When I was in Manila last June, we went to an awesome honeybee farm in Silang, just outside Manila, on the way to Tagaytay: Ilog Maria.

It’s a quaint little place, it’s a honeybee farm! Hehe. But upon closer inspection, we found that it is more than just quaint, it strives to be eco-friendly and sustainable.

We saw solar panels installed.

According to these posters, they also make their own biodiesel for their trucks, and they have a windmill water pump.

And indeed their story of conservation and energy saving can be found on their website.

We produce our own water and distribute/irrigate without using electricity and without depleting our aquifer. We produce our own electricity from the sun and wind, eliminating about 80% of our Meralco bill.

 

We are already sufficient in biodiesel. Our gasoline fed cars emit a lot less pollutants from LPG. We have harnessed the sun and wood from our mini-forest to heat our water.

Cool right? Definitely something to inspire our local farmers.

Their bees are everywhere!

And for some reason, the also have turkey lurkeys happilly running around the farm haha.

And by happy I mean HAPPY!!!!

Must be mating season. -_____-”

But my favourite part of the bee farm is the shop! It’s so awesome!

Selling soaps, and products made from honey such as soap, shampoos, and all that! We wanted to buy the Ilog Maria honey but apparently that was sold out and backordered for the next 6 months. Wah! So laku!

Massage oils.

I bought a whole bunch of soaps.

I’ve been using them for the past few weeks. I’ve just finished Lavender Honey, so I’m now using Kalamansi Ginger.

It’s very mild and not drying at all. ❤ Best of all, it smells AMAZING! Love love!

Back in Brunei, I wish we have places here like Ilog Maria that uses simple local ingredients to produce amazing things! It’s like Lush, but much less expensive!

I’ve discovered that though we don’t have a honeybee farm, we do however have an awesome Virgin Coconut Oil producer in Tanjong Maya. They produce the coconut oil through cold pressing, and the product is pure and undiluted. I’ve been using it on my hair and well, I always get compliments hehe.

But so far, they only produce the oil. I wonder if they will be making oil products such as soap, cosmetics, body butters in the future?

I love companies that are ethically responsible, whether it be from their environmentally sustainable practices such as Lush (no packaging, natural ingredients), or anti cruelty policies such as The Body Shop (no animal testing). I’d rather spend a few more dollars (even from back then when I don’t have many dollars to spend) as I feel I get my money’s worth when what I use is not so harmful to other things on the planet.

As much as possible I try to eat and use organic products, and as much as possible I eat and use local produce. I always think that since I travel more than an “average jane” I need to offset my carbon footprint by doing all this. Also I find organic produce are fresher (without chemicals/pesticide, the don’t stay fresh very long) and results in better food!

I’m also quite lucky that my family are avid farmers, so we also get to eat our own produce once in a while, and I was raised knowing the value of cooking everything from scratch so I know where every single ingredient in my food is from.

So yes, lets all try to live responsibly, while we are still here. And, stay away from straws!