This mixed media collage is part of a honeybee collection completed in 2023 inspired of my latest hobby – beekeeping!  Real honey—raw, pristine, flavorful honey that hasn’t been cooked to death and dumped into a plastic honey bear—is one of the most historic ingredients in the human diet. But it takes a lot of healthy bees to make honey.  A single bee can produce 1 tablespoon of honey in its lifetime. 683 bees fly roughly 32,550 miles to gather 5.93 lbs of nectar from about 1,185,000 flowers in order to make one 9.5 oz. jar.  Amazing that they have the confidence that they will make more than enough to support the colony (and a lucky beekeeper) through the winter.  The Robert Green Ingersoll quote in this piece reads, “Hope is the only bee that makes honey without flowers.”