C. Marina Marchese

C. Marina Marchese is the designer and beekeeper behind the iconic brand Red Bee Honey, and the author of Honeybee: Lessons from An Accidental Beekeeper and the co-author with Kim Flottum (editor of Bee Culture Magazine) of The Honey Connoisseur: Selecting, Tasting, and Pairing Honey. She is a Member of the Italian Register of Experts in the Sensory Analysis of Honey and founder of The American Honey Tasting Society.

During her studies at The School of Visual Arts, Marchese mastered her visionary flair for color, texture and design. Her work was featured nationally in Victoria Magazine, Macy’s, and Woman’s Wear Daily launching an international design career licensing her own designs to clothing, giftware and stationery manufacturers. In 2000, Marchese was unexpectedly invited to visit a neighbor’s apiary where her first taste of fresh honey from the beehive would change the course of her life. This moving experience inspired her to take a risk and quit her job, build a beehive, and acquire a colony of Italian honeybees to become a full-time beekeeper. It was on a visit to Montalcino, Italy, “The City of Honey”, that Marina became passionate about the diverse flavor profiles of varietal honey determined by the type of nectar gathered by the honeybees. Compelled by the philosophy of terroir, Marina studied wine tasting in order to transfer those skills to honey tasting which lead her to curate a collection of single-origin seasonal honeys launching the Red Bee Brand. Her best selling book Honeybee: Lessons from an Accidental Beekeeper chronicles her entrepreneurial journey into beekeeping. Red Bee Honey is the proud recipient of the Slow Food Snail of Approval.

Marina wrote the chapter on honey in the international best selling book Beekeeping for Dummies by her mentor and friend Howland Blackiston and has appeared in a variety of television series like ABC-TV’s “The Chew”, “On the Road with Edible Nutmeg”, and “The Splendid Table.”  Award-winning author Rowan Jacobsens wrote about Marina obsession with varietal honey in his book, American Terroir.