This autumn, whether you’re attending local wine festivals or just picking up a few bottles of your favorite wine, indulge and pair perfect wine with pure beeswax.

Have an idea for up coming blogs? Do you have burning, (no pun intended,) unanswered questions about the wonderful world of beeswax? General comments? Let us know! Email us at info@purebeeswaxcandles.com today and give us your input!

Instead of buying candles to look at, people are buying candles to use. When our loyal Honey Candles® customers have burned their 100% pure beeswax candles, they can look forward to purchasing a new one. By being a consumable product, it encourages us to replenish our candle supply on a regular basis.

When it comes to giving gifts, (poke, poke, nudge, nudge: Christmas is just over two months away,) everyone wants to get a present they will actually enjoy and use- not just pull out when you come over. Candles are the gifts that keep on giving. So when you give your friends and family our 100% pure beeswax Honey Candles® they will enjoy them time and time again until there is nothing to burn. Odds are at that point they will go out and replenish what they just consumed!

As candle burners, we can see the truth in this. We have partaken in the candle cycle: buy, burn, buy burn, etc. Every time we go out to purchase one, we are always excited to shop around for one that really catches our attention. (See the ongoing trend?)

The next time you are out and have the urge to splurge- think beeswax. Buy Honey Candles® 100% beeswax candles.

1. Booth backdrop. This is a 2-man job that is not user friendly.
2. Flooring. It took me back to my childhood days of large foam puzzles.
3. Shelves, tables and signage. It doesn’t matter how many times you measure the shelves are never straight.
4. Product. As you all know, beeswax blooms, an indicator of the wax’s purity and is cherished by many candle connoisseurs. Many people prefer the polished look so to meet that expectation we rubbed a soft nylon with some olive oil on the candles to diminish the bloom.
5. Display. Candles are small and fragile- it takes a lot of candles to fill a 10 by 10 booth. This took quite a bit of time to be an eye catcher.

Sunday was the first day of the Gift Expo and it went very well! I met some of our current retailers, made many new contacts across British Columbia and we came back with a handful of new retailers! I was very impressed to see how many retailers were educated on the benefits of beeswax and how they were excited to bring in a natural and locally made product. The best seller by far was the natural pillars.

The second day of the show was much slower, but that was to be expected since it was a Monday. After 8 hours of the show we powered through a 3-hour take down.

I want to thank all of our retailers who made it out to the show, and I want to welcome all our new retailers into the Honey Candles® family.

Right at this moment in the office I am looking at Mount Loki. This mountain is so distinctive and extremely vertical. I’m really hoping there will not be any team-building hike at any point.

Saturday morning at 8am they started their journey and after five hours and a brief battle with a storm, they reached the summit.  As you can see their view was breathtaking. While revelling in their feat, Leah pulled out some Honey Candles® T-Lites and Dominique brought out the German chocolate he had in his bag. Overlooking the panorama of beautiful Kootenay Lake, Levea celebrated her birthday in style.

After singing “Happy Birthday” in both English and German, and of course devouring the chocolate the group started their three and a half hour descent.

This hike just proved how versatile the candles are: wherever you are they come in handy!

Typically the visitors to our booth said they enjoyed the natural color and loved the scents. They were excited the stunning new fragrances only came from pure essential oils. The packaging was an attention grabber and the price was just right.

Essentials Votives are available in five refreshing, all natural scents:

Country Lavender: The combination of lavender and sweet orange is both citrusy and flowery. A dash of Black Pepper gives Country Lavender a subtle spiced finish.

Mulled Spice: A winter favorite! Mulled Spice invokes feelings of sipping a hot apple cider in front of a fireplace with snow falling outside. A great way to add warmth to any room.

Kootenay Forest: Transport yourself to the pristine alpine wilderness of the Kootenay Mountains with this nature inspired blend.

Rosemary Mint: For those who enjoy a simple, clean blend, refreshing peppermint combined with herbaceous rosemary is absolute bliss. Makes a great air freshener.

Evening Bloom: The scent of this candle is inspired by a floral breeze on a warm summer evening – this candle is sure to delight your senses.

This week our shop has been busy pouring the Essentials Votives so keep an eye out for them to hit the shelves of your retailer- or skip the store and head online to purchase them at www.purebeeswaxcandles.com

1. Go into your favourite health food store, gift store, or grocery store and tell them about Honey Candles®. Let them know why you want them to carry our products, (feel free to tell them how much you love our products!) Usually talking to the store manager is your best bet.

2. The store manager can then contact us in a few ways: email, phone or fax. From there we can send them a copy of our catalogue, either a hard copy or an e-copy, or we can refer them to our wholesale website so they can see what we have to offer their store.

