Meet the Co Down woman who has created a buzz around bees by sharing her life as an ethical beekeeper on TikTok.
Emma Thompson, who is originally from Moneyreagh and now lives in Ballygowan, found a new passion in beekeeping over six years ago which lead her to start her own business and never look back.
The 43-year-old began researching bees after being informed of the links between honey and skincare.
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Speaking to Belfast Live, Emma said: "I had never any real experience with bees or interest in them until around seven years ago - I had acute acne from when I was a teenager and I was investigating how I could heal my skin via my gut health.
"I discovered that raw honey was probiotic. I was only ever used imported honey and it wasn't something that I would have reached for."
She decided to order some raw honey to see if it would make a difference to her skin said she "never tasted anything like it before" and that moment ended up changing her life forever.
"I picked up my phone and started to Google about where honey came from - I actually thought it came from bumblebees that you'd see in the garden and I didn't know that honeybees were different and I kind of went down a rabbit hole.
"I became obsessed, not even just with honey, but with bees and how intelligent they are and it was almost like God had reached out to me and showed me what I was going to be doing for the rest of my life because it's just been a journey ever since.
"At that point, I looked up beekeeping in Northern Ireland and found there was an Induction to Beekeeping course and I decided that I was going to enrol," she explained.
A few months later, Emma was thriving in her new course and was even joined by her father who had recently retired and soon beekeeping became what she described as "our thing".
She continued: "I had been a hobby beekeeper for about three or four years and my spots started to come back - if you have ever suffered from acne and it clears, almost the worst thing you can think of is going back to those days when your skin is awful.
"I began to get worried so I decided to make a little balm in my kitchen and put it on my spots and within two or three days it cleared. I also made a lip butter as well and made some for my friend too because she liked those kinds of things."
After positive reactions from her friends who encouraged her to sell her products, Emma invested her time into what it takes to create cosmetics and Bee Haven Bodycare was born, selling face and skin products, body creams and her homemade soap.
Emma has become the internet's beekeeper since she started sharing her story, education and advice about bees on the video-sharing app TikTok where she has received almost 100k likes and her videos have been viewed millions of times all over the world.
Despite originally thinking, like many others, the app was "just for kids" she has found a new community through the app and enjoys sharing her content in a new exciting way.
Emma added: "Before Covid, dad and I were volunteer beekeepers for the National Trust and we used to go to some of their events and quite a lot of people had never seen a honeybee before and would have thought they were wasps - people were killing these bees because they thought they were wasps so I had done a little bit of education on Facebook and Instagram about it.
"I spent a couple of months scrolling the 'For You Page' and thought no one would be interested in my story or bees and then as I started to made videos about soap making and my life, it started to take off.
"This time last year, I was being asked to rescue bumblebee colonies from people's gardens and I took my very small TikTok at that point with me and it just grew and is now about 70 per cent of my job and it is the avenue to everything else that I do.
"It has been incredible - we've saved loads of bees and lots of wasps as well which is great. All of that education that you can do in a 60 second or three-minute video is just so important to pollinators."
Looking to the future, she hopes to continue to grow Bee Haven Bodycare while reaching wider audiences about the world of bees and wasps and their importance.
"I want to continue to grow very organically and steadily - in my previous job, I always felt like I was living somebody else's life and never really felt completely comfortable and now I know why. My career didn't really start until I discovered bees."
To find out more, see here.
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