Hello! We’re Ed & Mary Kosenski. Our joint beekeeping experience began in 1997. We had seen the Peter Fonda move, Ulee’s Gold, shortly after our move to Tinton Falls – it is about a beekeeper in Florida who pulls his troubled family back together while in the middle of collecting tupelo honey from his bee hives. The day after viewing the movie Ed called me to say we would be picking up our first beehive from a beekeeper in Vineland, NJ. Since that first hive we have grown to 120 hives. For the past nine years we have been working towards developing a stronger honeybee using natural methods and by breeding Russian and Carniolan honeybee queens!
We offer a Jersey Fresh Spring Wildflower Honey, a Jersey Fresh Summer Wildflower Honey and a Jersey Fresh Fall Wildflower Honey called Red Bank Raw. We also offer Cranberry, Blueberry and Dutch Clover Jersey Fresh varietal Honeys. And since we are always listening to our customers we now carry Buckwheat, Tupelo, Orange Blossom Honeys and Creamed Honey spreads. In addition we now offer Honey Hex Jars which are perfect for DIY Wedding Favors. As an option, we can create unique and personalized labels for that “special day”. We are licensed from the New Jersey Department of Agriculture to use the Jersey Fresh logo on our New Jersey products.
Mary comes from an agricultural family; her father was a sideline beekeeper in Maryland and Georgia. Early in her career, while working at the Beltsville Agriculture Research Center in Maryland, Mary kept and worked with bees. Mary also runs the beeswax side of our business – creating beeswax wedding favors, formal beeswax candles, beeswax figurine candles, beeswax plaques, beeswax hand creams and beeswax lip balms.
We are active members of the New Jersey Beekeepers Association (NJBA), the Central Jersey Beekeepers Association (CJBA), the American Honey Producers Association (AHPA), and the National Honey Board (NHB). In addition we give educational talks and presentations at schools, associations and county fairs.
