The couple that harvests the honey sold at the Forest Preserve’s Hidden Lakes Trout Farm met in an unusual spot.

Pete Soltesz was attempting to move a beehive off a roof at a home where Kim Kulton was visiting. 

“He was three stories up,” Kulton said. “The bees had made their home in a cedar shake roof. I went up to the third story and kind of threw open the window and there’s Pete. And I ended up just getting out on the scaffolding and helping him remove the bees, and I’ve been doing it ever since.”

Kulton, who is the founder and president of Bee All About It, and Soltesz, who is president of the Cook-DuPage Beekeeping Association, also work together at Illinois Bee Rescue. They will move honeybees, bumble bees and carpenter bees for customers who call for help. And they will sometimes assist with wasps and hornets. 

Next year, when extensive remodeling is completed at the Forest Preserve’s Hidden Oaks Nature Center in Bolingbrook, the Villa Park couple will resume selling honey and honey-related skin care products at the visitor center. 

But for now, the honey is only available at the nearby Tackle Box bait shop at Hidden Lakes. Each honey variety sold by Bee All About It has an enticing description so customers know what kind of nectar the bees were sipping prior to producing the product. Here are some of the seasonal varieties:

• Wildflower: The ‘go-to’ honey for people with allergies.
• Buckwheat: The ‘Guinness beer’ of the honey world. 
• Tulip Poplar: Thought to be medicinal. 
• Pumpkin: A favorite of area chefs. 
• Black Locust: Lowest glycemic index of all honey. 
• Clover: Rich in antioxidant and anti-inflammatory compounds. 
• Linden: Has hints of balsam and menthol with minty, hay or light woody notes. 
• Comb Honey: 100% edible, wax, honey, pollen and all … the way nature intends. 

The bait shop sells 16 ounce jars of the honey. 

“We can’t keep it on the shelves for many reasons,” said Angie Trobaugh, facility supervisor at Hidden Oaks Preserve. “It’s local so it provides many ‘sweet’ benefits.”

Trobaugh said when the Forest Preserve bought the Hidden Oaks site in 2022, she knew she wanted to keep the Bee All About It honey in the mix. 

“We love the varieties of honey,” she said. "It’s really an amazing thing. The bees are actually taking ingredients from nature and making honey. If you change the ingredients, you change the honey and its properties. Some is robust and rich, some has a low glycemic index for people with diabetes, some has more minerals and nutrients for when you are sick, some coats your throat better for a cough, and the list goes on and on.” 

All the bees, wax and nectar are synthetic free and chemical free. 

“We avoid having to use chemicals to fight hive viruses and mites by selecting very strong queens,” according to the company’s honey descriptions. “And (we’re) structuring her activities such that she challenges her bees to be as productive and healthy as possible.” 

Mom knew best

Unlike Kulton, who is an entomologist and has loved insects since her childhood, Soltesz had to be pushed into the profession.

“My mom was crazy about bees,” he said. “She would drag me kicking and screaming to inspect the beehive with her. Of course, I would have rather been doing anything but that.” 

As an adult, he joined the Navy and was an officer on a submarine and then he went into finance. But his mom visited him decades later and saw his garden and told him he needed bees to germinate his produce. She even signed him up for a beekeeping class for his birthday shortly before she died, so he felt obligated to go to the class. 

He loved the class and won a hive that the instructors were giving away. After that, he started acquiring more and more hives which set him on a path toward bees – and Kulton, who he met on that roof in 2013. 

Kulton originally specialized in mosquitoes in her career, but she now prefers honeybees. When she inspects a hive, she can hear the special "piping" sound the queen makes if there is another queen in the hive or the "roar" the workers make if something is wrong with the hive. She tastes the sweet honey and the earthy, nutty pollen and she feels the bees nestled in the wooden frame and knows those with a golf ball shape are the drones. 

“When I’m working with my bees, it’s so relaxing,” she said. “As people, we rely so much on vision. When you’re in the beehive, you can use all your senses.” 

Bee All About It has 15 apiaries in the Chicagoland area where the honey is produced. Honeybees visit flowers and soak up nectar and pollen and bring it – and the natural flavors – back to the hive. Some pollinate cranberries, blueberries, citrus fruits or pumpkins.

The bees use their wings to fan off moisture until the mixture is less than 18 percent water, and then they cap it off with wax. 

Kulton and Soltesz use a butter knife to remove the wax and they use an extractor to spin the honey out of the board and then they run it through a steel strainer and bottle it. 

“It’s all raw and natural,” Kulton said. “And it's unfiltered, so it’s more nutritious because of the enzymes and pollens."

Plant a patch for pollinators 

And while Kulton said she loves the honeybees that are the backbone of her business, there are many other pollinators living out in the wild that need native plants to survive. 

Unfortunately, there is less and less native landscape available for pollinators, so she urges everyone she meets at the farmers markets, workshops and county fairs she attends to plant native species.

“It can be a postage-stamp-size plot,” she said. “Just plant something. Any little bit helps.”