There is more to being crunchy than mushing food about your facial region.
There is the other side. The reasons we make these new and sometimes seemingly radical choices.
Whether it’s to stay away from synthetic chemicals, to help protect the planet, or to just find something that finally works, the underlying thread in all of it is:
We want to be more aware. More conscious. More thoughtful of the things we put on, in, and around ourselves and our loved ones.
Is it not so far a stretch, then, to start thinking about honoring the living things that give us all this healthy, nourishing goodness?
One hive of 60,000 bees (one hive) flies more than the distance of two trips around the world (or about 55,000 miles) just to create 1 pound of honey.
The honey in your cabinet? How much did it weigh when you bought it?
Imagine the distance traveled to bring that to you.
On any given day, one single bee will visit 1000 different flowers.
And make 10 trips to and from the hive.
The load of pollen a bee carries each trip back is 1/6th the weight of the bee.
Imagine visiting 1000 shops, making 10 trips to and from home, every single day … while carrying 1/6th of your weight in bags every trip back. (Math? If you weigh 150 pounds, that would be 25 pounds.)
Bees are super heroes.
Over its entire life span, one single bee will make only 1/10ths of a teaspoon of honey.
Even though that is her only role in life.
1/10ths of a teaspoon.
How many bees spent their lives making the honey you used this morning to sweeten your tea?
One colony of bees can produce up to 100 pounds of excess honey.
Honey they don’t need.
Honey we enjoy.
Because they went to the trouble of making it.
Bees are fascinating, well-organized, and industrious creatures. And their hard work brings us the sweet, sweet natural goodness we put in our tea, on our bread, and now slather on our faces.
The honey they produce heals, protects, and nourishes us in so many different, important ways. Ours is not to feel guilty for using it – it is there in abundance, and it is there for many reasons.
But consider this:
While you’re washing your face with honey, think about the bees. Thank them, in your way. Consider that your small challenge within the challenge.
And while you’re at it, you can thank the flowers. Because where would the bees be without the flowers?
And thank the earth, because where would those pollen-producing flowers live without that?
And the rain?
And the sunshine?
And then thank yourself, for being a conscious, caring, beneficial addition to the world.
Because you, my dear, are making natural, healthy choices. You are living (and thriving) within the ecosystem, instead of trying to live despite it.
It’s like you and the bees … are one.
(Yeah. I went there. Because it’s true.)
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Honey facts from York County Beekeepers Association and Schmidt Apiaries (my favorite local honey).
*All bee pictures taken Wednesday, July 20th, by yours truly. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a bee to sit still for a portrait?
Wow! I had to delay my challenge because we are traveling a lot, and I can’t carry much with me at the moment but I can’t wait to try it. I’ll definitely think of the bees from now on. I was thinking about them yesterday when I got stung 5 times, but I admit I wasn’t thinking nice, thankful things. They are amazing little creatures, that is for sure!
Wow. Just… wow. I had no idea about any of this. I obviously knew that honey was made by bees, but in my mind it was just an abstract magical process. Thank you for this info! Also, have you considered photography as a second income? You are one talented gal!
This post was pretty enlightening. Since I’ve started trying to be more, dare I say “crunchy”, I’ve been getting a couple (<– UNDERSTATEMENT) of odd looks from family and friends. My passion about it makes them a little bit more understanding, but I know they still think I'm being silly.
But understanding and appreciating how much it takes to get even just a little bit of honey (something I completely took for granted) makes me happier. Makes me feel better about myself. And makes me want to share the experience no matter how many strange looks I get. It reassures me that I'm doing, if not the right thing, then at least a good thing. 🙂
By the way, Betty, those are some AMAZING photos!! I was telling myself, as I read the post, that the pictures were soooo good. Lo and behold, you took them yourself! Fantastic work! 😀
Nina I can totally feel you on the odd looks from the fam! Actually it’s the odd looks from the friends that make me laugh…my family already knows how I can be when it comes to living naturally. All I can say is the proof is in the pudding. When they see what my skin looks like, without any foundation, concealer or anything on it then they want to try it too!
The whole living naturally experience is quite new for me. I was completely inspired by the Crunchy Betty blog. So far everything’s working great! I look better and feel better, inside and out. I’ve already gotten compliments on my skin since I’ve started washing with honey. I definitely feel the need to wear less makeup. I’ve also gone “no ‘poo” but I’m only just getting over the transition period (mine lasted longer that 2 weeks). I’ve even found a really great health foods store super close to my house (all this time I didn’t even know it was there!).
When I can’t convince people that what I’m doing isn’t completely outlandish or stupid (in their eyes), I just tell them how much money I’m saving in the long run by not having to buy hair and skin products! People understand saving money way more than they understand eco-friendliness. 😛
Soon enough, I’ll have the results to show off like you do. Thanks for the encouragement!
The whole living naturally thing is quite new to me. I was completely inspired by the crunchy betty blog (I kept getting directed to Betty’s posts through StumbleUpon). And in such a short amount of time, I look and feel better, inside and out. I’ve even gotten compliments on my skin since I’ve started washing my face with honey (I started about 2 weeks before the honey challenge). I’ve also gone “no ‘poo” but I’m only just getting over my transition period (which lasted longer than 2 weeks unfortunately). I’ve even found a health foods store super close to my house (all this time and I never knew it was there!).
