Honey

My wife and I get honey from a husband-and-wife team in a nearby municipality. They keep bees and jar their own products. Sometimes, my wife buys small jars of honey and gives them to others as gifts. We use the honey ourselves and have developed a preference for its clean, clean taste. My wife has consistently claimed local honey was the best honey money can buy (sorry, no pun intended in the direction of Maria Bartiromo). I can't independently confirm my wife's assertion, but I certainly enjoy the honey we get. And that will just have to do for now.

It gives us great pleasure to support this sort of cottage industry, and especially those who create desirable environments for the endangered bee. There was quite a bit of justified alarm in New Jersey last summer, when the bee population plummeted throughout the state. The crisis brought into perspective the critical role bees play in agriculture and horticulture, and how we simply take their activities for granted.

To learn more about the buzz about bees, beekeepers, and honey, explore the link to today's Philadelphia Daily News . The story's writer, Deborah Woodell, also keeps a blog about honey, and it's worth checking out, as well.

The ancient Greeks were very partial to bees; Ephesus' symbol was the bee. The silver interior of the pendant (above) is modeled on an ancient Greek coin.