Earth Day is a great time to reflect on how crucial honeybees are for us to enjoy a wide variety of food in our diet. Without honeybees, our meals would be very bland. All of the vegetables in this platter are pollinated by Honeybees; cucumbers, celery, radishes, asparagus, beans, carrots, and turnips. Of course honeybees also pollinate apples, almonds, berries, pomegranates, peaches, tomatoes, oranges, lemons, all citrus, cabbage, broccoli, coffee, coconuts, papayas, melons, pumpkins, macadamias, mangos...the list goes on and on! The key to a nice crudite platter is to choose an a ..read more

  Happy Valentine's Day. Indulge in this rich, smooth, chocolatey delight without guilt! So many people these days have problems eating dairy or gluten, including several members of our team at Big Island Bees. We try to come up with recipes that everyone can enjoy. This gluten and dairy free pudding is a winner, hands down! It is also fairly simple to make, yet tastes very gourmet! I would suggest using a very high quality dark chocolate. Try this with our Hawaiian Chili Pepper honey and our Organic Wilelaiki Blossom Honey , which adds a nuance of sweet spice to the recipe. Ingredients ..read more

Spring Equinox Salad Day and night are equally balanced on the equinox, marking the beginning of spring. The days will start to lengthen and get warmer. Here in Hawaii, changes in seasons are subtle but remarkable. The purple jacaranda trees shed their blossoms along the roadsides, and the bright red Lehua blooms sparkle against the forest canopy. Spring is a time for a fresh start. It is a time when we can make changes and seek balance within our lives. A great way to celebrate the beginning of spring is by enjoying a bounty of fresh-picked greens. I made this salad with fresh local veg ..read more

Tropical Banana Bread with Honey To celebrate National Honeybee Day, we invite you to take on the challenge of substituting honey for any recipe calling for sugar. We have created a Cooking with Honey Kitchen Cheat Sheet that gives simple directions on how to make the substitution easily. I gave it a try using one of my favorite banana bread recipes taken from the wonderful cookbook “A Taste of Aloha” which is a collection of recipes from the Junior League of Honolulu first published in 1983. The changes I made to the recipe are as follows: I replaced 1 cup of sugar with 1/2 cup of Macadamia ..read more

Camembert with Chili Pepper Honey Pupu Platter Honey and cheese pair very well together and this particular pairing takes it up a notch. Our Chili Pepper Honey is our Wilelaiki honey (which already has a natural spiciness to it) infused with the Hawaiian chili pepper to create a truly piquant treat! This recipe is easy to put together at the last minute to please guests or to treat yourself and your family to a fancy snack on a whim.  Ingredients: Goat Camembert (may substitute with Brie) 2 Tablespoons Chili Pepper Honey plus extra for final drizzle 1/4 cup lightly roasted & sa ..read more

Sweet and Salty Flank Steak This easy-to-prepare flank steak recipe is a foolproof crowd-pleaser. It's perfect for the 4th of July or anytime you want to fire up the grill! You can marinate the steak for 2-24 hours, though I prefer to marinate it overnight in the refrigerator so the steak has time to soak up the flavor, but not so long as to get overly salty. Flank steak is a lean but slightly tough cut of meat; the marinade helps tenderize the meat enormously. When the marinated steak is grilled at high heat and thinly sliced, it melts in the mouth! Ingredients: 2 lbs Flank Steak MARINADE ..read more

Spicy Mango Sorbet with Chili Pepper Honey Sauce Summer is here and the mangos are ripe! What could be a better way to celebrate these two joys of life than by making a batch of this spicy mango sorbet using Big Island Bees Chili Pepper honey? This refreshing treat was created by our good friend James from Seattle. He comes to Kona every year with his extended family. While on vacation, he demonstrates his culinary prowess by whipping up a batch of different ice creams every day using Big Island Bees honey. His motto is “Peace, Love and Ice Cream”. Ingredients: MANGO SORBET 4 cups of cubed r ..read more

Spring Equinox Salad Day and night are equally balanced on the equinox, marking the beginning of spring. The days will start to lengthen and get warmer. Here in Hawaii, changes in seasons are subtle but remarkable. The purple jacaranda trees shed their blossoms along the roadsides, and the bright red Lehua blooms sparkle against the forest canopy. Spring is a time for a fresh start. It is a time when we can make changes and seek balance within our lives. Let’s celebrate the beginning of spring by enjoying a bounty of fresh-picked greens. I made this salad with fresh local vegetables and a spr ..read more

Honey Miso Snack Mix It's Super Bowl weekend! Enjoy the game while munching on this crunchy, spicy Honey Miso Snack mix adapted from a recipe by Lauren Radel. This is easy to prepare and you can mix up the ingredients as long as the proportions remain the same. You can make this in advance and store it in an airtight container and it will keep crisp for a week. Once opened, it will disappear quickly! Ingredients: DRY MIX 5 cups rice Chex cereal 4 cups of mixes to your liking (I used 2 cups corn Bugles, 3 cups of broken up mini rice cakes, you can use pretzels or corn chips as well) 2 cups sa ..read more

Pomegranate Martini Celebrate a romantic Valentine’s Day or any special evening with this festive red martini made with in-season pomegranate and fresh lime juice. Sweetened with a simple honey syrup. Cheers! Ingredients: 4 oz. of your favorite gin 1 oz. honey simple syrup (directions below) 1.5 oz fresh squeezed lime juice 2 oz pomegranate juice Pomegranate arils and sliced lime for decoration (optional)   Directions Make the honey simple syrup (see our recipe here). For this cocktail we used Big Island Bees' Ohi'a Lehua honey In a cocktail shaker filled with ice, p ..read more