Marina is changing the way people think about honey, this designer turned beekeeper is best known as the visionary behind the beloved brand Red Bee Honey. One sunny day in April, Marina was invited to visit a neighbor’s apiary where her first taste of fresh honey from the beehive would change the course of her life. She quit her job, built a beehive and got her first colony of Italian honeybees to become a full – time beekeeper. It was on a trip to Tuscany to study wine tasting that Marina stumbled upon a honey festival in Montalcino (coincidentally called La Citta del Miele - The City of Honey) where she learned that Italy was offering courses to become a honey sommelier.  She completed the formal training and became the first US citizen to be accepted as a member of the Italian National Register of Experts in the Sensory Analysis of Honey. In 2013, she established the American Honey Tasting Society to bring the honey educational program to the US. Today, Marina is an accredited instructor for The Register.

​​

Marina's best-selling book Honeybee Lessons from an Accidental Beekeeper was optioned for TV and film. It chronicles her entrepreneurial journey into beekeeping, opening her eyes to the wonders of the natural world of honeybees.. Her second book, The Honey Connoisseur Selecting, Tasting, and Pairing Honey is now in its 2nd edition and is the definitive guide to tasting and pairing honey. Her third, Honey for Dummies was coauthored with her mentor Howland Blackiston. Marina's 4th book The World Atlas of Honey was released in 2024. Marina is a graduate of The School of Visual Arts in NYC.

​

Marchese has appeared on numerous TV shows - Dr. Oz, The Chew, ViceTV - The Untitled Action Bronson Show, On the Road with Edible Nutmeg and appeared with Emmy award winner Richard Wiese in Weekends with Yankee on PBS and most recently The Discovery Channels Moonshiner's. James Beard award winning author Rowan Jacobsen dubbed Marina the “Red Queen” owing to her obsession with varietal honey in his book, American Terroir.  C. Marina's author web site is honeysommelier.com