We are abuzz about our latest project - the Honey Bee Collection – made in collaboration with our lovely client & friend, Sunny Hostin.
You can catch Sunny daily as a co-host of ABC’s morning show, The View. She is also a seasoned attorney and former Federal Prosecutor, current Senior Legal Analyst for ABC News, noted author and most recently... apiarist (beekeeper)!
Sunny’s interest in beekeeping began in 2018, and - like many others during the pandemic – she found more free time to devote to her home-based hobby.
Enter Sunny’s Honey. Working in tandem with Tim from the urban beekeeping company, Best Bees, Sunny’s hives are now thriving, producing delicious organic honey from her New York home, for family and friends to enjoy.
Inspired by Sunny’s passion for all things apiary, the Samira 13 Honey Bee Collection launches this summer, with necklaces designed by Samira conveying the beauty and delicacy of nature’s sweetest marvels – bees.
Read more about Best Bees Mission to save the bees and their scientific beekeeping methods here.>
Get all the updates on Sunny’s bees here.>
The Secret Lives Of Bees:
Honey bees are critical for a strong food system, economic security, and environmental resilience. Yet pollination continues to decline. Sadly, over the past 15 years, colonies of bees have been disappearing, and the reason remains unknown. Referred to as ‘colony collapse disorder’, billions of honey bees across the world are leaving their hives, never to return. In some regions, up to 90% of bees have disappeared.
Honey bees live in hives or colonies and are divided into three distinct categories: the queen, worker bees, and drones.
The Queen: There is only one queen in each colony. If the queen dies, worker bees create a new queen by selecting one female larva to take the crown. The designated successor is fed a special food called “royal jelly”. The queen can live five to seven years and is busiest during the summer months, laying as many as 2,500 eggs daily.
The Worker: The worker bee population, created from fertilized eggs, is entirely female, with a brief life span of just five to six weeks in the summer (slightly longer in winter months). During their lifetime, each worker produces around a twelfth of a teaspoon of honey, as reserve food to support the hive throughout the wintertime. Luckily for those who like honey in their morning tea, worker bees produce two to three times more than the hive actually needs to survive.
The Drone: Drones are male bees with only one responsibility in their brief lives - to fertilize the queen’s eggs, after which they die. Though short-lived, they are a necessary contributor to the life cycle of the colony. Fun fact: drones do not have stingers.
A percentage of jewelry collaboration purchases made on Sunny’s website go to support her charitable partnerships such as: Safe Horizon, an organization supporting children and families affected by domestic violence and Bronx Children’s Museum, slated to open its permanent home this year.
