My Nephew, Charlie, and his Summer Job at Red Bee Honey
This summer, my nephew, Charlie, took a job working with a local beekeeper near his home in Connecticut. Marina Marchese is the founder and owner of Red Bee Honey in Weston, which sells honey and natural products to gourmet food shops and fine restaurants all over the United States. About ten years ago, Marina was introduced to honeybees and became bee crazy. After building her own hives and acquiring her bees, she earned a certificate in apitherapy, studied wine tasting in order to transfer those skills to honey tasting, and built up her business of artisanal honey and honey-related products. Charlie tells me that working at Red Bee has really opened his eyes and taste buds to the fascinating world of bees and honey.
1 The signs at the entrance to Red Bee
2 This is Marina Marchese standing next to a top bar hive occupied by some of her Italian honeybees.
3 Marina runs her industry out of this charming cottage.
4 Some of Marina's hives sit upon a hillside behind her house.
5 The interior of a top bar hive. The wooden bars are suspended across the top and the bees make natural comb without any foundation or frames.
6 Her bees are obviously healthy and happy.
7 Marina likes to experiment with different kinds of hives.
8 When a colony needs a queen, they are delivered in these little queen cages.
9 The honey bees are really drawn to the giant sunflowers blooming in the garden.
10 The vegetable garden with the chicken coop beyond
11 These happy chickens lay approximately one dozen eggs daily.
12 A handsome rooster
13 The hen house
14 When not in use, a carved out tree trunk holds a set of bocce balls.
15 Because the cottage is small, this outdoor 'room' is a great place during warm weather.
16 The Red Bee storage room - Marina collects honey from all around the world.
17 Bee Pollen is one of the richest and purest natural foods and the incredible nutritional and medicinal value of pollen has been known for centuries. It is said to regulate blood pressure and lower cholesterol.
18 Red Bee body oil contains oils of olive and grapeseed, honey and lavender essential oils.
19 Bars of honey infused soap
20 Another soap
21 Marina even makes a bug spray.
22 Marina enjoys conducting tastings of her many flavors of honey. Tasting honey is much like tasting wine.
23 Light-colored honeys typically have a mild flavor, while dark-colored honeys are usually stronger in flavor.
24 The honey in this comb tasted of raspberry.
25 My nephew, Charlie, was busy bottling honey that day.
26 Honey is transferred from vat to bottle.
27 The top is capped with a natural cork.
28 The cork is then sealed with shrink wrap.
29 Next, the label is affixed.
30 The top is then covered with a paper wrapper.
31 And secured with a piece of twine
32 Red Bee supplies fine restaurants, bakeries, and gourmet shops with honey. This gallon of honey was ordered by a woman who makes excellent granola.
33 A collection of empty comb
34 Marina is an award-winning illustrator and designer and has taken up a painting technique called encaustic, or hot wax painting. These are the pigments.
35 Using this hot-plate, she melts the pigments with beeswax to form the paint.
36 One of her paintings
37 And another
38 A lovely queen
39 Encaustic with gold leaf
40 Keeping with the Red Bee theme, even this sofa is upholstered with bee fabric.
41 Marina is the author of 'Honeybee' - an informative and charming account of becoming a beekeeper and honey entrepreneur.
42 Her car
43 Her scooter
44 Her driveway gates
45 And her sweet dog, appropriately named, 'Honey!'
Martha Pins
Martha Tweets
That looks very interesting, but as for myself, I'd be afraid of getting stung.
There are some strange looking honey bees somewhere in my old house. I don't know if they're in the brick chimney, or inside the walls next to the chimney.
There used to be some in the wall under the porch roof, and I had them removed to a hive, but they didn't get the queen, and I dont know what happened to those bees, or if the ones at the chimney are the same ones, and they just moved around the corner.
Martha, would you like to come and remove them for me? I'd let you.
Gloria!!
Posted by: Gloria | August 18th, 2010 at 12:23 am
Love that adorable cottage!
