When buying honey-sweetened products from our Honey Saves Hives partners throughout the year, you’re supporting beekeepers’ ability to keep healthy bees. You’re helping maintain a balance between pollinators and our planet’s ecosystem. And, without this contribution, many of the most popular food and beverage products would not be available. One-third of the foods we eat and more than 90 different crops — including fruits, nuts, vegetables and crop seeds — would not be available without honey bee pollination.
Honey bees follow a strict plant-based diet. They get their food from the nectar and pollen found in flowering plants and trees. The nectar of a flower provides their carbohydrates, and the pollen provides their protein source. The process of foraging for these food sources triggers pollination.
The farmer benefits from honey bee pollination with a bountiful harvest, and the beekeeper is rewarded with a healthy, well-fed hive and excess honey that goes to restaurants, food manufacturers and grocery store shelves.
If you want to see the impact of pollination on our food supply for yourself, pick out your favorite recipe or product in your pantry. Look at the ingredients and count how many are produced through honey bee pollination. Here’s just a partial list of ingredients and foods that honey bees pollinate:
Here are a few examples of products from our Honey Saves Hives partners that would not be on store shelves today without the dynamic honey bee.
Yes, almonds are one of the crops that would not exist without honey bees. Other ingredients in Justin’s delicious nut butter that wouldn’t exist? Palm oil and of course honey.
Gone are pears, oranges, strawberries, peaches and lemons, all fruits that are the cornerstones of TEAKOE’s Fizzy Tea line.
One of Sprecher’s distinctions in its sodas is the honey used in the brewery’s signature fire-brewed method. Without it, Root Beer, Cherry Cola, Cream Soda and Orange Dream wouldn’t be available.
In addition to honey-sweetened Mary’s Gone Kookies, the company’s Super Seed line would be wiped out without honey bees. Vegetable seeds, cut flower seeds and garlic all rely on pollinators to exist.
Made with honey, vanilla, almonds and flax seeds: Four ingredients may sound simple, but without honey bees none of them would be possible. This Saves Lives also gives back with each bar — a portion of every purchase is funneled to partners working to end world hunger.
Eat honey and buy products made with honey for a better planet. Follow us and #BeeCommitted to honey bees and honey.