For our February monthly meeting, club member Angel presented her educational program on the queen bee. We learned:
- The queen is more like a mother of the hive and not really a ruler.
- Attendant bees feed and clean her.
- The queen usually only leaves the hive for her nuptial mating flight or if the hive is swarming.
- The queen only mates once in her lifetime.
After the presentation, the club members had Part 2 of the Entrepreneur program. Last month in Part 1 of the program, club members presented and decided on various products to make during our workshop. Ultimately, the group decided on making hand balm, lip balm, and food wraps. During Part 2, the members had to review the costs for ingredients and packaging and decide what to use. For example, for lip balm, the club talked about maybe have jars of lip balm for more eco-conscious customers and having the regular lip balm in the plastic twist container. The traditional lip balm packaging is less expensive and therefore less cost for the customer. The club members also looked at a compromise of using traditional lip balm containers that had some post-consumer recycled plastic. With research, we found that non-recycled containers cost $0.16 each and those with 35% post-consumer recycled plastic cost $0.55 each. After a group discussion, the club members decided to use the non-recycled tubes only for the first batch we make and then once we have sold some balms, we could take that money and invest in more eco-friendly options.