Busy Honey Bees

I caught this honey bee gathering nectar and pollen from our apple blossoms.

One of the many red winged black birds that resides on our Oake Lake paradise.

Look closely and you'll see the pollen sacks on the honey bee's leg. They pack the pollen into these sacks with their legs and when they fly into their hive there is a little brush that flicks the pollen out of the sack and into a tray below the hive. Pollen is super vitamin and has the highest protein content of any food. Now that's amazing!

Caught in flight

On the approach...

Honey bees are amazing creatures!

'Tis the season when honey bees begin gathering the nectar they will then turn into honey and the very precious beeswax used in our Scent from Nature: 100% Pure Beeswax Candles!

The apple trees in our orchard are blooming much earlier than I can remember. Since winter ended the beginning of March this year, it is only natural that everything else would be early.

I was able to catch on disk, some of our special worker bees in action as they pollinate and gather nectar from our apples trees. How exciting it is to watch them go from blossom to blossom!

Do It Green! Minnesota

Our booth was located right in front of the Jade Asian restaurant. According to their sign behind our booth, it's their first anniversary at Global Market!

Yesterday, Scent from Nature attended the Do It Green! Minnesota craft fair. It was a great success! Many thanks to all of our new customers who are trying our candles for the first time and know that we greatly appreciate all of our repeat customers. As we mentioned at the fair, if you need more candles please visit one of the wonderful health and environment supporting stores that sell our candles. These locations are listed in a previous post. If in the Twin Cities area, you will find them at your local food coops and Twin Cities Green. If you have a store you would like to see sell our candles, please drop us a line and let us know! If the store supports our mission, we'll gladly contact them.

Our booth was located next to a wonderful business called zerOw Bags. They craft "cool bags made from recycled plastics." Not only are their bags "cool" but the business owners are the nicest folks. Check out their website!

Inspiration for the Day

Late Autumn sunrise over Oake Lake

The Scent from Nature; 100% Pure Beeswax Candles are labeled and packaged in our workshop overlooking the beautiful Oake Lake. This morning's sunrise was inspiration for the day.

Midtown Global Market

We spent Saturday selling our Scent from Nature; 100% Pure Beeswax Candles at Midtown Global Market on Lake and Chicago in Minneapolis today. The building in which the market operates used to be the old Sears tower and has since been converted into this wonderful cultural market with food and gifts from all over the world. The upper floors have been converted to condominiums.

The atmosphere is festive and there is often live music being performed in the market. Local artists come to perform anything from folk to latin music. You'll find stores in the market selling all types of wonderful ethic and hand crafted goods.

We will be selling our candles next at Global Market, the first weekend in December.

Do it Green! Minnesota

We hand pour our 10" and 6" tapers as we do all of our cancles. Each taper burns an hour per inch.

Our votives fit in tealight bases and are meant to burn freestanding. They burn between 6 and 7 hours each!

Scent from Nature; 100% Pure Beeswax Candles will be a vendor at the upcoming Do it Green! Minnesota Come and join us! It's candle season!!

Green Gifts Fair – Save the Date, November 21st!

Kick-off this holiday season by going green at the 4^rd Annual Green Gifts Fair. Come SHOP 70+ local retailers and artists for green, recycled, and organic gifts. LEARN about green holiday decorating, wrapping, and food and party ideas. EAT a local lunch at many of the restaurants at the market. CELEBRATE the new 2010 Do It Green! Magazine’s kick-off, attend the eco fashion show, low carbon cook off with local chefs, or listen to local musicians.

This event is brought to you by Do It Green! Minnesota

Date: Saturday, November 21st, 10am-5pm
Location: Midtown Global Market at Lake Street & 10^th Avenue in Minneapolis

More information: www.doitgreen.org or 612-345-7973

Tour de Farm's Final Event

Star Thrower Farm

The Icelandic sheep and the llamas that protect them.

Scott down on the farm. He's got the look!

We catch J.D. between courses

Dinner is served in a 105 year old barn. Tables lit by beeswax candlelight.

We have been supplying our Scent from Nature; 100% Pure Beeswax Candles to the five Tour de Farm events this year and they have been a wonderful success! Bravo to Scott Pampuch of Corner Table Restaurant for his efforts!

We were fortunate enough to be invited to attend the final event that took place at Star Thrower Farm, a farm specializing in Icelandic sheep grown for their wool, meat and milk. J.D. Fratzke of The Strip Club Meat and Fish was the guest chef and, as usual, created the most excellent menu. The food was fabulous!

Beeswax Pick Up!

Here it is!

Chuck carefully loads our precious beeswax into what we also use as our sled dog truck in the fall and winter! You can read more about the fun we have with our sled dogs at Points Unknown.

Now is the time of year when our beekeeper friends south of Gaylord, Minnesota have removed the honey boxes (AKA Supers) off of the beehives and are done extracting the honey and processing the beeswax. This means it's ready for us to pick up!

We're very excited about this year's wax. It is some of the lightest and most naturally fragrant we have had thanks to those little honey bees and thanks to all of the thoughtful care our beekeepers have taken when processing it. If you remember from an earlier post, our Scent from Nature; 100% Pure Beeswax Candles are made from the very thin layer of wax that the bees make to cap each cell of honey. This is precious stuff!