http://Www.thegingerandbees.com/

Ginger & Bees, Rapid City, SD (2026)

10/10/2026

Making a new little product that’s fun for campers, backyard fire pits, and wood burning stoves!
Bee-Prepared Fire Starters! $4

Made with a cupcake paper liner, leftover beeswax cappings on paper towel, drier lint, wood chips from an old decaying tree stump, topped with beeswax.

They smell good! They burn hot and burn long. I’m planning on putting them in little plain cardboard boxes with brown crinkle paper, add a sticker match striker and a couple matches. The whole box with paper and fire starter will be burnable.

Everything I make with my bee products… I make for myself first. I started making these last year for camping trips and for my wood burning stove. I had plenty of leftover wax cappings that I hate to discard. So I turn them into something useful. 🐝

10/04/2026

✨Ginger & Bees Kiosk Now Open!✨

Located along my fence line in Rapid Valley in Murphy Ranch Estates! 🏡

I’m hoping neighbors driving or walking by that have been curious about my bees (if they have even noticed them) and wondering if they can purchase honey, and perhaps they are too afraid to knock on my door to ask… this makes it easy for them to scan the QR code, chose their product, pay through an app, the door opens and they take their goods. I even provided some take home bags. I plan to add salve, cold & flu lotion bars, and chapstick when the days are cooler and I know they won’t get messy.

Hopefully the neighborhood kids leave it alone; and shady adults also respects the effort and don’t vandalize it. If it does… I’ll take it down. But for now, I’m curious to see if it gets used! 🐝🍯❤️😊

09/19/2026

Honey is back in stock! I pulled about 90 pounds of honey yesterday! I still have more honey to pull but that’s for later today or tomorrow.🐝🍯😅

Every year I’ve collected a sample of that year’s honey (with the exception of my first year, in which I didn’t harvest honey). 7 years as a beekeeper, 6 sample jars of honey. Saving them all for when I’m old and want to taste my beekeeping years again. ❤️
It’s a dark honey this year, mostly alfalfa honey.

Hot (spicy pepper) Honey: $10 🌶️
Regular honey:
Small Jar (20oz): $12
Small-Medium Jar (24oz): $15
Large-Medium Jar (32oz): $20
Large Jar (48oz): $30
Half Gallon Bucket (103oz): $60 (I currently only have 1 for sale in bucket size, but my next pull of honey I plan to pour more 1/2 gallons).

I will also have about 5-6 comb-honey squares for sale. I still need to order containers to put them in. Those will be about $20 a square. I wanted my bees to make me more but it’s not always easy to get the bees to do what you want. (Stay tuned for those being for sale: if you like to each comb honey.)🍯

I have more colonies this year, but I will likely get less honey because of the drought. That’s okay… they did pretty good considering. 😌

www.thegingerandbees.com

07/30/2026

A rare cool morning + my bees = exactly what I needed today! 🌻

I switched up my work schedule so I could take advantage of the rare 70–80° overcast morning and get some hive work done before the heat rolled in.

I put mustard strips in each hive for Varroa management, checked everyone over, and I’m happy to report every colony looked great and every colony has a queen! 👑🐝 Every colony was incredibly calm! It’s always nice to work happy, calm bees. They must be enjoying the brief break in the heat just as much as their beekeeper.

Three of my newest colonies are still building resources for winter, so I’m continuing to feed them sugar syrup. The others are doing SO well that they’re putting honey away quickly. Teddy colony already has a super ready to harvest, and another is getting close! 🍯 One of my coworkers 3D printed me a new bee escape that I added to an inner cover, and I’m trying out! I have a second (original) escape board that I thought another colony might need, but they just aren’t quite ready yet. The escape boards help evict the bees calmly and safely from the honey supers that are ready for harvest. I prefer them! I might need a few more 3D printed! They are awesome!

The extreme heat has slowed honey production since the bees have been spending so much time collecting water and cooling the hives. Hopefully yesterday’s rain replenished the blooms and today’s “cooler” day gives everyone a little break from the heat so they can get back to work.

I also found and marked the queen in my Teddy colony, and my Opie swarm colony is looking great. I think they have a good shot at making it through winter as a 5-over-5.

My dad helped me build more moisture quilts over the weekend, so every hive now has one, including the 5-over-5. Another piece of winter prep checked off! Although, I now leave them on year-round. ❄️🐝

And that little kids’ microscope I shared? I bought one to test it out, and it works GREAT! 🔬 I can still see eggs with my own eyes 😅, but this will be fantastic for future classes so students can actually see what we’re looking for inside the hive.

And as I finished up, I looked toward the house and saw Jade and Cooper watching me from the door. 🥹🐶🐱 They were pretty darn cute.

Opal is slowly adjusting to her new little brother, too… although she’s still a little cranky with both her siblings. 🥹 She’ll get there.

Happy morning with my bees. 💛🐝

07/26/2026

My bees are taking water like crazy to cool their hives! I’m sorry girls, I agree that it’s too hot. 🥵Currently 104°. Honeybees mostly stop collecting nectar when temperatures go over 100°F, shifting their focus to gathering water and cooling the hive and their brood (baby bees).

07/14/2026

Coming soon!
Ginger & Bees Honey Kiosk! In Rapid Valley, SD.

