Our Philosophy

Honey is a miracle.

For most of human history, honey has been recognized as a precious substance.

A one pound jar of honey contains the sweet essence of two million flowers. A teaspoon of this magic preserves the sweetness of 20,000 blossoms; sparkling in the senses like a mouthful of stars. As long as it’s held in an airtight container, this bee-made substance will never spoil.

Honey can sit waiting to be eaten for a hundred years.

Honey varies immensely in flavor and color, depending on where the bees live, and what plants they visit in their area. Each geographic region has a unique combination of nectar giving plants. Each years’ weather causes some plants to do better than others. Every aspect of the environment has an effect on the year’s honey, so honey is different from plant to plant, region to region, and year to year.

The nothern Champlain Valley has a diverse plant profile and produces some of the best honey in the world. You just have to have the bees to capture it. It’s hard to keep bees alive through the winter here. Many beekeepers solve this problem by purchasing bees from warmer parts of the country and shipping them north before the flowers bloom in the spring.

Some Vermont beekeepers are migratory. They set out their bees across the state in June, collect nectar through the summer, then harvest their honey in the fall. After harvest, they load their bees onto trucks and ship them south to the Carolinas, Georgia or Florida to avoid Vermont’s harsh winters. While in the South, they divide and multiply their bees in the warmer climate and then ship them to different crops across the country for pollination before returning to Vermont to capture the precious summer honey crop.

We, on the other hand, are old-fashioned, stationary beekeepers. We raise our bees here and harvest the honey that our bees make here. We hate to move bees and we do everything we can to avoid doing that. During the winter, we work in the wood shop and think about how to do better next year.

We are centrally concerned with breeding bees. We pour great effort into helping to build and maintain a localized population of honey bees, adapted to our area’s unique climate and challenges. Our bees gather nectar and make honey through the summer in our locality and stay right here through the long winter. Productive colonies that are healthy and remain strong through the colder months are used as breeding stock for new colonies.

We raise all of our queen bees in mating yards in Milton, Vermont. Those queens head colonies in our yards in northern Vermont and in a few outyards that we inherited from our friend and mentor, Mike Palmer in the northern Champlain Valley of New York. All of our bees live out their lives and make honey within 25 miles of our home in Swanton, Vermont.

Bees bred in Vermont, making local Honey. We believe there’s a difference and that’s what we’re after.