Clearing the Clutter

30 June never really had any significance for me… until I started Queen B.  And as Queen B has grown, so has the dread of 30 June – primarily because it means that I have to do a huge stocktake which means counting every single thing in the building.  Yes, even wicks!

So, this year I thought I’d get in early with a few things that, whilst gorgeous, have outstayed their welcome.  It’s time to go…

2013 Clean the Clutter

Click on the link to open the pdf.  Most things are 30 – 40% off.  Because our photographs are a little wanting in creativity (great candlemakers don’t necessarily make great photographers :-0!) I found a few other images of the goodies online (and I’ve put their links in so that their creative work is recognised).

It’s first come, first serve.  Because of the time it would take to load everything online, simply pop me an email to thehive [at] queenb.com.au with what you want and your best contact number and we’ll do things over the phone.  Like always, orders under $100 pay a flat $11 shipping, orders over $100 we pay the shipping.  If you want candles too, you can pop that order though online and in the comments field advise what you would like added to your order.

quintessencesydney.blogspot.com

http://www.goosestore.blogspot.com

rustikwhite.blogspot.com

wolfandwillow.typepad.com

 

A healing hug

I’m on a roll of loveliness at the moment… in the zone… it’s all flowing at the hive.  I received a card in the mail on Friday (and I LOVE mail that doesn’t come in a window envelope).  The shape and colour of the envelope (ie red and square) had me ripping it open immediately.  This is what I read:

“Dear Kate [we'll forgive her for not knowing it was Cate with a 'C' because a hug doesn't come with spelling instructions],
I’d like to say thank you again for the little gift of Bee Light candles you gave me and the lovely cuddle [yes, I give all sorts of things away for free at the hive ]. Saturday morning I was feeling a bit down.  Sometimes you take on the world but you feel you can’t do what you want to do, or solve all the worries.  I felt like I was carrying all the troubles of the world on my shoulders.

We also had friends coming for dinner on Saturday night and I just didn’t have everything in order as I wanted.  That’s when I said to Pete (my man in matching clothes!) I need a special candle to clear the air and brighten my day. [NB This couple came in to the hive wearing the same colours and when I commented on it they moved 3 feet apart and looked horrified!  I thought it was gorgeous.]  As Pete chatted to you I was still thinking about saving the world.

To bring your candles home and light them was the cleansing that I needed and your little gift made my day.

You not only sell a special product, but your shop has something mystical about it that you reign over.

Again thank you

Love

[amazing, thoughtful, lovely customer] xx

P.S. My candles are glowing now as I write.”

 

Just in case I did ever wonder whether it’s all worth it (and, for the record, that is rare) it is cards like this that have Tilly and I metaphorically high fiving, chest bumping and loving what we do sick.

Beautiful, thoughtful, lovely, generous customer note

Waxes ain’t waxes

So we all know that I bang on constantly about not all waxes (paraffin, soy, palm and beeswax) being equal… well, that applies to beeswaxes too.

A few weeks ago a customer bought a ‘pure beeswax candle’ for me from Dusk.  It is sold at a discount to a the smallest Queen B hand-rolled honeycomb candle (theirs is about 20% narrower and would have less labour as it is not finished properly).  A part of me was thrilled that this purveyor of paraffin (petrochemical wax) candles now had a natural beeswax candle as part of their range, but I was a little disappointed to see that they were using what appeared to me to be very dirty beeswax, using the wrong wick and that the candles were messily made and unfinished.

Queen B vs Dusk beeswax candle – pre lighting

 

Aesthetics first (because that is how you get a customer to notice your product in the first place): by not finishing the candle top and bottom it doesn’t actually sit straight and, in addition, most house proud people don’t want candles that look dirty.

And now on to the performance – which is really driven by the wax and the wick.  When bees make beeswax it is white, so any colour in beeswax is impurities.  A little of that is great… a little honey residue is what gives beeswax candles their natural honey aroma.  But a lot of impurities are a disaster waiting to happen in terms of a candle doing what a candle is supposed to do… ie provide light with a lovely, large flame.

It’s one thing to have a theory (and a decade of pounding your head against a brick wall to learn what you’ve learned :-0) and quite another to see that play out.  So we fired them up.  Notice the respective sizes of the flame upon being lit (and that the Dusk candle doesn’t sit straight).

Queen B vs Dusk beeswax candle – just lit

 

After 30 minutes… wick used in the Dusk beeswax candle is beginning to drown… (the clean beeswax and cotton wick in the Queen B candle are performing well… happy queen).

