About us
Our story
When Celford moved from Curaçao back to Statia in 2000 he joined his cousins helping the community with removing (wild) bee hives. The bee hives where sprayed and the honey was collected and sold after. After 4-5 years Celford came in contact with Jozef Charles from Trinidad who visited Sint Eustatius on a regular basis. Jozef, together with Celford worked alongside each other and where building the first bee hives from recycled materials to house the bees over the Island.
Jozef left but in 2006 Angela, who lived on the Island, came in the picture and she was the business partner of Celford. Together they rescues more bees an created more and more hives to house the bees, gathering honey and helping the community with the removal/relocating of (wild) bee hives.
With the passing of Angela, Celford took a break for awhile. However more members from the Island requested aid and people asking for different uses of the bee products; for example the carpenters using the bee wax in their profession.
The name, “Celbees”, was introduced in the year 2014. And while older boxes getting deteriorated over time Celford used his old bee truck to relocate all the bee hives on a central location. Around this period the production of honey also made a transition from recycled plastic bottles to glass, for a more sustainable end product. At this point there where around 50 hives.
In 2016 Gerda came in the picture sharing the vision of Celbees. Gerda started with painting and labeling all the bee boxes for better protection of the weather, adding a more colorful atmosphere and numbering them for easy organizing the collection of hives. Not only the honey production increased, Celbees can be found all over the Island: from the fresh market, to taste cultures and several restaurants in the area. The honey is also used as part of the dishes in those restaurants.
Besides honey, lipbalm, soap, wine, tea, body butter, neem oil and honey comb’s are sold. These products are also sold on neighboring Island like Saba, Sint Maarten, St Kitts and Nevis.
Photo gallery
Mission and Vision
Our vision is to educate adults & children about the important job of honey bees. We want to make natural & local products. We want to recycle and recuse material what is already on the Island.
Our mission is to have enough honey in the year to supply St. Eustatius and export our products to the Caribbean and the rest of the world.
