American Honey Queen position. During this beekeeping conference, they will help with the queen’s auction and sell raffle tickets (which raises money for the honey queen and princess to travel to your state), help with the honey show, and participate in the Queen’s Quiz Bowl. The Queen’s Quiz Bowl is a fun activity for all beekeepers to attend which tests the beekeeping knowledge of the 3 candidates who are trying their best to become the 2011 American Honey Queen.
Being the 2010 American Honey Princess has been an experience of a lifetime. I have visited 17 different states, gave over 200 presentations to 8,500 people, and gave 30 media interviews. No matter where I visit, I continually strive to share my knowledge of beekeeping with everyone I meet. After all, honeybees pollinate approximately 1/3 of our diet. If we didn’t have honeybees, we would have to completely eliminate, or take away, an entire meal out of our day, EVERDAY, for the rest of our life!
November
At the Kids’N’Bees Expo, we had many activities for people of all ages to learn more about honeybees. I really enjoyed teaching people about honeybees in the observation hive. Honeybees are very organized insects. Each honeybee has its own job inside the hive. One of the first jobs a honeybee has is to clean the cells, which is kind of like us having to clean our rooms. We are a lot more like honeybees than you may think. Other activities included dressing up as a beekeeper for the day, rolling beeswax candles and enjoying delicious honey treats (recipe). At the WHPA convention, 135 beekeepers met to learn more about the buzz within the beekeeping industry. I also had 2 radio interviews and 1 TV interview.
I have five eyes, four wings and,
Antenna and a stinger too.
But I’m not going to harm you,
Rather here to help you live.
Honeybees are here to help us live for many reasons. First, honeybees help pollinate 1/3 of our diet. Second, honeybees make extra honey. The extra honey is what we can enjoy in many ways. Third, honeybees make beeswax which we can find in candles, soap bars, and lip balm.
October Part II
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| Cutting the wax cappings off of a frame before putting in the extractor |
The month of October kept me buzzing from the east coast in Maryland to the south of Texas and west in Montana. I started out by visiting the Oregon Ridge Nature Center Honey Harvest Festival. While I was there, over 3,000 people enjoyed finding the queen in the observation hive, trying samples of Maryland honey, and extracting. During late summer and early fall, a beekeeper will take the extra honey from the honeybees because they make 3 times the amount they actually need to feed themselves. The beekeeper will then extract the honey and bottle it for all of us to enjoy. When a beekeeper extracts honey, the frames (wooden rectangles shown in the picture that are full of honey inside the beeswax comb) are placed in a large cylinder. Once they are inside the large cylinder, or extractor, it will spin very fast so the honey can fly out to the side of the extractor through something called centrifugal force.
I then buzzed on over to Texas for the Texas State Fair. I talked to people about the day in the life of the honeybee with the use of an observation hive. Many beekeepers bring a live hive of honeybees enclosed in a wood and glass cage to show people how busy honeybees are inside of the hive. Every honeybee has its very own job that changes as she is growing up, just like us. Her first job is to clean her room. When she becomes old enough, she becomes a field bee where she forages for nectar and pollen every day she takes her flight. She has to work outside of the home, just like many of us will have to work outside of the home when we become adults. We are a lot like honeybees. I also gave 7 cooking demonstrations at the Texas State Fair. I demonstrated a holiday punch, which you can find in the American Honey Queen/Princess Recipe Brochure, on our Cooking With Honey page, or at http://www.abfnet.org/. This recipe is great for holidays, family reunions, or hot summer days.
Montana gave me another great adventure as I have been buzzing across America. I spoke to 1,950 students within 3 days at the Northern International Livestock Exposition (N.I.L.E). I also went to the Montana State Beekeepers Association convention where I talked with many beekeepers about my year as the American Honey Princess. Did you know that there are about 50 commercial beekeepers in the state of Montana? A commercial beekeeper is a beekeeper with 300 hives or more. Some of them have thousands of hives and transport them across the country to help pollinate different foods like almonds in California.
Montana gave me another great adventure as I have been buzzing across America. I spoke to 1,950 students within 3 days at the Northern International Livestock Exposition (N.I.L.E). I also went to the Montana State Beekeepers Association convention where I talked with many beekeepers about my year as the American Honey Princess. Did you know that there are about 50 commercial beekeepers in the state of Montana? A commercial beekeeper is a beekeeper with 300 hives or more. Some of them have thousands of hives and transport them across the country to help pollinate different foods like almonds in California.
