Queen B candles – 100% Pure Beeswax – as certified by the bees!

One of the many things that I love about going to work is opening the door and smelling that lovely honey aroma.  I also love that in spring and summer, scout bees come by to check out why it smells so good (looking for a source of nectar).  They have a good fly around and smell of the candles, but we’re usually too busy to capture it.  This week I had my camera at hand just at the right moment…

 

Bee certified Queen B tealight candles

Bee-utiful beeswax tealights - Queen B style

I put in the one with the bee flying just so you didn’t think that it was a bee pin or something like that!

 

[A little lesson: In a hive of say 50,000 bees (which would be average), there is 1 queen, perhaps a hundred or so drones and 49,900 odd female worker bees.  The worker bees work from the moment they are born.  One role they take on in life is scouting for sources of nectar and pollen.  Several hundred bees may perform this task in a hive.  When they find a good source, they go back to the hive and do a 'waggle' dance or 'bum dance' to tell the other bees what direction to fly, how far to fly and how many bees should go.  NB Because beeswax has neither harvestable flower nectar, nor pollen, Queen B is not a good source, so thankfully whilst we have bees, it is rarely more than a dozen or two in a day.]

 

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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 and pillar candles that nourish the human spirit and our environment.

Quality control supervisor of Queen B candles

 

 

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Ah, the company we keep…

These beautiful photographs (by the very talented Fiora Sacco) just arrived from luxury brand consultants, Black Communications.

The event was a wedding lunch, showcasing Quay Restaurant and Riedel glassware – hence the beautiful food and glassware.  Extraordinary flowers by the talented team at Grandiflora. I’ll let the photographs do the rest of the talking.  Suffice it to say that we love being in good company!

Riedel event candlelit by Queen B

Flowers by Grandiflora, candlelight by Queen B

Black Communications see the Queen B light

Riedel Glassware cupping its most valuable aphrodisiac yet

Black, white and golden Queen B candlelight

 

Best Actress in a Supporting Role!... all hail the Quay food and Riedel glassware

 

 

 

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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 and pillar candles that nourish the human spirit and our environment.

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Do you/your company do Christmas gifts that stand out?

OK, so not exactly a catchy title!  Believe me, I’ve tried 10 prior to this one that were worse.

While it may seem a little commercially crass to be talking about Christmas now, most companies are making a decision on what they are doing for client gifts, staff gifts or corporate hampers now… and we would like to be in the mix.

What do your corporate gifts say about your company and it’s values?  Do they value health/life balance?  The environment?  Regional communities? Australian made?  Perhaps most importantly, is it memorable?  Does it cut through?  Does it have longevity?

I LOVED doing our hampers last year, because I was just so thrilled on behalf of our clients that they were offering something different to another jar of olive tapenade!  Another bottle of wine!

Our most popular hamper on behalf of our clients last year was sent to men (CTO’s, CEO’s, COO’s) and included a rolled pillar (in the Phoenix design), a black votive, a jar of Australian honey, a pair of the small Christmas trees, a box of chocolate coated honeycomb, a Tasmanian wood-turned honey dipper, a chunk of pure Australian honeycomb (straight out of the hive), a block of all natural men’s shave soap, a Tasmanian beer shampoo bar and a Queen B eco-bulb… oh, and a bottle of wine provided by our client!

We also had a similar version that went to their female clients substituting the Casablanca design for Phoenix, a frosted votive and a bottle of divine Honey Cream bath.

We also did a smaller hamper that packed a punch too with Christmas trees, an eco-bulb, a jar of Australian honey, a bar of Goats Milk soap and a beautiful honey dipper.

The warehouse and office staff at our courier company voted Queen B hampers the best they’d saw last Christmas (and being a courier company, they see them all!) and our clients (without exception) have returned to us this year.

Anyway, so this is a bit of an APB.  We would LOVE to be working with more companies this year to do gifts that are memorable and that build their brand and that are meaningful and lasting and full of ‘sweetness and light’.

