First lady Melania Trump is keeping herself busy by tending to beehives on the White House’s South Lawn.
Melania’s new project will add two new bee colonies to the two existing colonies. The honey from the bees will be used at the White House and also donated to local food kitchens, according to the White House’s announcement.
“Hand-crafted by a local artisan in the image of the White House, the beautiful, new hive will add two new bee colonies to the existing two colonies that already produce the signature White House honey,” the first lady’s office wrote in a statement.
The White House beekeeping program was officially launched in 2009 under the Obama administration, but the White House carpenter at the time had begun beekeeping as a hobby several years earlier. Melania’s video made no mention of the Obama White House’s involvement in jumpstarting the project.
Melania’s new hive will increase the White House bees’ honey production by 30 pounds a year, on top of the 200 pounds they already produce, the White House said.
One of the new beehives is modeled after the White House.
The first lady’s new hobby comes just weeks after her unexpected, bombshell statement before reporters at the White House, in which she denied having a relationship with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.
“I was never involved in any capacity—I was not a participant, was never on Epstein’s plane, and never visited his private island,” she said.
“I have never been legally accused or convicted of a crime in connection with Epstein’s sex trafficking, abuse of minors, and other repulsive behavior,” she continued. “The false smears about me from mean-spirited and politically motivated individuals and entities looking to cause damage to my good name to gain financially and climb politically must stop.”
The first lady also said she “never had a relationship with Epstein or his accomplice, [Ghislaine] Maxwell,” who is serving time in prison for her own sex crimes connected to Epstein.
That statement comes despite emails being released between Melania and Maxwell in which the first lady signed off “love, Melania” and Maxwell calls her “sweet pea.”
Her surprise statement reportedly came as a shock to White House staffers and even to her own husband, President Donald Trump, who shared a decades-long friendship with the late sex offender before the two had a falling out sometime in the 2000s.
The first lady’s comments were especially shocking as the Trump White House has tried to distance itself from the matter.
Trump has repeatedly insisted that the Epstein files are a made-up “Democrat hoax” and has instructed his MAGA base to stop focusing on the scandal.