Queen B vs Dusk beeswax candle – 30 minutes

 

An hour and a half in, the difference is even more noticeable.  If I were the Dusk customer I would now be thinking that beeswax candles are cr*p and don’t burn properly.  I’d be very disappointed.  I’d be thinking twice and thrice before forking out my hard earned money on beeswax candles again.

Queen B vs Dusk pure beeswax candle – 90 minutes

 

2 hours in…

Queen B vs Dusk beeswax candle – 120 minutes

 

Two and a half hours…

Queen B vs Dusk beeswax candle – 150 minutes

 

Three hours… You really have to wonder how rigorous their testing procedures are… or do they just not care?

Queen B vs Dusk beeswax candle- 180 minutes

 

Three and a half hours…

Queen B vs Dusk beeswax candle – 210 minutes

 

Five hours burning now.  Dusk have a very disappointed customer and beeswax candles are now unfortunately tarred with the same brush…

Queen B vs Dusk beeswax candle – 5 hours

 

And after seven and a half hours I’d seen everything that I needed to see.

Queen B vs Dusk beeswax candle – 7.5 hours

 

Anyone who knows me knows that anything that I say, I will say to someone’s face.  Brutally honest?  Yes.  Two faced?  No.  Three days ago, armed with my tests and photographs I called Dusk to try to speak to their product development people or the relevant buyer.  I was told by the Help Desk that they couldn’t give me those details for “privacy reasons” and to rather send an email.  I sent an email the same day – firstly alerting them to the problem (selling a product that didn’t perform, destroying their own brand and damaging the reputation of beeswax candles) and secondly offering to make their beeswax candles for them.  ”Don’t just give me problems, give me solutions”!  I received a response telling me that my email had been sent on “to the appropriate persons who will be in touch should they wish to discuss further”.  The “appropriate persons” haven’t been in touch yet.

What’s not to discuss?

And that brings me to price.  Yes, there are beeswax candles on the market that are cheaper than Queen B candles, BUT I can say hand on heart (and having not increased our prices in over 6 years despite all of our costs increasing every year) that if they are cheaper they just aren’t the same quality.  Now, that is a BOLD statement.  It may even seem arrogant.  I genuinely don’t mean to be, I just know the cost of making pure beeswax candles.  Here’s what makes Queen B candles different:

1. we only buy 100% pure Australian beeswax (which is the most expensive beeswax in the world because it is free from the chemical residues that other beeswaxes have as we are free of the varroa mite)

2. we only buy beeswax from specific honey flows, from specific beekeepers and we have searched far and wide over the past decade to find those beekeepers who are producing the best beeswax available… and we pay well above the market rate so that they earn a premium for the premium product that they sell.

3. we then clean that wax (which beekeepers consider clean) properly ourselves over a period of 48 hours (using water and filtration)

4. we spend literally months on wick testing before we launch a candle on to the market.  With literally hundreds of pure cotton wicks at our fingertips there is a lot of testing to be done.  The difference between the wrong wick and the right wick is often only evident several hours into burning… or in certain weather conditions… or on a particular surface.  It’s not a craft, it’s a science.

5. we hand make every Queen B candle.  Sure you can churn them out of a machine faster (and cheaper) but you forgo quality and you forgo the ‘je ne sais quoi’ that makes a hand made product special.  Not sure how hippy you want to be about these things but I can be a bit out there and to me there is a certain magic in a candle that has been made by a person.  Sure it costs a little more.  Many a well intentioned person has advised me to look at mechanising our process or moving production off shore.  But to me it is untenable.  We have focused on being outrageously efficient and every single person who has ever worked at Queen B has understood very early on that if we aren’t all efficient we are out of business.

Designing and hand-making pure beeswax candles is a craft.  Ensuring they burn properly is a science.  At Queen B we try to do both with excellence, and THAT is the difference between a Queen B pure Australian beeswax candle and any other beeswax candle on the market.  Being a complete perfectionist has many, many drawbacks and one very obvious benefit.  The drawbacks are primarily mine to deal with, the single benefit is the greatest gift that I can give our customers and the bees that make the beautiful wax that goes into Queen B candles.

Thanks to you for your support.  Ultimately it doesn’t matter how good our wax is, how comprehensive our wick testing is or how much perfectionism we bring to the job, if no one is prepared to buy your wares you don’t have a business.  Thank you for letting me run this business.  I consider it a great privilege to do what I am passionate about every single day.

