If you’re celebrating the holidays with your family, you’re kind of like a honeybee. While bees don’t put up decorations or buy each other expensive skincare, like we do during the holidays, they do have their own festivities. As winter approaches, bees celebrate by stocking up on nectar and making a feast of honey to last the winter.

Just how much honey does a hive produce?

Well, just like us, bees make way too much food. With winter approaching, bees start doing their part by doing lots of honey-making. They produce so much honey that it sometimes overfills their hive.

Enter the beekeepers, AKA the bees’ holiday helpers. They carefully gather the surplus of honey, leaving the hive with more than enough to get through the winter, but taking enough for us to enjoy. That’s how we get one-of-a-kind batches of honey like our Cali Valley Harvest Reserve.

In addition to their honey-making marathon, bees have a royal duty during the winter festivities. As the temperatures drop, the queen bee becomes the center of attention, quite literally. Bees play the role of royal caterers, ensuring the queen gets her regal feast.

The queen, in return, gifts the hive a sense of security. It's like her presence is the ultimate holiday present, letting the worker bees know that all is well.

Right now, all across the country, there are hives full of honeybees celebrating their bountiful harvest and their queen. Meanwhile, beekeepers, armed with smoke canisters and bee suits, are checking to make sure each hive has more than enough honey to survive the winter.

So, while bees may not be belting out Mariah Carey’s Christmas album, they are still like us: staying close together, enjoying each other’s presence, and nomming down on some honey.