How A New Jar of Honey Is Helping Fund Bee Research & Local Charities In B.C.

In honour of BC’s Day of the Honey Bee and World Bee Day on May 20, Creston-based Honey Bee Zen Apiaries has partnered with Pealow’s Your Independent Grocer on a sweet initiative with a powerful purpose. Together, they’ve launched a specially labelled wildflower honey, with proceeds supporting local charities, bee research, and honey authentication programs across Canada. We caught up with Amanda and Jeff Goodman Lee, co-owners of Honey Bee Zen, to chat about community, conservation, and why bees—and the people who care for them—deserve a moment in the spotlight. —Noa Nichol

How did the idea for this sweet collaboration with Pealow’s Your Independent Grocer first come about?

As a company with a social responsibility policy we often look for ways to support our community. We often donate products to worthwhile causes, and we also support research goals within Canada’s beekeeping industry. In this case, Brian and Julia Pealow raised the idea of creating a co-branded label for their Your Independent Grocer franchised grocery store, with the idea of donating part of the proceeds to their own considerable charitable goals. We saw this as a chance to also put funds into projects we support as well. One of our mottos is “a rising tide floats all boats” so we also saw this as a way  to highlight Canadian beekeepers and their honey while at the same time trying to address some of the challenges we face. Right now beekeepers face huge challenges in keeping bees alive because of a complex of diseases and viruses that are caused by an invasive pest. They also face attacks on the purity and high value of true honey from people who either adulterate honey with cheaper sugars and extenders, or who completely make up a product not made of honey but labelled as such.

Why was it important to you both to tie this initiative to World Bee Day and BC’s Day of the Honey Bee?

Bees are responsible for a third of the food produced on the planet. They pollinate not only fruits and vegetables but also foods like coffee, chocolate and some grains. The bees give us so much and enrich our plates. So through the attention given World Bee Day and BC’s Day of the Honey Bee we can shine a spotlight on how we can help Canadian beekeepers and the honey industry. As indicated above, our industry is under attack by foreign “cheap” honeys that are adulterated with corn, rice or other syrups, or may be entirely made in a lab without bees. These fake foods hurt the industry by undermining the market 100% Pure Canadian Honey. They also create mistrust among consumers about what they are buying and eating.

Can you tell us more about how the proceeds will directly support bee research and honey authentication programs

Canada is well-regarded for its bee research labs, such as the ones at the University of BC, Guelph University and the federally-run Beaverlodge lab. Additionally, there are a number of tech-transfer programs run by provincial beekeeping associations in BC, Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Quebec and the Atlantic provinces. Each one of those offers extension services to beekeepers, and also undertake important regional research projects. Additionally, there are several national research efforts underway to identify solid ways to identify when honey has been adulterated. The methodologies involve nuclear magnetic resonance testing, mass spectrometry, and novel ways of “fingerprinting” the DNA differences found between real honey and knockoffs. Our vision is to be  leaders in the industry by working with these labs, industry associations and other beekeepers to create a Canadian certification program. We’re proud to produce and market high-quality Canadian honey. So we see the eventual creation of a certification label as helping assure buyers that what they are purchasing is absolutely pure, true Canadian honey, regardless of who sells it.

Why is honey authentication such an important issue for Canadian consumers right now?

Honey is actually under attack all over the world. People love the taste of honey, and they love the association it connotes as a healthy food. People also inherently love honey bees.

