Besides the pain and subsequent swelling and itchiness, a single bee sting is not a problem for people who are not allergic to bee venom. Honey bees might sting, usually in defense of their nest or when stepped on. Beeswax is used in candles and other household and industrial uses. Commercial beekeepers place apiaries within farmland and orchards to pollinate crops and produce honey for sale. Bees are required by many plants to produce fruits and seeds. Jeweler Erickson Beamon crafted a pearl and crystal chandelier in the store’s most striking room.Honey bees ( Apis mellifera) are beneficial as pollinators of plants in nature, your garden, and on farms.

Adobe-style cream-colored walls and brick-hued paved flooring are accented by a curving wrought iron balcony and staircase railing. The store has four room-like spaces that open up into one another. Next to this is a section dedicated to floor-length gowns from designers such as Jenny Packham and Dina Bar-El. A small loft area hosts stacks of bejeweled $1,000 Great China Wall hoodie sweatshirts and punky looks from Cosa Nostra. While ladylike looks from Robert Rodriguez and Paul Smith embody the new store’s mission, vestiges of Honeycomb remain. Blue Bee Men features designer men’s apparel. Blue Bee Shoes has designer and contemporary footwear and bags priced from the $200s to around $3,000 from companies including Sigerson Morrison and Michael Kors.īlue Bee Kids specializes in mini-me premium denim and sportswear looks from True Religion and Seven For All Mankind, among others. In addition, there is the original Blue Bee, which stocks contemporary women’s apparel from companies such as Da-Nang and James Perse with prices from $40 to $500. Prices at the jeans store range from $38 for C&C California tank tops to about $1,000 for specialty denim. for Blue Bee.” And Diesel is staging an event Saturday at the Blue Bee Jeans unit and the men’s casual-luxe Blue Beetle store. is in the final stages of collaborating on a boot-cut jean that will have an embroidered tag reading “Frankie B. “They have supported our brand since they beginning,” said Pepper Foster, co-founder of denim brand Chip & Pepper.įrankie B. Its clout has been solidified through its product collaborations with companies such as Paige Premium Denim and AG Adriano Goldschmied. The same showroom rep now has their picture on her bulletin board.īlue Bee’s sweet spot is “the woman in her 40s with some money who wants to look good,” Bebout said, adding that both he and Doucette have begun giving their cell phone numbers to loyal clients, taking the idea of personalized service to a new level.īlue Bee Jeans, the most lucrative of the seven boutiques, opened in 2002 and established the company as a preeminent West Coast denim retailer. They returned the next day with a printed, spiral-bound booklet that detailed their intentions for the store. “Then a rep said, ‘We write with Wendy Foster.'” “We said we were opening a shop in Santa Barbara, and everyone in this certain showroom stopped what they were doing and just stared,” Bebout said. The retailers recalled being received with some skepticism when they attended the Los Angeles contemporary market for the first time in 2000. Prices range from $40 for T-shirts to around $6,000 for intricate, hand-beaded gowns. The outpost stocks brands exclusive to Santa Barbara, including Moschino Cheap & Chic and Chaiken.

The pair’s latest unit, Blue Bee Luxury, opened last month when they converted their 5,000-square-foot Honeycomb store, which sold pricy, rock ‘n’ roll-inspired casual looks for women. Doucette had been a federal inspector of medical equipment. They launched the first store with $125,000, “but we charged all the clothes on credit cards,” said Bebout, who worked as a sales representative for a T-shirt company. The pair met in Los Angeles, and “decided to escape to where we really wanted to live,” Bebout said. Each specializes in a category of apparel or accessories. Blue Bee has gone from apparel retail concept to trailblazer in seven years.Ĭo-founders Marty Bebout and John Doucette have grown the business to seven boutiques and a warehouse in Santa Barbara’s shopping district - a total of 19,000 square feet - selling items from premium denim to contemporary and designer apparel and accessories for women, children and men.īebout and Doucette launched the Blue Bee-branded shops on a block and a half of State Street, the city’s main concourse.

Blue bee santa barbara