Posted by: Wendy | August 18th, 2010 at 12:45 am
Enchanting! What a talented lady. I love her place, her decoration and her passion. A very uplifting set of pictures.
Posted by: Christian / @vfbr2001 | August 18th, 2010 at 1:25 am
These are such sweet images. And what beautiful packaging.
Posted by: Isle Dance | August 18th, 2010 at 4:09 am
My Grandfather kept bees after he retired and I am so sorry today that I never made time to learn from him such a wonderful hobby. Thank you for sharing your nephew's adventure.
Posted by: Sue | August 18th, 2010 at 7:27 am
Hi maaaartha
I love your blogs:)
This place looks amazing
She is truely talented :>
Posted by: Reem | August 18th, 2010 at 8:43 am
Martha, thanks for sharing this blog.
Posted by: KLBrown | August 18th, 2010 at 8:54 am
Hi Martha,
Tell Charlie thanks for the close-up of his hands and maybe next time he could look at the camera for us! Wow, no longer ‘little’ Charlie and Marina is quite the entrepreneur. She is so talented and I love her little cottage where she runs her fascinating bee business. She certainly is a doer and a good example to follow. I’d love to see her on your show; she has really accomplished a lot in 10 years. Can you tell I enjoyed this blog Martha! Trish
(P.S. Laura, you have some really great kids!)
Posted by: Trish | August 18th, 2010 at 10:10 am
Inspiring!
Posted by: Teresa Touey | August 18th, 2010 at 10:39 am
A lovely story and photos. Great for nephew Charlie to learn all there is about beekeeping, packaging, marketing, etc.
Posted by: sherey | August 18th, 2010 at 10:58 am
Wow, she REALLY loves bees and honey.
Great to see that someone is so passionate about something!
Posted by: Tyler | August 18th, 2010 at 11:34 am
My daughter has adapted your pie crust recipe to incorporate honey. It is truly amazing!
She is going to enjoy getting some Red Bee Honey products for her next birthday. Thanks for another amazing exploration, Martha!
Posted by: Leslie | August 18th, 2010 at 12:56 pm
Her book is an excellent window into the fascinating world of bees...Honeybees from an Accidental Beekeeper.
Posted by: gioia parrish | August 18th, 2010 at 2:35 pm
That was so lovely and charming to see this morning. Thank you!
Posted by: hannah | August 18th, 2010 at 3:04 pm
I tearing out my kitchen and installing the Turkey Hill design. It is beautiful. Thank you Martha, it's a good thing!!!
Posted by: Jerry | August 18th, 2010 at 4:06 pm
the cottage & the shop is sooo wonderful! so cool...local stuff is the best, she's doing such a great job & sounds so fun...I hope Charlie is having a blast.
Posted by: maureen | August 18th, 2010 at 5:07 pm
I live near by and see they have tastings! Can't wait to visit, thanks so much for sharing.
Posted by: Tamara | August 18th, 2010 at 6:52 pm
Could it be that Charlie has found his own version of you, Martha, in Marina?
Posted by: lil | August 18th, 2010 at 8:36 pm
I used to love when you had Charlie on the show with you. How much he has grown since then! Too bad we couldn't see him better in the picture.
Posted by: Judy Konkel | August 18th, 2010 at 10:03 pm
Today Show today: saw you demonstrate frosting recipes despite the fact that none of their mixers worked...you carried on beautifully, as always. All looked yummy.
Posted by: Marilyn in TX | August 18th, 2010 at 10:27 pm
I enjoyed this slideshow this morning and again tonight. It's not just that Red Bee is visually charming, but that she treats her bees well, and I love to see cottage industries survive. Thanks a million!
Posted by: hannah | August 19th, 2010 at 12:05 am
All of Marina's products look so yummy! I only wish I lived close to her shop. Martha, please consider having her on your show. No affiliation. I just think she's got a good thing going.
Posted by: Beth | August 19th, 2010 at 9:50 am
What a beautiful farm with beautiful products! It's always wonderful to see small businesses doing and making such wonderful things. What a great experience for your nephew.
