About Us
Elliott Bee Farm is a private residence & honeybee sanctuary owned & operated by Heather & Keith Elliott in Citrus County, Florida. Heather is a retired United States Air Force Veteran, Herbalist & Apitherapy Practitioner that handcrafts all of our apiary products. The honeybees have been teaching and keeping her since 2010.
“Let the bees be bees” is our motto here at Elliott Bee Farm. We practice natural & sustainable beekeeping methods. Our honeybees are natural, small cell honeybees. What are small cell honeybees, you might ask? Simply put, small cell honeybees are just natural sized honeybees. The way Our Heavenly Father created them. Honeybees have thrived in nature for thousands of years before humans decided to intervene and make them bigger. The logic behind this human intervention was the “bigger is better” theory. It was thought that a bigger bee would produce more honey. So beekeepers manipulated and increased their cell foundation size from 4.9mm to 5.4mm. Unfortunately this theory was not correct. Raising bees on larger cell foundation did indeed create a larger bee by up to 30% – 50% but productivity did not go up at all. Think of a human being that nature has intended to be a certain size to be healthy and productive – now add 30% – 50% more body weight. Most people that are carrying that much more weight are typically not more productive or healthy. In fact the closer we get to our ideal weight and body mass, the better we feel, the more energy we have and the less prone to disease we become. We believe the same is true for honeybees. So, we choose to let the bees be bees. We allow them to build their own natural sized honeycomb in lieu of introducing the larger cell plastic foundation. We also never medicate our honeybees with antibiotics, use chemical treatments or essential oils for pest management, nor do we feed our honeybees sugar water, high fructose corn syrup or any other unnatural feeding supplement. All of our honeybee colonies were rescued by us right here in Citrus County. It is our calling to preserve and protect these amazing creatures. We are all about the natural health and well being of both humans as well as the honeybees. In everything that we do, we are committed to maintaining nature and health. We appreciate your support in our efforts.
Bee Well & Blessed