When I can’t convince people that what I’m doing isn’t completely outlandish or stupid (in their eyes), I just tell them how much money I’m saving in the long run by not having to buy hair and skin products. People understand saving money way more than they understand eco-friendliness. 😛
Soon enough, I’ll have the results to show off like you do. Thanks for the encouragement! 🙂
Oops! Didn’t mean to comment twice. I thought the first one didn’t post. >_< Haha!
my family all selected super-powers about a year or so ago…mine (as elected by my family) was the ability to heal anything with oil…so, yeah, I kind of get that whole ‘rolling of the eyes cuz here she goes again’ thing but they are mostly open to it…they’ll come around eventually! 🙂
New documentary called Vanishing of the Bees.
I had to share with everyone!
http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/vanishingbees
http://www.vanishingbees.com
The whole honey challenge has been WONDERFUL. I got started a day or two late, but I’m loving what the honey is doing for my face. Redness and dryness are disappearing and the smell is lovely and calming and just wonderful.
One of the things I’ve read about while looking around teh internetz for crunchy ideas is the concept of thinking good, happy, thankful thoughts at your food, water, and by extension honey, the idea being that our good energy makes things better. Now I’ll try to remember to think good, happy, thankful thoughts toward the bees.
I watched this movie on bees ” tales of the hive” and have respected bees ever since. I can’t even bring myself to swat at them because i respect the life they live so much! It makes me want to get a hive. I think it would be a blast to have access to their beautiful little system of living. The bee-licious incentives of x-tra honey and beeswax wouldn’t hurt either 😉
Great pictures, and thanks for the (literally) food for thought! ;D The photos can be easily taken to be sourced from Getty Images ;))
Holy cow (or should I say holy bee?)
The first picture
I’m in love
(I can’t even write complete sentences) 🙂
What an amazing post. I will think of the bees every time I use honey from here on out. And it’s quite a motivator to carefully use every drop since the little creatures have worked sooooo hard to make it.
Beee-eautiful! Sorry, couldn’t help it……haha 😉
My husband and a friend did a bee keeping class in June and they were totally in awe of what they learned about the way bees work. They came back with some honey comb and it was the most delicious honey I’ve ever tasted.
My husband had a chemistry teacher in high school who kept bees and made his own honey and he’s been interested in it since then. Hopefully before we’re 30 we’ll make it out to our dream country cottage to have space for him to keep bees 🙂
Positively LOVELY write-up and photographs, Betty!
Photojournalist career?
Aside from the detailed statistics, I already knew this info on bees and honey. The message I keep hearing and am in awe of is that all of our thoughts, every single one of them, has such an impact on who we are and our experiences in this life. Pretty profound food for thought….
Who is Jessica Anne? And why is her info in my PC fields?
This was actually posted by me: Ronda.
That’s me. I was going to leave a comment earlier, than didn’t. I’ve noticed I have to check my name here sometimes, the autofill sometimes fills with the person before you. I must have visited right before you. 🙂
This weirdness started about two weeks ago – the auto-filling of comment info from the person who visited right before you. I’ve disabled things, enabled other things, tried to muck things around to make it stop, and I am at a complete loss as to why it’s doing that. I have a ticket out with my host to see if they have any idea, so hopefully it will stop soon. I think the problems started with the last update in WordPress, so hopefully they’ll come out with a fix soon (though I’m not 100% sure that’s what’s doing it). Sorry that happened to you, Ronda!
Well at least now I know I don’t have to do a huge sweep of my PC. (We had a garage break in this morning, so I am feeling a bit paranoid at the moment.)
Here is the link I was trying to leave:
http://www.apinews.com/en/news/item/12780-china-hand-pollination
We do NOT want that to happen here!
Bees are amazing and so important to the ecosystem. It’s why, even though I’m vegan, I don’t avoid honey. I think there are too many ecological benefits to maintaining bees.
You think bees are awesome now? Go look up how the recreate. I’m not even being a pervert. It’s insane.
thank you…thank you…thank you. You made me so happy this morning with this very insightful, tender and funny post. I’m so grateful for the bees, and their healing honey. I am hoping that the bees show up soon to our lavender plants…I just noticed the other day that there weren’t any bees pollinating them. I’m a little worried. thank you again,
*happy sighhhhh*
Aware. That’s all we need to be. This post is glorious. It’s just the beginning, but you are right on track. Don’t you think that being aware is the answer to everything? I know love is the answer, but don’t you think that if we are all aware, then the love just comes naturally? I LOVE what you’ve done here.
I heart bees. I’m a failed beekeeper, but I respect the little ladies. Maybe someday I’ll try again, because they are really fascinating! I’m a clumsy semi-crunch, but I really enjoy this site.
Honey bees fascinate me so much. Thanks for all the info and insight. Your snaps are gorgeous (I Pinned one)! You have to be patient for shots like those, and doing so only helps deepen the admiration. Even without a camera in my hand, I love to watch bees gathering and pollinating.
I started today and I liked the way it felt.
What are Schmidt’s prices like? I might have to switch to the OCC farmers market if they have good prices. 🙂
Everybody, take a look at this too…http://www.peta.org/about/faq/Whats-wrong-with-eating-honey.aspx Crazy!!
What on earth makes you think that bees don’t need the honey they create for themselves? Did you know that when honey is harvested, they are fed sugar water as a replacement. Think about all of the nutrition that those bees are missing out on and then wonder if this doesn’t make them weaker to the fungi and/or GMO pollen that is potentially wiping them out.
Useful information. Lucky me I found your website unintentionally, and I am
surprised why this twist of fate didn’t happened earlier!
I bookmarked it.