If your company does gifts, I would be extremely grateful if you could either pass our details on to them, or pass their details on to me and we’ll get on to it.  Feel free to pass this on to friends and family too!

You just never know, if you’re lucky, a Queen B hamper or Queen B candle may be winging its way to you this Christmas… now wouldn’t that make your day? or festive season?!

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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 and pillar candles that nourish the human spirit and our environment.

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Queen B – A Rose by any other name…

I read this this morning, and it really struck me…

“When we plant a rose seed in the earth, we notice that it is small, but we do not criticise it as “rootless and stemless.”  We treat it as a seed, giving it the water and nourishment required of a seed.  When it first shoots up out of the earth, we don’t condemn it as immature and underdeveloped, nor do we criticise the buds for not being open when they appear.  We stand in wonder at the process taking place and give the plant the care it needs at each stage of its development.  The rose is a rose from the time it is a seed to the time it dies.  Within it, at all times, it contains its whole potential.  It seems to be constantly in the process of change; yet at each state, at each moment, it is [whole] as it is.”  (Gallway, 1974)

Isn’t it wonderful when you read something (or hear or see something) that is impactful?  That challenges you?  That switches on a light and makes you see a situation differently?… whether for a moment or for eternity…

With Queen B, we have something resembling a stem, several leaves and even a couple of buds… beautiful just as she is for right now.

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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 and pillar candles that nourish the human spirit and our environment.

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And then there were five…

I was asked a couple of weeks ago to do a birthing candle for a customer who was expecting her fifth child.  Brave, brave soul.

Anyway, the request was as follows: “I am about to give birth any day.  Wondering if you could design a candle for labour. I would like a pure beeswax candle with a mother and child hand painted on the outside.”

And voila!

Birthing candle

This update from Lisa: [Our fifth son] was born at home in the birthing pool just as sun went down.

He was welcomed with his birth candle which I light every night when I feed him.”

Lisa’s just ordered another one – same design, this time in baby blue… I’m thinking that with 5 boys, Lisa’s going to be needing lots of candles to relax by in the next 20 years or so.

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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 and pillar candles that nourish the human spirit and our environment.

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Beeswax tealights – we put Queen B (and the others) to the test

Recently I was at a friend’s housewarming. (wow, there are a million ways I could go with that intro!)

I was introduced to someone as running a business called Queen B blah blah blah!  The woman (who I had never met before) exclaimed excitedly that she had recently been on our website and that our candles were ‘divine’.  I asked the next obvious questions – “What is your name?” (because I process all the orders myself, I would have recognised the name) and “What did you order?”.  She looked a little embarrassed.  Turns out she didn’t order from us!

I was fascinated.  It is seldom that I get to meet someone who has been on our website who could tell me completely independently what s/he thought and why s/he didn’t order.

She told me that she had ended up ordering from one of our “competitors” (who she named) because they had 100 x 8-9 hour tealights which were cheaper than ours.

I was a little shocked to be honest.  I hadn’t realised that they had launched a new product.  Before we made beeswax tealights, I had burned hundreds of the tealights from the Northern NSW maker and they had never burned for longer than 5-6 hours.  Being the nerd that I am, I looked up the website as soon as I got home.  Mmmmm 5-6hr tealights gone and now reading “8-9 hour” tealights (which looked EXACTLY the same – a little larger than our 4 hour tealight).

Queen B "8-9hr", Northern NSW "8-9hr", Queen B "4 hr"

I bought some.

At the same time I bought some of the tealights from the WA manufacturer whose name keeps coming up.

Well, they say that a picture speaks a thousand words.  Here’s what I found.  I performed 4 tests, then shocked at what I was seeing, bought time lapse photography software and filmed it so that you could see too.

Here’s the summary from the last 10 seconds of the video.  [Can I also just say that I switched the business over the Apple Mac about a year ago and I LOVE iMovie!]

