We sell organic propolis and bee pollen from an amazing company called Ballot Flurin. You can find them at the picturesque honey farm in the heart of the Pyrenees, in southwestern France, located in beautiful nature full of life. A place where bees can be happy.
The people behind Ballot Flurin have dedicated their lives to learning the language and customs of bees to better collaborate with the hive. Their fine, precious, and energy-rich products are delivered intact to you thanks to their artisanal manufacturing methods, based on manual, low-tech, and non-polluting procedures.
They follow something called Gentle Beekeeping / Apiculture DOUCE®. This is a recognized quality label in both France and many other countries and is much more than just a simple label.
**Apiculture DOUCE means:
1. That beekeepers respect and understand the language of bees.
The language of bees is the very heart and soul of Apiculture DOUCE. All their beekeepers are trained in bee psychology and have an extensive set of techniques centered around relaxation, meditation, and observation that facilitate communication with the hive’s inhabitants. The methods also induce a specific mental state in the beekeeper that enhances the ability to listen to the bees.
Beekeepers move quietly near the bees and breathe calmly. Bees have existed for 100 million years and are blessed with great collective intelligence and sophisticated communication skills. They are very sensitive to human contact. In this way, they respect the bees’ rhythm and active energies, making the final product more potent and alive. The bees are never treated with antibiotics but instead with herbs and homeopathy.
2. That beekeepers respect our natural environment.
Ballot Flurin cultivates and harvests naturally (organically) without strong chemical agents. This means untouched vegetation, free from chemical products, vegetation that yields quality harvests and more disease-resistant, healthier colonies.
Their raw materials and preparations are all organically certified. Ballot Flurin follows biodynamic harvesting. The beekeeping production also takes into account solar, lunar, and cosmic cycles when managing the hives and deciding exactly when the beekeeper should perform the harvest. This respects the natural laws of the world and the universe.
Bees pollinate plants, which in return provide them with food. They play a crucial role in promoting and protecting biodiversity in all the regions they inhabit. That is why it is very important that we choose the locations for our hives with great care and protect the local ecosystem by cultivating plants beneficial for honey production such as heather, lavender, rosemary, sage, hawthorn, marjoram, etc. Ballot Flurin’s “Ferme d’abeilles” (Bee Farm) program promotes planting plants and installing hives on organic farmland.
3. That beekeepers respect everything and everyone around the production.
This means preserving the natural environment and protecting the bees’ food resources as well as managing a responsible, human-scale economy. Their company is a family business, free from demands for external capital.
Ballot Flurin contributes to preserving nature by choosing packaging, materials, and methods with minimal environmental impact. They also help make their rural areas more vibrant by creating ethical employment in the villages of Hautes-Pyrénées.
Here in the film, Catherine – one of the founders and a beekeeper for 40 years – shows Mathilde, a young beekeeper, how to transfer a colony of bees. If they are too crowded in their hive, they install them in a new place. The bees agree. They follow their movements and the people follow their breathing. No stings, no need for smoke or masks. Smoke, often used in conventional beekeeping, is not good for bees who need 1000 times more oxygen than we do.
Bee Happy!