Trina
Posted by: Trina | August 19th, 2010 at 12:30 pm
I am so happy for you Marina, you have made a great life for yourself and I am very proud of you. Last time I saw you was in Saddlebrook, NJ when I came to your home for dinner with
Aunt Lil & Uncle Earl Cozzi. Just to refresh
you I am your Godmother, Amy , hope you remember me because I have never forgot you.
Love & Luck Always, Amy
Posted by: Amy Cozzi Marino | August 21st, 2010 at 11:49 am
Martha I would like a program/article on where our food comes from with more information about different kinds of chickens, goats, cows etc.(especially the ones with long history in this country. I have seen some on your farm and they are beautiful but I know there are many varieties out there. I have seen some of this in the past but maybe missed some too. Thanks for all you do. My and I family has a much better home life because of your hard work.
Posted by: JD | August 21st, 2010 at 2:50 pm
This is amazing and love that you support small businesses and people who work with natural products...
Posted by: Punctuation Mark | August 21st, 2010 at 3:15 pm
we love this thank you for sharing!!!!!
Posted by: Barbara Brauss | August 21st, 2010 at 11:14 pm
Martha! That makes me feel so old! Right after you bought Skylands you did the beautiful Holiday book with Christmas at Skylands with your sister's family and Christopher was only about this age. Little Charlie was asleep in the chair waiting for Santa. Wow. Well, he still has the same blond curls. I will always think of him as that age. P.S. That was my favorite of the Holiday books. The cranberry glass and the red transferware was great.
Posted by: Kevin Graves | August 22nd, 2010 at 3:34 pm
I just love this post; it is so whimsical. Make my day that much more happy. Thanks Martha and gang.
Posted by: http://twitter.com/Geotravel | August 22nd, 2010 at 10:37 pm
Hi Martha, How fun it is to see Charlie again! How lucky he is to have such a fun job for the summer! I can see why he enjoys this job. Marina has a superb place full of lots of fun things to do. Did Charlie take these photos? They sure are fantastic and so colorful! Will Charlie ever come on your show again? Would absolutely love to see him. I always enjoyed all of his appearances on your original show years ago! Tell him Hi and we miss seeing him more often. Jan
Posted by: Jan Erickson | August 22nd, 2010 at 11:42 pm
It seems that just yesterday Charlie was curled up in a chair on the cover of your magazine.
Thanks for sharing the pictures! I've always loved the great American field trips you've taken us on. I enjoy them more because I'm not an international traveler and I might actually visit these places someday.
Posted by: Dawn | August 23rd, 2010 at 12:01 pm
I LOVE BEES!
Posted by: Maureen Ahlers | September 2nd, 2010 at 7:41 pm
Hi Martha, I first met Marina at the Eastern Apiculture Society when she had just begun her Red Bee venture. Her greeting cards are beautifully done and she has really grown into a great beekeeper and entrepreneur. I hope your bees did well this year, Martha. Mine are very happy, produced lots of honey. I won several blue ribbons at our honey judging contest for the Long Island Beekeepers Club. Now I'm busy making lip balm and moisture lotion bars to sell at our Church Christmas Fair, plus family gifts. Keeping busy as a bee!
Posted by: constance still | November 4th, 2010 at 6:35 pm
I just found this post and I love it! Their packaging is so charming and I loved the 'behind the scenes' images.
Thank you:)
Posted by: Miss B. | June 25th, 2011 at 1:15 pm
I stumbled on this post while visiting Marina's website. She is so talented, and I appreciate all she is doing in educating people about the amazing qualities of honey.
I am also a honey enthusiast, so I can't wait to attend one of her honey tastings this spring.
"Bee" happy,
Beverly
Posted by: Bev | January 9th, 2012 at 4:22 pm
Very great pictures you have got there.Thanks for sharing with us.You are inspiring us to continue our work and also to enjoy it.
Posted by: Gabriel | September 21st, 2012 at 9:50 am