Cate xx

 

How to make someone’s day… or week… or month

I consider myself pretty bloody lucky to do what I love every day [sorry for swearing mum... and yes, it did add value to what I am trying to say].  But even so, it’s really lovely to be told you’re doing a good job or making a difference.  And it makes the job a thousand-fold more rewarding to know a little about the customers you serve or what occasions you’re lighting.

Of course, I get to know our customers at The Hive quite well, but with a thriving online business and retailers dotted across Australia, there are many thousands more whose lives we light, but know little about.  And, as anyone in business will tell you, the thrill is not so much in selling whatever it is that you make, the thrill is knowing that it serves a purpose and makes a difference.

For many years now we’ve been getting orders from a guy in Perth and we ship the candles for him to outback NSW.  I’ve often wondered what the story was… or wondered who the lucky person was getting showered with hundreds of dollars of candles every couple of months.  This week I found out.  I received an absolutely beautiful card (with photographs, glitter and other sparkly things and a long letter) from our customer.  I’ve read it about 20 times (18 of which were sharing it with our packaging angels and other friends) and thought it so lovely that it was worth sharing further afield (with her permission).

Hopefully it will inspire you to write a thank you note to someone… even if it is someone you’ve never met.  Rest assured it will most likely make their day… or week.

“Dear Bee-utiful ones,

This comes to you as a long overdue gesture of appreciation from a grateful regular recipient of your creations.  What does she do with all those candles?!  Serial dinner parties?  Well no, not nearly enough visitors for even one dinner party; and, anyway, as a Buddhist nun, refraining from food after midday is part of the training in renunciation.  But a lot of meditation explains the tealight consumption.  Your light-giving, though, spreads far beyond the illumination of a shrine table.

Environmental sensitivity – multiple chemical and electromagnetic – and resultant illness requires that I live in isolation, without electricity, phone, radio and all things most people accept as normal and necessary.  I cannot leave this property, and live alone far from family and friends who are all on the other side of Australia or overseas… I see loved one rarely and briefly.  Communication is via snail mail once a week.

I relate this not as a “poor me” exercise; self-pity is necessarily absent for survival in extreme situations, and mine are far from the worst.  I tell you so you might more fully appreciate just how much your work benefits others, far beyond what you might have imagined, and so that you may more fully know – feel – your own goodness.

You bring light to my life in so many ways:
with tealights, to my meditation space;
dinner sticks, to my living space;
bee-utiful notes of well-wishing and gifts, to my heart.

These are not small things.  Rejoice in your goodness!  I do

With gratitude and loving kindness

…”

and enclosed, two absolutely gorgeous photographs of  bees keeping her company.  The photographs are below (including the captions written on the back of the photo):

At Deva Vihara (Abode of Angels) the Protector of Bees is always on duty

 

Thirsty work! In Summer, birdbath becomes beebar…

 

I find it is interesting all the little ways I’ve changed since I started running my own business.  One of those changes is that I am now often take the time to say ‘thank you’ when someone does something fabulous.  I know that the feedback we receive carries me through the challenging times and assume it works that way for everyone.

And the best bit of all is that it is a win-win.  I know I feel great when I say thanks.  The same rosy glow reflects back knowing that the person on the receiving end of the card or email is going to get a little kick out of it.  Why not give someone a rosy glow this week by dropping them a note, or a card, or an email, or a call telling them how they, what they did, what they make, how they served you, how they treated you made your day.  Or feel free to give someone worthy a shout out by commenting below.

Sweetness & light and all things bright,

Cate xx

 

 

Now my bees are media tarts

It’s been an amazing few weeks for the girls.  Content just to forage, pollinate and collect nectar and pollen they’ve stepped up their game playing host to media keen to see inside their home and the inner workings of their urban hive… and all without stinging a single visitor!

Our girls have been hard at work making honey for TEDx Sydney and the amazing crowd-farmed food which fed the 2,200 attendees.  This incredible initiative was  put together by TEDxSydney Food Curator, Jill Dupleix, in collaboration with Jess Miller from Goody Two Shoes and Grow It Local, and the team at ARIA Catering. We were chuffed to be a part of it (and so delighted with how the girls rose to the occasion).

First up, a video put together by Tim Brunero showing the actual harvest of the TEDx Sydney honey.  What I particularly loved was that at the start Tim was fully suited and within 10 minutes he had his veil off and hand in the hive tasting the honey… not to mention having a go with the uncapping knife (& tasting more honey), spinning (tasting more honey) and offloading the honey (with a little more tasting).  In the final frames he is crouched in front of the hive like a pro – 120,000 bees in boxes beside him and he, happy as Larry, a foot away.  His childlike enthusiasm and delight seeing inside the hive, watching the bees and tasting their wares reminded me of how I felt the first time I saw in a beehive.  It truly is wonderous.

