Jeffrey R. Lee

Welcome to Lee's Bees!
My name is Jeffrey R. Lee and I am the owner/operator of Lee's Bees.
Lee's Bees offers three products/services. We sell packages of bees with queens in the spring to help smaller beekeepers and we sell gourmet varietal honeys that our bees produce throughout North Carolina. We also rent our bees for pollination services to farmers throughout the country.

I would describe myself as a "bee shepherd". I move our ~ 85 million bees throughout the year to find flowers for the bees to work. If I didn't, the bees would quickly starve. Some flowers are excellent nectar producers while others the bees will only visit out of desperation.

The season begins in February when we load some of the bees onto semi-trucks and take them to California to pollinate the almond orchards. In mid-March they return to North Carolina to pollinate high-bush blueberries in Bladen county. Some of the bees are then taken to Maine in early May to pollinate low-bush blueberries. These bees are then sent back in June to eastern North Carolina to pollinate cucumbers or sent to Wisconsin to pollinate the cranberry bogs. They all return to North Carolina in July.

The first honey of the year is produced in April from the Water Tupelo trees in the swamps of Martin and Bertie county. These bees are then moved to Clary Sage fields in May to produce this aromatic honey. Our bees in the Piedmont region produce Wild Flower honey from the blackberry, red bud, holly, tulip poplar, and clover flowers from April to June. The Gallberry honey is produced by our bees around Bladen Lakes State Park. The bees are moved from their home bases in Mebane and Jamesville to the Blue Ridge Parkway in late June. Here they will produce a wonderful, mild buttery-flavored honey from the Sourwood tree blossoms if the weather cooperates. The last honey of the year is usually produced from the Cotton flowers. Recently, however, the new varieties of cotton being planted have not been producing much nectar.