Bienen-freunde

Bienen-freunde is an organic beekeeping business in Konstanz, Germany, on the shore of Lake Constance. Werner Früh and Florian Armbruster founded it in 2018 [1]. It is above all a producer of Bioland-certified honey, but it also hand-makes two small beeswax balms from the wax of its own hives: Lippenglück, a lip balm, and Handschmeichler, a balm for hands and feet.

The cosmetics are a sideline to the beekeeping rather than a separate line of business. Both balms are mixed in the company's own workshop in Konstanz and are sold mainly through pharmacies, health-food shops and perfumeries in southern Germany, as well as through the company's online shop. The business is active, and in 2026 it announced that year's honey harvest.

The name is German for "bee friends", and the company itself writes it in lower case. According to its own account, the founders are both natives of Konstanz and longtime friends who liked being outdoors and enjoyed working with bees. They decided to turn that hobby into a second occupation.

In 2018 Früh and Armbruster opened their Bioland beekeeping operation in the Neuwerk, a cooperatively run workspace in Konstanz. The company describes it as a pleasant place to work, with time split between the hives outdoors and the workshop indoors. Visitors are welcome by appointment.

Honey came first, and it remains the core of the business. Over time the founders added other bee products, which the company's shop now lists alongside the honey: beeswax food wraps, propolis, Bioland beeswax and a honey spirit. The spirit was the subject of a blog post at the end of 2020, which described it as distilled together with Martin Sammet, a farmer in Hößlinsülz [3].

Cosmetics arrived in 2022. In a blog post dated 30 June 2022, the company introduced Lippenglück as its "new creation" [4]. It explained that it had spent the winter experimenting with recipes for a balm against the chapped lips that come with the dry, cold air of autumn, and that it makes the balm by hand in its own apiary workshop.

The same summer the business opened itself to visitors in a more organised way. In cooperation with the city's tourism office, it began offering guided tours of one of its bee stands in Konstanz's Musikerviertel, as part of a programme called "Konstanz NATÜRlich erleben". A short film about the business followed in July 2022.

In February 2023 a second balm joined the first. Handschmeichler, described by the company as a rich balm for hands and feet, was announced together with the news that both balms were now on the counters of the Gradmann 1864 perfumery chain [5]. That post remains the most recent entry on the company's blog.

Bienen-freunde is a small, partner-owned business. It is organised as a civil-law partnership (GbR), and no parent company, outside investor or acquisition is documented.

The partnership changed in 2025, when Petra Müssig joined as a new partner [1]. The company's legal notice now names the business as a partnership of Werner Früh and Petra Müssig [6], and the welcome text on its homepage is signed by the same two people. Co-founder Florian Armbruster is no longer named as a partner. The company has not said publicly when or why he stepped back.

The company says its priority is natural, species-appropriate beekeeping. It keeps Buckfast bees, a cross between the European and the Italian honeybee whose ancestors were bred by the German monk Brother Adam at Buckfast Abbey in England. According to the company, one aim of that breeding was a calm colony with little urge to swarm. The bees live in wooden Dadant hives.

Bienen-freunde puts particular weight on where its hives stand. It looks for regional, natural surroundings free of pesticides, and its colonies are placed in the Mindelsee nature reserve, in Allmannsdorf/Staad, in Litzelstetten overlooking the island of Mainau, above the Marienschlucht gorge and in the Reichenau-Waldsiedlung.

Honey is harvested twice a year. The spring honey comes from early blossoms such as dandelion, cherry, apple and rapeseed, and is stirred until creamy. The summer honey, from meadows, blackberry, lime trees, gardens and nature reserves, has a stronger taste. The company does not heat its honey, so it may crystallise over time, and it frames each jar as a small contribution to the region's biodiversity.

The apiary and its honey are certified under the EU organic regulation, the Bioland guidelines and the Bio Baden-Württemberg label [1], with DE-ÖKO-006 named as the inspection body [6]. These certifications cover the beekeeping and the honey. The oils in the balms are described as organic-certified, but no cosmetics-specific natural or organic certification, such as COSMOS or NATRUE, is documented for the balms themselves. The business is also a member of the Bioland association and of Gutes vom See, a regional network whose stated aim is to preserve the Lake Constance region and develop it sustainably.

Lippenglück comes in a 7 g aluminium tin, 36 mm across and 12 mm high, sized to fit a pocket. The company says it softens the lips and gives them a silky sheen, and that it can also be dabbed on other dry patches of skin. Its descriptions of the formula do not fully agree. The product page and the 2022 launch post both describe a balm of four ingredients: the company's own Bioland beeswax with organic olive oil, lavender oil and St John's wort oil. Yet the same product page lists an organic propolis extract from the Allgäu in its ingredient line, and its INCI list (the standardised cosmetic ingredient declaration) adds propolis extract and alcohol [2]. The Gradmann 1864 listing repeats the four-ingredient description [8]. The company has not explained the difference.

The pack size differs between sources too. The company gives 7 g [2], while the Gradmann 1864 listing describes a 10 ml screw-lid aluminium tin of the same dimensions and, on the same page, a content of 7 grams [8].

Handschmeichler is the larger of the two, in a 30 g aluminium tin, 51 mm across and 19 mm high. The company suggests keeping it on the bedside table for an evening foot routine, saying it protects against dry skin and cracks. Its listed ingredients are organic olive oil, lavender oil, calendula oil, blue chamomile oil and propolis from the Allgäu, set in the company's own beeswax. The current INCI list also names rosemary leaf extract and sunflower seed oil, which the 2023 announcement did not mention.

Propolis plays a prominent role in how the company presents the hand balm. It writes that propolis was already used in ancient Egypt, that it is still used in natural medicine, and that it acts against bacteria, among other things [2]. No clinical testing is cited for these statements.

The company describes both balms as free of preservatives. Each is registered with the EU's Cosmetic Products Notification Portal (CPNP), under reference numbers 5260031 for Lippenglück and 5260059 for Handschmeichler.

Bienen-freunde is active. In 2026 its homepage announced that the spring and summer honey harvest had been brought in and bottled in 200 g and 400 g jars, together with a notice on when orders would be dispatched. The online shop is running and the posted organic certificates are dated 2025, although the blog has not been updated since February 2023.

Distribution is concentrated in Germany. The honey is sold through local outlets around Lake Constance [7] and through the company's own shop. The balms are stocked by Gradmann 1864 perfumery branches and its online shop, by pharmacies, health-food and zero-waste shops in and around Konstanz, and by a number of other perfumeries in southern Germany.