I’m going to build some kind of cute stand to attach to my fence and make it secure. It will be super easy for neighbors to come scan the QR code, choose what they want and how they want to pay for it, the door opens, and they take their item! I don’t trust people or their kids to do the right thing with the honor system and not steal items. And sometimes people are anti-social and might want to ask if I have honey for sale, but don’t. This will make it easy for everyone! 🍯🍯🍯

06/09/2026

A few days ago, I received a message from a lovely woman named Connie. She had watched a swarm of bees move from a tree in her yard into a small space beneath her shed. Her husband wanted to spray them, but Connie wanted to save them, so she started looking for a beekeeper and found me.

Thankfully, she contacted me the same day the bees moved in, and I happened to be in town. When I arrived to take a look, I realized this might be the perfect opportunity to try a trap-out method.

I had attempted a trap-out a few years ago for another homeowner, but there were simply too many entrances and exits, so it wasn’t successful. This shed, however, had only one small opening. I built a mesh funnel, duct-taped the heck out of it, and made sure the bees had only one way out and no way back in.

Then I placed a swarm trap about three feet away with drawn comb and a blade of lemongrass. The eviction process had officially begun.

Three days later (today), Connie sent me a video of the bees collected at the swarm trap and asked, “Did it work?” My response: “I think it did!”

Tonight, I returned at dusk to pick them up. The bees were calm, the box was noticeably heavier, and things looked successful. I placed a mesh laundry bag over the trap to collect the bees hanging outside and brought them home.

Once I got home, I set the trap next to the hive they’ll eventually live in and removed the mesh. That’s when a few bees reminded me that being relocated isn’t exactly their favorite thing, and I incurred a sting to my inner thigh.

As a few cranky bees emerged, I ran like a crazy woman back to the garage. A few followed me. Unfortunately, one found Jade, who was patiently waiting in the backyard. She yelped, screamed, and sprinted inside the house with a bee on her shoulder. I caught her, removed the bee, and within seconds she was back to her happy little puppy self.

Jade and I both have Benadryl in our systems tonight, and the bees have a new home.

I can honestly say this was one of the coolest beekeeper things I’ve ever done. Not only did my trap-out work, but Connie and I were able to save an entire colony that otherwise might have been sprayed.

A huge thank you to Connie for choosing to save the bees. 🐝❤️

03/26/2026

Have you taken the Basic Beekeeping Course through Western Dakota Tech? Interested in the Advanced Course?

It’s coming up next week! March 30 - April 2 from 6-9pm each evening. We only have 2 registered and need at least 2 more for WDT to run the class. What will I be covering in the course? Check out the topics below and register at www.wdt.edu/corporate-education-center/beekeeping/

Sustaining Your Apiary
Colony Health & Diagnostics
Advanced Nutrition
Advanced Varroa Mite Management
Nosema Ceranae Testing
Expanding Your Apiary: Swarms, Splits, & Removals
Advanced Bee Anatomy
Honeybee Reproduction
Honeybee Species & Subspecies
Fundamentals in Queen Rearing
Moving Hives Safely
Hive Products: Honey, Wax, Propolis & Pollen

03/24/2026

Hi friends, family, and those of you I don’t know as well yet; but I’m glad you’re here 🤍

First, thank you. Every time I post something as simple as a new chapstick and immediately get orders, it genuinely means so much to me. It’s a little overwhelming on my end (in the best possible way), packing everything up and getting it out to you, but I’m incredibly grateful for that kind of support.

I do want to be real with you for a minute.

I’m not a big business. I’m not a brand with a team, investors, or mass production. I’m not a MLM. It’s just me. I’m managing a handful of bee colonies, harvesting honey, rendering wax, processing propolis, and handmaking every single product myself.

And right now, small businesses like mine are feeling it.

Rising costs, tariffs, and supply chain shifts aren’t hitting massive corporations the same way; they’re hitting people like me. The ingredients and packaging I’ve relied on (and trusted for their quality) have gotten significantly more expensive, and in some cases, I’ve had to pivot completely just to keep going.

I’m doing everything I can to stay true to what I believe in, high-quality, thoughtfully sourced ingredients, and more sustainable packaging choices like glass over plastic; even when it’s harder to find and might be more expensive.

This isn’t about being dramatic, or political, it’s just the reality of being a very small, independent business right now. And this administration is hurting small businesses.

So when you choose to support me, please know you’re not just buying chapstick or a lotion bar, or honey, you’re supporting a real person, real work, and a business that’s trying to do things the right way in a system that doesn’t always make that easy.

I appreciate you more than you know 🤍

All my love,
Tara

03/24/2026

New Lip Balm! Bee Bare… no essential oils added. Just natural ingredients… propolis infused olive oil, beeswax, cocoa butter & oil, shea butter, aloe butter, honey, and vitamin e. ☺️❤️🐝💋 $3 each. Contact me or order on www.thegingerandbees.com

Also I’m getting lower on honey… I won’t have more until August most likely. So if you need honey, contact me before it’s sold out until the new 2026 honey season! ❤️🍯

Ginger & Bees

10/10/2026

10/04/2026

09/19/2026

07/30/2026

07/26/2026

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06/09/2026

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03/24/2026

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