3. Once they put in an order, we ship off the product right away. We have been known and recognised for our fast shipping.   That’s all it takes to get Honey Candles® from us, to your retailer and into your home.

So spread the word! Before you know it you could have a variety of retailers to choose from so that you can experience pure elegance and share the wealth.

Asia’s Bio: After graduating and doing the whole ‘cap and gown,’ Kelowna born and raised Asia decided to pack up and take the road less traveled so she moved to Kaslo this past week to start a new chapter with Honey Candles as the Marketing Co-ordinator.

As a student of Okanagan College, Asia was selected to participate in numerous business competitions across Canada, (including placing first at the 2009 Simon Fraser University International Marketing Competition,) and this past April she was representing her school down in San Diego at the prestigious International Collegiate Business Strategy Competition and along side her team blew the other teams out of the water. These teams came from major schools across the states, and even teams who were working on their Master Degrees from London, UK and Dubai.

Asia is also an outdoor enthusiast and avid cyclist who in 2009 participated in the inaugural Ride to Conquer Cancer with her dad and since then has also become a fitness instructor specializing in cycle classes.

Working with Honey Candles, Asia believes it will be a great start to her professional career and utilizing her education. Residing in Kaslo will be a change in pace from Kelowna but a welcomed one.

She will be taking over the blog so if you have any comments or suggestions please contact her marketing@purebeeswaxcandles.com

Honeybees are interesting creatures who are vital link in our Eco-system, without them we wouldn’t enjoy many of the products we enjoy today such as honey, bee pollen, propolis and of course our favourite: beeswax! For the next couple weeks, I’d like to focus on Honeybees and what we’ve learned through researching them. They are busy little creatures and they deserve some attention. This week I’d like to introduce you to the three types of Honeybees. There are over 20,000 species of bees, Honeybees make up a very small fraction with about 44 species.
 

The Honeybees main purpose in life is to produce honey. They use the honey to feed their larvae and live on it during the winter months. Beeswax is a byproduct of honey production, the Honeybees create honeycomb in order to store the honey. When the honey is extracted from the honeycomb what’s left is a wax substance, called beeswax. It is then melted down and filtered. (Since we are by no means honey experts please click for more information on honey.

Within a hive there are up to 40,000 busy Honeybees. There are three types of Honeybees: The Worker Bee, Drone and Queen. Each has their own distinct job.

Queen: There is typically only one queen per hive. Every bee in the hive is her offspring. She can lay up to 2000 eggs/day and can live 2-5 years.

Drone: The drone’s only job is to mate with the queen. Their life span is 8 weeks or less.

Worker Bees: Workers bees have various tasks including: feeding the larvae, work with honey, pollen, propolis and wax within the hive and forage for pollen and nectar outside the hive. Their life span is around 40 days in the summer.

The domestic Honeybee looks different than other types of bees such as Bumble Bees. It’s body is more round and smaller than other bee species and it’s color is lighter and quite unique (see above photo). Next time you see a honeybee pollinating one of your flower beds, be glad! It is collecting the very substance that’s in your candles! Next week we’ll talk about pollination and nectar collection.

There are so many great resources for bee information:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey_bee

http://www.gpnc.org/honeybee.htm

http://www.beeclass.com/dts/honey_bee.htm

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSk_ev1eZec

Citronella essential oil has long been used as an effective insect repellent. It is considered a natural choice for health conscious consumers who are concerned about the dangers of using products such as a Deet on their skin and who steer away from fragrance based candles. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency Citronella essential oil is not considered harmful to humans or animals and can be safely used as an insect repellent. Read more.

Citronella essential oil is most commonly used three ways:

1. As a plant – Citronella plants can be planted around your garden, deck or patio to keep insects away. The perennial plant is related to lemongrass (Cymbopogon) but is not edible. Cymbopogon nardus grows between 1 to 3 feet tall with very aromatic leaves. For instructions on planting click here
2. In a candle – Not to be confused with typical bright yellow fragrance based Citronella candles often found in drugstores, essential oil based candles contain Citronella extracted from the plants leaves.  Our Citronella Outdoor Candle is subtly scented and doesn’t overwhelm, the scent is both woodsy and lemony and smells similar to lemon grass.
3. Used topically in lotions, sprays and rubs – I find using a small drop of Citronella essential oil on my wrists is very effective in keeping mosquitoes away. When essential oils on your skin, be careful to use a very small amount or mix with olive oil or sweet almond oil. Citronella is very strong and can cause an allergic reaction to those with sensitive skin. The Canadian government warns against using large amounts topically as it can be harmful in large doses.

Government regulations prohibit companies with Citronella products to say “Insect repellent” or any terms that makes similar claims. When shopping for all-natural Citronella based products, make sure the product ingredient list says pure Citronella essential oil.

Andrea