Tealight Test # 1

WA Manufacturer

• “4 hr” tealight – $15 (box of 10) = $1.50 ea @ 3.17 hrs = 47c/hr
• “7 – 8 hr” tealight – $20 (box of 10) = $2.00ea @5.25 hrs = 38c/hr

Queen B

• “4 hr” tealight – $20 (box of 9) = $2.22 ea @ 5.58 hrs = 40c/hr
• “8 – 9 hr” tealight – $25 (box of 9) = $2.77 ea @ 8.25 hrs = 34c/hr

Northern NSW Manufacturer

• “8 – 9hr” tealight – $15 (box of 5) – $3.00ea @ 4.67hrs = 64c/hr

Queen B tealights are the cheapest beeswax tealights to burn per hour (based on true burn time rather than claimed burn time) and are the only tealights to live up to their promised burn times.

The issue with the WA tealights is to do with their beeswax still being too dirty and the wick too large.

The Northern NSW one burns well.  Having said that, I can’t see how it would ever burn for 8-9 hours being the size it is.  In fact the Northern NSW tealight weighs less than the Queen B 4 hour tealight.

Always interested to hear your thoughts and feedback… post a comment or pop me an email.  It’s lovely to have a conversation with someone other than my mind!

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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 and pillar candles that nourish the human spirit and our environment.

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Enhancing the dance of candlelight

One of things that I find enchanting about candlelight is the way it dances.  The light it throws.  The shadows.  The play of light.  It is one of the things that I look for when choosing candle-holders and glassware for Queen B candles.

A picture speaks a thousand words they say, so in break from my usual form, I’ll just show you what I mean!

Glass candleholder with hanger

Glass & wicker hanging tealight candleholder

Glass and wicker hurricane lanterns

All photographs taken with my Canon IXUS 8515 digital camera (ie nothing sophisticated!).

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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 and pillar candles that nourish the human spirit and our environment.

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New website live. Now to crash it! 10% off the entire Queen B range for 24 hours only.

Our new website went live just 14 short days ago.

Like most new mothers (or people who run a small business and really need to get a life), I am besotted and can’t stop looking at it.  Oh, the dreams that I have for its future…

Adam (clever web guy and realisor of dreams) assures me that it can’t be crashed.  I thought I’d give him a run for his money.

So, for the next 22 hours (this post is 2 hours late) we’re offering 10% off the entire Queen B range.  To get the discount, either use this link, or use the code Love Queen B in the discount coupon field when you’re checking out your shopping cart.

If you’ve been with us for a while, you know we seldom discount.  We’ve never discounted like this… it is the website baby brain!  Certainly both Adam and I are sleep deprived!!  So if you have winter nights to make cosy, presents to buy, love to send, or simply need a cupboard full of random acts of kindness in waiting, then the next 22 hours is the time.

Get in quick

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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 and pillar candles that nourish the human spirit and our environment.

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Heartbreaking and heartwarming

Being a beeswax candle-maker is a privilege.  We get to light many occasions – from births to funerals and many moments in between.  There is hope, comfort, serenity, dreaming, tranquility and light in every flame.

It was pointed out to me by Dea’s mum, who sent this photograph to me, that she noticed on the day that the flames from each of the Queen B tealights were all leaning towards Dea’s photograph… what clever little candles and what an extraordinary universe.

I can’t even begin to imagine the pain of losing a child.  My heart aches even thinking about it.  If we can provide even a modicum of comfort then we’ve done something worthwhile.  This is our reason for being.  I am simply a medium for channeling the miracle of the work of bees, and the hard work of our beekeepers into candles that light up people’s lives and homes.

Lighting the way

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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 and pillar candles that nourish the human spirit and our environment.

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The Beauty of Light

Even after 10 years of making beeswax candles, I still marvel at the beauty of their light… the size of the flame… their golden light… no drips (no breeze!).

The rest of the photograph is a study of a few of my favourite things.  The lampshade in the background I made from leftover timber veneer strips found in the bargain bin at a hardware store.  The candleholders are from Spain.  The papier mache dog made by a talented friend.  The antique twine bobbins.  Photographs from my sister’s wedding.

The Beauty of Light

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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 and pillar candles that nourish the human spirit and our environment.

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