September
September kept me buzzing across the country. I gave many cooking demonstrations during my visit to the Minnesota State Fair. My favorite recipe to show people how to make is a holiday punch. Honeybees are very important to many of the ingredients including apple juice, orange juice, and cranberry juice. All three fruits need to be pollinated by honeybees. I also had tv and radio interviews, helped people find the queen in the “Buzz” booth, and sampled many different varieties of honey. Did you know Minnesota is #6 in the nation for how much honey they produce? Many people enjoyed learning about different aspects of honeybees and beekeeping while I was on the FFA stage. The audience helped make honey butter from scratch. This is something you can make at home. All you need is some whipping cream in a glass jar, add a pinch of salt, and shake until it looks like soft butter. Take it out of the glass jar, into a bowl, and mix some honey in. You have just made your very own honey butter!
My next stop was to Ohio for interviews and a school presentation that helped invite people to the Lithopolis Honey Festival (http://lithopolishoneyfest.com/). I took a live observation hive into the school so students could find the queen. Many beekeepers will put a colored dot on the back of the queen so they can find her easier in the hive. This year’s color is blue, but the color changes every year so the beekeeper can keep track of how old she is. At the Lithopolis Honey Festival, I helped people sample honey featured from 5 different states: Michigan, Texas, Alabama, Florida, and Wisconsin. Each state has its own unique variety of honey. My state of Wisconsin was featured for its Cranberry Honey.
Kansas gave me another great adventure. I visited the Kansas Honey Producers Association booth at the Kansas State Fair. While I was there, I helped sell honey, gave out honey samples, and talked to people about what happens in the day of the life of the honeybee. All the worker bees in the hive are girls. They are the ones who not only make honey but also beeswax. Honeybees are a lot like
construction workers because they build comb (their hive or home) out of beeswax so they can live off of it and store their honey.
My last trip for September was visiting the Washington D.C. and Maryland area. I visited the U.S. Botanical Gardens where I talked with many visitors about becoming backyard beekeepers themselves. Some beekeepers in Washington D.C. keep honeybees on their rooftops! Did you know that there are also honeybees at the White House? The White House got honeybees on March 24, 2009 to help pollinate their children’s garden. I got to visit them while I was in D.C. In Maryland, I went to the Honey Harvest Fest at the Patuxent Research Refuge. I talked to many visitors all about honey. Honey is the only food that never spoils.
August
August has kept me busy buzzing across the country. My first visit was to North Carolina for the Eastern Apicultural Society (EAS) convention. EAS is a group of beekeepers from 26 states across the eastern part of the United States. Beekeepers get together just like other groups including 4-H clubs to learn more about beekeeping and see their beekeeping friends.
I returned to my home state of Wisconsin for the Wisconsin State Fair. I worked with Wisconsin beekeepers in the honey booth, gave two cooking demonstrations, and had three radio interviews. In the honey booth, I helped sell seven different varieties of honey, honey lemonade, honey mustard, Sprecher’s root beer made with honey, and beeswax. Sprecher root beer is made with Wisconsin Honey. I also visited a Boys and Girls Club in Milwaukee, WI where I talked to over 100 kids about honeybee pollination in their club’s garden. They grow tomatoes in their garden which need to be pollinated by honeybees. 
Next I visited the Kentucky State Fair in Louisville, KY. During my time in Kentucky, I helped beekeepers sell honey, sample honey, and roll beeswax candles. Honeybees not only make honey, they also make beeswax. Beeswax can be made into candles which will give off a smokeless flame. If you use beeswax candles, you won’t get black soot on your walls. Beeswax can also be used in chapstick to keep lips feeling soft. I like using Burt’s Bees lip balm.
July
I went to the Wisconsin Honey Producers Association meeting where I talked with Wisconsin beekeepers about the honeybee business. There are about 500 beekeepers in Wisconsin. I visited other places in Wisconsin like Green Tree Elementary, Turners Fresh Market, and Farm Technology Days. I gave 2 cooking demonstrations at the Turner’s Fresh Market for a Taffy Apple Salad and Bees in the Garden Coleslaw. One way you can tell an apple has been completely pollinated by a honeybee is by cutting it along the equator, so you can see the star shape. If there are 10 seeds, you know that your apple has been fully pollinated.
