Busy as a Bee

Perhaps you, as our lovely and informed supporters and friends, know why our company is named Red Ants Pants? Or, perhaps not. Well, let’s refresh. Red Ants Pants is named for the the female ants in a red ant colony because they do all the work! Well, female red ants are not the only hard workers in the world of insects and we’re just tickled pink to introduce you to another hard worker insect, the honeybee and to the woman who takes care of the them on the eastern edge of Glacier National Park.

Courtney Stone Fullerton, along with her husband, Greg, are the beekeepers of Glacier County Honey near Babb, Montana. Beekeeping is not her only profession. She’s also a lawyer with her own practice in Cut Bank. Not only does Courtney help Greg, a second generation beekeeper, with the extraction process – Glacier County Honey extracts about 125,000 pounds of honey each summer – she also manages the company’s books and the retail aspects of this new Montana company. While their company warehouse is under construction this summer, Courtney’s been making her beeswax products, including candles and Christmas ornaments, in her kitchen. In fact, two days after their July 2009 wedding, the newly weds went right to their “honeymoon” – extracting 125,000 pounds of honey! Their real honeymoon didn’t happen until all the honey was extracted and Courtney’s law practice was set up last September.

According to Courtney, one in every three bites of food can be traced back to the honeybee. The Fullertons have a strong belief that bees are the backbone of agriculture. And their bees couldn’t be more lucky to have wildflowers to nourish them from Glacier National Park and the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. Due to their incredible food sources, Glacier County Honey is light, pure and simply sweet! In fact, it  is consistently awarded the USDA’s highest designation for honey. And to us, this honey is most delicious!

Glacier County Honey is a small operation with 1,000 hives and you can order their honey in either 1 lb/3 lb/ or 5 lb squeeze top bottles. Courtney is just so fabulous (and incredibly smart) that she packs her honey in this spill-proof squeeze top bottles that leave no honey dripping down the side of the bottle or left to leak all over a cupboard in Anthill (ahem, yes, we may have had a honey leakage problem on one of our past Tour de Pants. But not anymore!) Her beeswax products, which are 100% natural with no added fragrances or dyes, can be found at their website too.

And if you enjoy reading about another small Montana business or of other beekeeping adventures we invite you to visit Courtney’s blog about all things Glacier County Honey and of her unique life  in the remote northeast corner of Glacier National Park. Our attorney-beekeeper friend is also a talented writer! One thing’s for sure-Montana women can certainly do it all.

We know that the saying, “busy as a bee” is not just for the bees, but rings true for all of us. But after what we’ve seen when we visited Courtney and her bees at their Hillhouse property, we know it’s damn important to take time, like the honeybees do, to smell the wildflowers.