Honey for Good

10/20/2026

Fifteen years of the Black Jar Honey Contest, and Friday was the first time we crowned the winners at a gala of their own. 🍯

Thank you to everyone who dressed up, tasted, bid in the silent auction, and cheered as the winners were named at the Black Jar Masquerade Gala. Every ticket supports our work with honeybees and the beekeepers who care for them.

A big thank you to our sponsors, Renaissance Asheville Downtown Hotel and Brown Haven Homes, for making the night possible. 🐝

Missed the announcement?

We’ll share the full list of 2026 winners here soon. Follow along so you don’t miss it.

10/19/2026

🐝 REMINDER, WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA FRIENDS!

Interested in becoming a beekeeper or just getting started?

Our friend Carmen Atwater of Feral Farms is teaching her Beekeeping 101: All About Bees course in person in Asheville, NC!

Carmen ran our educational booth at the Asheville Honey Festival in June and generously donated a beekeeping experience to our silent auction this past Friday night.

She's a wonderful teacher, and we highly recommend her course! 🐝💛

📅 **TONIGHT, October 19**
📍 **Asheville, NC — In person**

**Details and registration:**
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/beekeeping-101-all-about-bees-tickets-2002163833924

Join Carmen of Feral Farms Beekeeping to learn the ins and outs of beekeeping in part one of our two part Beginner Beekeeping series.

10/16/2026

98 honeys from 19 countries, and tonight we find out which one takes the grand prize. 🍯

The 15th annual Black Jar International Honey Contest wraps up tonight at the Black Jar Masquerade Gala. Every entry was judged on taste alone. Each honey went into a numbered glass jar inside a small black bag, so the judges never saw its color, clarity, or grain. Tonight we announce the grand prize and category winners.

🍯 A honey tasting station, with jars from past contest entries for sale to take home
🐝 4oz and 8oz jars from the Renaissance rooftop hives, $10 and $15
🌿 A silent auction with weekend getaways to Raleigh, Beaufort, and downtown Asheville, an original “Bee Queen” painting by Blayne Art, local wellness packages, and plenty of honey gifts
🥂 Small bites, b**r, and w**e

Fine attire requested, masks encouraged. 🎭

📍 Renaissance Asheville Downtown Hotel
🗓️ Tonight, Friday, October 16 | 7–10 PM
🎟️ Tickets are $50 at the link in bio

All proceeds support honey bee rescue, conservation, school programs, and community education. We’ll see you there.

10/14/2026

The honey spent a year in disguise. On October 16th, so will you. 🎭

There's a reason this one is a masquerade. Every jar in the contest is judged with its identity hidden — no name, no country, no hive, just what's on the spoon. For one night, the guests play by the same rule.

Black Jar Masquerade Gala — THIS Friday, October 16th, 7–10 PM, Renaissance Hotel.

Tickets $50 at honeyforgood.org (🔗 in bio!)

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10/12/2026

October in the bee yard is mostly arithmetic. 🐝

What beekeepers across WNC are doing right now:

✔️ Weighing hives. A colony needs roughly 60 pounds of stores to get through a mountain winter. You learn to judge it by lifting the back of the box.

✔️ Feeding the ones that came up short, while it's still warm enough for them to take syrup and cure it.

✔️ Finishing mite treatments, while there's still time for the colony to raise healthy replacements.

✔️ Putting on mouse guards. A warm hive is extremely appealing real estate in November.

✔️ Combining weak colonies. Two struggling hives make one that survives more often than two that limp.

Not glamorous. It's the work that decides what's alive in March.

Beekeepers — what's still on your list?

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10/09/2026

Preliminary rounds of judging for the International Black Jar Honey Fest wrapped up earlier this week!

Special shout-out to all of our volunteer judges, who joined from near and far to help us whittle down countless varieties from dozens of countries around the globe to consider all the subtle nuances of each contender and rate them thoughtfully. In the next several days, the final rounds of judging will take place to determine the category winners and, of course, this year's Grand Prize Winner! 🏆

Thank you to all who have entered, participated or cheered from the sidelines!

And don't forget to join us at the Black Jar Masquerade Gala on Friday, October 16th, where the winners will be announced!

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10/07/2026

The question we get most at tastings: doesn't taking the honey hurt the bees? 🍯

Fair question, and the answer is that it depends entirely on the beekeeper. A colony in these mountains needs somewhere around 60 pounds of honey to survive the winter. A good beekeeper takes the surplus above that and not a pound more — and in a bad nectar year, takes nothing at all.

That's the whole ethic, and it isn't complicated. The bees make more than they need in a good year. The beekeeper's job is knowing the difference.

In our experience, smaller beekeepers want what's best for their hives. (Just another reason to get your honey locally!)

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10/05/2026

The best thing you can do for next spring's pollinators, you do in October. 🌿

Native perennial seeds need cold stratification — weeks of cold, damp weather — before they'll germinate. Sowing them now lets winter do that work for you, for free. Scatter on bare soil, press them in, walk away.

Good ones for Western North Carolina: purple coneflower, mountain mint, bee balm, wild bergamot, aster, and goldenrod. Mountain mint especially — easy to grow, smells wonderful, and it buzzes all day long in summer.

One more, and it's the easiest of all: leave the stems standing. A lot of our native bees overwinter inside hollow plant stems, and a tidy fall garden is an empty spring one.

What are you planting this fall?

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10/02/2026

Two weeks. One night. One jar wins. 🍯

The Black Jar Masquerade Gala, Friday, October 16, 7–10 PM at the Hotel in Asheville.

The final chapter of this year's International Black Jar Honey Contest, judged blind to the end, plus food, drink, and a room full of people who take honey seriously.

$50. Masks encouraged. Proceeds support honeybee education and conservation.

Get tickets → honeyforgood.org/black-jar-masquerade-gala

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09/30/2026

None of this runs on honey alone. 🌻

HoneyFest was free again this June because a handful of local organizations decided a free festival was worth paying for. Thank you to Explore Asheville - Buncombe County Travel & Hospitality Industry , Peridot Consulting, Asheville Pain and Wellness Center, Asheville Breakfast Rotary, Grift Town Goods, and so many others who made the 5th Annual HoneyFest possible!

And to Highland Brewing Company , who handed us their space for the day and never once appeared to regret it.

If your business wants in on next year, the conversation starts now.