I also visited the California State Fair in Sacramento. They had many different samples of honey for people to try. There are over 300 different kinds of honey in the United States. Some of them produced in California include sage, star thistle, eucalyptus, and orange blossom. Orange blossom honey is very unique because it tastes a little bit like oranges. 
JuneIn Illinois, I spoke to the Illinois State Beekeepers Association at their summer meeting about using the honey queen program to help promote their honey. Some beekeepers are hobbyist beekeepers. They keep honeybees because they enjoy it. Other beekeepers are commercial beekeepers who make beekeeping their career. In Wisconsin, I had a TV interview at the Janesville Farmers Market and visited the Ozaukee County Breakfast on the Farm. Wisconsin is America’s Dairyland. Even dairy cows need honeybee pollination for the food that they eat called alfalfa, or hay.
May
In Michigan, I visited 2 schools and 2 radio stations. In Michigan, honeybees pollinate apples, blueberries and cherries. When bees visit the different flowers, they help plants grow. A honeybee visits 50-100 flowers during one collection trip. During one of my radio interviews, I even had a person call into the radio station to ask a question about local honey. Honey is different in every part of the United States. There are over 300 different kinds of honey in the United States. Each kind has its own flavor as well as color. A good rule of thumb when you are deciding which honey you may enjoy best combines the flavor and color. The lighter the color of honey, like clover honey, the more mild the flavor will be. The darker the color of honey, like buckwheat, the stronger or more robust the flavor will be.
April
Back in Wisconsin, I gave presentations to the Tri-County Pork Producers Association and two schools. One of the schools I visited was the grade school I went to. All of the students learned my honeybee song to help them remember a few things about honeybees. I was asked to be the educational entertainment at the 4-H Variety Show in Ozaukee County, the county I used to be a member of 4-H in. I sang my “Jingle Bees” song, a song I created about honeybees that goes to the tune of “Jingle Bells.” Beekeeping is a project that you can take if you are a 4-H member. Find out more at http://www.4-h.org/
Back in Wisconsin, I gave presentations to the Tri-County Pork Producers Association and two schools. One of the schools I visited was the grade school I went to. All of the students learned my honeybee song to help them remember a few things about honeybees. I was asked to be the educational entertainment at the 4-H Variety Show in Ozaukee County, the county I used to be a member of 4-H in. I sang my “Jingle Bees” song, a song I created about honeybees that goes to the tune of “Jingle Bells.” Beekeeping is a project that you can take if you are a 4-H member. Find out more at http://www.4-h.org/
March
In Wisconsin, I went to the Fond du Lac Ag Showcase where I showed people how to make caramel apple dip with honey (click here to learn how to make it!) and had a TV interview. I also met Wisconsin’s Governor Jim Doyle at a Wisconsin Women for Agriculture Legislative Brunch. I next travelled to Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Texas. 
In Minnesota, Queen Lisa and I learned more about beekeeping and spoke to other beekeepers about the American Beekeeping Federation at the University of Minnesota Beekeeping Short Course. After that weekend, I returned to Wisconsin to teach students in the city of Janesville about the many different ways we can use honey. I certainly enjoy my peanut butter and honey sandwiches, but honey is not just for cooking. It is an all natural home remedy, and people have been using it for many years on minor cuts or scrapes to help heal quicker. From there, I headed to Illinois where I gave 4 cooking demonstrations to a high school cooking class. I flew to Texas where I showed many people how to find the queen in the hive at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. They had a “BEE-zebo” filled with honeybees and flowers so people could see how the honeybees work. Honeybees gather pollen for food and nectar to make honey (more food!) when they are visiting flowers.February
In Iowa, Queen Lisa and I had training for our classroom presentations, cooking demonstrations and media interviews. We visited 4 elementary schools and had TV and radio interviews. Back in Wisconsin, I had 2 newspaper interviews and visited Redgranite Elementary School and the Berlin High School to teach students that anyone can be a beekeeper. Beekeeping is an adventure for all ages whether you are 95 or 5. I am even a beekeeper and have one hive of my own. I think honeybees are absolutely fascinating. Anyone can be a beekeeper. 
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