about us.
Hi there! I’m Zoie, owner of Bee Sanctuary Honey Farms. I’ve been beekeeping my whole life (literally since I was 8 years old). It was how I put myself through college at the University of West Florida debt-free while also gaining real-world knowledge in my degree, Business Administration.
enjoy reading until I can get the rest of the website up & running bc everything got deleted (it’s ok, i’m ok)
How it started
It all started in 2011 by my parents, Rizza and Shelby. A few years after Bee Sanctuary was created, we had our first and only retail spot at a local butcher shop for a couple years.
Since middle school, I spent my summer breaks taking care of my family’s ever expanding apiary and harvesting honey. When I turned 18, the summer before I started college, I was given the opportunity to make more decisions and figure out how to run my own business.
I was in school full-time at the University of West Florida, ran Bee Sanctuary Honey Farms part-time, worked with local retail stores and ran all the deliveries myself. All before, during, and after the pandemic from COVID-19.
After a great four years at the University of West Florida (go Argos!) I achieved by Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration. Took a nice celebratory vacation with my best friends and came back to running Bee Sanctuary full-time putting that degree to use.
WHY BEE SANCTUARY HONEY ?
Bee Sanctuary Honey is a Woman and Asian-American owned small business located in Pensacola, Florida. We pride ourselves on our raw & unfiltered honey (the way it should bee).
Our honey, depending on the type, will naturally tend to granulated. That’s how you know your honey is raw. There are many natural factors why honey will granulate including pollen-type, nectar source, and temperature. Not all honeys will granulate, but majority of the honey we harvest & deal with do.
We pride ourselves on trying to be sustainability conscious with our bottle buy-back program, using American-made products from our bottles to our hive-body boxes, and by also limiting our stockists to locally-owned small business retail stores & storefronts.
