The Hive Box Subscription Review – March 2017

The Hive Box is a bee-friendly subscription box that partners with small businesses and artisans that work with honeybees to make their products. Honeybees are threatened due to conditions like colony collapse disorder and The Hive Box is helping to combat that by partnering with people who support local bee populations.

My Subscription Addiction paid for this box. (Check out the review process post to learn more about how we review boxes.)

This review is of the Mini, $15.95 a month, box. 

The Subscription Box: The Hive Box

The Cost: $15.95 for the “Mini” Hive Box or $24.95 for the regular-sized Hive Box. Shipping is $6.95.

The Products: Food, bath and body items, beeswax candles, and other specialty gifts with a bee-friendly theme.  And of course, lots of HONEY.

Ships to: U.S.

Check out the Food Subscription Box Directory for more great artisan food boxes and make sure to add The Hive Box to your subscription list or wishlist!

The box came with this information card detailing the items in the box.

There was also some product literature and a coupon for The Hive Box online store.

Moon Valley Organics Moon Melt Lotion Bar in Lemon Vanilla (1.9 oz) – Value $11.99

Although the first thing that comes to mind when you think “bees” is usually food or beverage-related, bee products also appear in a lot of beauty products (just look at any Korean sheet mask subscription!). This lotion bar has beeswax as the second ingredient. It smells really good and is moisturizing and the scent lasts for awhile. I think I will probably reserve this for body-only usage in the future, though, as I kind of got it all over my keyboard after using it on my hands.

Here is your obligatory Angus photo-bomb.

Mini Beeswax Votive from Zax Beeswax – Value $1.08

I’m glad to see a candle here, even if it is small. This is definitely big enough to burn for a few hours and see how I like it before purchasing any more. Beeswax is similar in price or lower than other natural material candles (like soy wax) and actually has a higher melting point than other candle materials, so it burns longer. I thought this also had a brighter, cleaner flame than some of my other candles.

Naturally Flavored Honey Straws from SusieBeeGood (8 count) – Value $2.64

The SusieBeeGood shop isn’t on a super sophisticated e-commerce platform (those take a lot of money that independent producers may not have) but you can order all sorts of products if you contact the owner (click the link above to go to her site). Susie Bee Good is located outside Provo, Utah. These honey straws are in various flavors including blackberry, lemon, watermelon, clover, and cinnamon). I tried one of the ones that is almost certainly blackberry this morning and it had a nice, light flavor that I really enjoyed. These are on my desk at work for future consumption since I drink more tea while in the office.

Raw Lavender Infused Honey from Bee2Bee Honey (100 g) – Value $6 (buy a 10 oz. jar for $12 on Bee2Bee Honey)

Bee2Bee Honey is a backyard beekeeping service and collective located in the Houston, Texas area. I also had some of this honey in tea this morning (I sit and drink like 6 or 7 cups of tea at my desk). It has a pretty strong flavor of just honey but the lavender note is also evident.

Note: If you are worried about getting too much honey with this subscription, the Hive Box added me to an email list when I signed up that periodically sends out suggestions for how to use honey (aside from just tea, which is what I did this month so I could really sort out and experience the flavors). There are definitely some ideas in there I haven’t tried. (One thing I like to do is take some berries or cherries – frozen are fine – and dry heat them in a skillet with a drizzle of honey, then cook them down until the water released from the fruit is reduced in volume. This makes a nice addition to homemade yogurt, can be poured over cheesecake, can replace syrup on pancakes, etc.)

Verdict: I calculated a value of $21.71 for the March The Hive Box Mini. That is just around a dollar under the cost of the box plus shipping. Honestly, I feel that it is a pretty good value for a box of this type. Some of the producers featured in this box are really, really small and local and they never would have been on my radar any other way. Plus, if you ordered from each of them individually, you’d have to pay four separate shipping charges. I also like that a variety of products are offered – it’s not all straight honey, but rather a mix of item types, so you don’t end up with too much of any one item type.

What do you think of the March 2017 The Hive Box Mini? Do you have a non-food use for honey?