Peace Bees produces Honey, Hive Products (lotions, balms etc.), honey bee education and consulting services. We are located at 744 South Main Street, South Bend. This makes Peace Bees the only commercial beekeeping operation located in the city of South Bend. We are Certified Naturally Grown, which means we use Organic and Sustainable practices. We currently sell our honey at Purple Porch, Down To Earth, Common Goods Co-op, Urban Garden Farmers Market and South Bend Homestead located in the South Bend Farmers Market. Peace Bees collaborated with Goodwill Industries in their Second Chance program. Goodwill provides us disadvantaged works seeking real life job skills. Disadvantaged workers are anyone who lacks necessary skills to enter the workforce. This can be an ex-felon, homeless person or even a veteran. Goodwill provides wraparound counseling and support services along with pay and insurance coverage. We use honey bees as a catalyst for our mentoring program.
We teach every aspect of a commercial beekeeping, including marketing and sales of product to wholesale and retail customers. Our employees build and repair equipment, which provides manufacturing experience. They care for bees, which require compassion, and emotional control. Employees process honey, wax, make products which is process-manufacturing and food processing. Among many other tasks, our employees will learn how to engage with customers, wholesale buyers of our products and finally retail customers at market stands. When appropriate we utilize our employees during our community beekeeping classes where the student becomes the teacher.
Funded by South Bend, IN (February 2018)