This, unfortunately, also draws in people who look for ways to take advantage of these images without investing or doing the hard work. The rise of products adulterated to look and taste like honey, but which can be made cheaply, has dramatically affected consumer confidence. By mixing cheap sugars into honey, fraudsters ride on the backs of hard-working beekeepers, undermining consumer confidence. We sometimes get people asking “do you add sugar to your honey” or “do you make honey with sugar”. These questions show how concerned buyers are about the authenticity of something that is supposed to be made by bees naturally foraging on flowers. This is not just a Canadian problem. In the European Union authorities recently calculated that a substantial amount of “honey” imported into the EU was actually fake or adulterated honey. You can find on the Internet people promoting recipes for how to create fake honey. And there are now labs who are legitimately trying to market “honey” not made from bees. Canada is one of those countries that actually has a legal definition for what constitutes honey. That helps to a degree in protecting us. But we need to develop concrete methods for detecting adulterated honey, almost all of which is generated offshore. Our hope is that making it easy to authenticate TRUE honey will help repel these foreign products that don’t meet our standards. But it is not just honey adulteration that threatens our industry. Canada has an export honey industry. More than half of the honey produced for export in Canada goes to the United States. Some of that is then blended with cheaper honeys from places like Thailand, Vietnam, China and Brazil, only to be shipped back to Canada, either for consumer purchase at prices that undermine our industry, or for industrial food producers. Our question is why are Canadian consumers buying this cheaper honey when they could pay a little more to get 100% pure Canadian Honey, and being certain they know  where their honey is coming from. Here is a good example of a cheap honey. We held a “Honey 101” workshop where we sampled five different honeys; a wildflower (multifloral), fireweed honey (monofloral),  creamed honey, a “vegan alternative to honey”, and a very cheap honey we bought for $2.75 that was labeled honey from Greece.  People that know their honeys know that last honey is suspiciously cheap. When we did the tasting at a Vancouver Home and Garden Show with 40 social media influencers,  the vast majority tasting the “Greek” honey likened it to corn syrup. Some thought it tasted like a candy they had when they were a kid. Not one person thought it was honey. Honeys can taste differently based on forage and location. But we don’t know of a single honey that resembles corn syrup in taste. This is a major issue in our industry. In 2019 the Apimondia International Apicultural Congress in Montreal withdrew 50% of the entries submitted to its honey contest because it couldn’t be certain they weren’t adulterated. As of 2025, it has cancelled its honey contest for the foreseeable future, until an effective way of detecting fake honey can be created.

How do you ensure the purity and quality of the wildflower honey used in this collaboration?

As a food processing facility licensed by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, we annually submit samples for verification. CFIA tests alternately for adulteration, and for chemical residues.  We have never failed a test. We also have a rigorous traceability program that tracks our honey from our apiaries through the extraction process to bottling and delivery to our customers. We can tell our customers almost to the geo-location where our honey came from!

We also work with Canadian beekeepers we know and trust, and have the same production principles that we have. This year we will begin sending our honey samples to an independent lab for more testing, and will make those results available upon request.

From your perspective, what are some of the biggest challenges facing honey bees and native pollinators today?

Both honey bees and native pollinators face threats from climate change (extreme temperatures, wildfires, floods and more) as well as loss of habitat, over-development, and the like. Honey bees face an additional and increasingly dangerous problem, the transmission of pests and diseases. The European honey bee never had to deal with the varroa mite, an Asiatic mite that lived with Asian bee species, which were able to deal with them. But in the 1980’s the varroa mite jumped to the European honey bee and feeds on its fat bodies and hemolymph (bee blood). It also vectors and amplifies a number of dangerous viruses, and those, in combination with the mite, have resulted in widespread die-offs of colonies. It is difficult to find effective and long-lasting strategies for these issues. Many beekeepers like us are trying to breed for varroa resistance, and bee labs and researchers around the world are actively involved in research.

You’re both passionate about community—how does this campaign allow you to support your local area in meaningful ways?

We come from backgrounds of wanting to help and make our communities – local and elsewhere – better. We both serve on a number of non-profit boards. Both of us understand that helping others means we are also helping ourselves. We sleep well a night. This particular campaign offers us the chance to help the beekeeping community while also helping Pealows with its considerable charitable works.

What do you hope this initiative teaches people about the connection between sustainable food systems and pollinator health?

Drawing the link between pollinator health and how foods are produced is important. Many people understand that both native and honey bees are pollinators. But many folks don’t realize the threats both of these face. Our contributions to help fund bee research and honey authentication programs will hopefully add to peoples’ education about these issues.

Have you noticed a growing interest among Canadians in locally sourced and transparently produced honey? How is Honey Bee Zen helping meet that demand?

We help meet that growing demand by advocating for the purity and care of Canadian honey. We talk about what it means when we say “unpasteurized” or “raw” or “pure” honey. We are transparent about where our honey comes from, how we treat it in production, and how we bottle it. We are proudly Canadian, and all of our honeys carry the Maple Leaf on the label.

There are many very good honeys produced around the world from various forages. But we happen to be unabashedly proud of our Canadian product!

Can you each share a favourite way to enjoy wildflower honey—whether in a recipe, a remedy, or a family tradition?

Amanda:  My favourite way to eat honey is straight off the spoon!  When I am feeling a little run down or low on energy, it gives me a boost. It also helps when I have a sore throat or people around me are sick; I up my honey consumption. I make my own energy drink with water a teaspoon of honey and a pinch of salt.

Jeff: I have a little secret. As the chief beekeeper I get to sample honey right out of the hive! When I open up the top and the bees have filled bridge comb with honey, I take a scoop with my hive tool and eat with gusto! However, I love to also use honey in my cooking creations, including a honey-garlic sauce for meats and even in stir-frys.