 

So enchanted was Tim with the whole experience that he invited me in to the ABC do an interview

 

You can see the TEDxSydney crowd-farmed food video below

Clearly my neighbours don’t read my blog or watch TEDxSydney videos because I haven’t had a knock on the door yet!  When/if they do, they’ll be rewarded with a jar of Neutral Bay’s finest honey (the taste is enough to silence any critics).

Lovely to be part of this community of urban growers… and proud of the hard work of the girls and their media savvy performance!

Cate xx

Isn’t every day ‘Mother’s Day’?

To be honest, posts like this make me feel a little torn.  On the one hand I really dislike being seen to be flogging ‘stuff’ and think that a lot of the problems we’re experiencing in the world are because we have too much ‘stuff’, but on the other hand, I know that people are going to be buying gifts for their mum and if they’re going to buy something then it would be remiss of me as a business owner and Australian manufacturing activist to not remind people that we’re here and we make light and other goodies that are useful, beautiful and that actually has an employment and planetary benefit when bought.

If you’re anything like me, you’re still wondering what to get your mum for Mother’s Day this Sunday (and if your mum is like my mum, she is telling you that she doesn’t want/need anything).  Thankfully my mum loves beeswax candles and still manages to muster a smile when I give them to her (for the umpteenth time)… although I do try to give her variety!

Of course we all know that we should live every day as if it were Mother’s Day/Valentine’s Day/Father’s Day etc, but we get busy and so a day that reminds you to tell the important people in your life what they mean to  you and that you love them is never going to be a bad thing in my books.  [As an aside, I have a (relatively undemonstrative) sister who was living and working next to Ground Zero in New York on 9/11 and since that day every conversation ends with a 'love you'.  My conversations with mum have always ended that way.  I am very demonstrative (!!) and love that].

Anyway, so this is just a gentle reminder that IF you are looking for something lovely for your mum for Mother’s Day then giving her Australian made, bee-created light would be a really lovely gift.  I reckon it’s pretty difficult to go wrong with the Jam Jar Tealights, our Bee Lights (the Mini-Marilyn, Australian made, holders are one of my favourite things we make) or any of the beautiful candle holders.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mum’s out there – we literally wouldn’t exist without you.

Wishing you sweetness & light and all things bright,

Cate xx (mum to thousands of beeswax candles, surrogate mother to tens of thousands of bees on my balcony and motherer to many friends… and lucky daughter of Joanie B).

The Queen’s Mother

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Queen B beeswax candles are made with 100% pure Australian beeswax, a pure cotton wick and copious amounts of hand made love. We stock beautiful and stylish candle holders, personalised candles, votive candles, tealight candles and pillar candles that light up lives, create jobs in Australia, support Aussie beekeepers and the regional communities in which they live and benefit our environment.

New (affordable) International Shipping Rates – Yay!

It’s been an exciting week at the hive – a flurry of activity in the lead up to TEDxSydney  AND we’ve negotiated new international shipping rates which finally make shipping Queen B candles around the world affordable.

As I didn’t want to crash the site, my clever web guy loaded the rates in a week ago and we’ve been doing testing for the past week… and reweighing every product so we can ship them as cheaply as possible.  Interestingly, in the 5 days following the new rates being loaded we did as many international online sales as we did in the previous 12 months… just in case you were wondering whether we are genuinely impacted by shipping charges.  In order to get these rates I’ve had to commit to spending $5,000 on international shipping (which is a fraction of what we spend domestically).  So, it is a considered roll of the dice.  If you have friends or family living overseas who you think may be interested, please pass on to them that our shipping rates are now about 1/3 of what they were.

So, with no further ado, I declare Queen B open for business internationally… at far more appealing and competitive rates than we’ve ever been able to offer.  The rates embedded in the website are exactly what we get charged.  Best of all, in all those parcels already making their way across the world is a bulk box of our tealights to light up a wedding in Canada.  You’ve seriously got to love that.

 

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Queen B beeswax candles are made with 100% pure Australian beeswax, a pure cotton wick and copious amounts of hand made love. We stock beautiful and stylish candle holders, personalised candles, votive candles, tealight candles and pillar candles that nourish the human spirit and our environment.