A family orchard and apiary in the mountains of southwest Virginia, where wildflower honey, handcrafted beeswax candles, lip balm and lotion bars, and heirloom apples are tended with care.
Honey Tree Orchard & Apiary
I The Orchard
Varieties you won’t find in grocery aisles
We grow and graft heirloom apple varieties: many are cider apples, others rare dessert or cooking apples. Each tree is propagated by hand, so the legacy of these time-tested fruits lives on.
Every living tree carries a permanent embossed aluminum identity tag, and we keep a written record of each one.
greenhouse grafts of 95 more varieties, to be planted April 2027
196
varieties in our apple collection, counting spring 2027 grafting
Tree counts as of September 30, 2026.
II The Living Museum
A quiet archive of rare apples
Historic apple cultivars are kept alive by grafting, not by seed. Cider apples from the English West Country, old American favorites, and Southern Appalachian treasures like Black Limbertwig, each with a story.
“A name on a nursery tag is a claim of identity; a tree in the ground is a claim of survival.”
III The Apiary
Honey from hives that live among the trees
From spring’s first tulip poplar to autumn’s final blooms, our bees gather from the wildflowers of the Appalachian Mountains. We offer our honey raw, strained to remove bee parts and wax.
From the same hives come the beeswax for our hand-rolled taper candles, lip balm, and lotion bars, made here in small batches.
The Queen Bee Isn't the Boss: How a Hive Really Decides
The queen lays the eggs, but she does not give the orders. Her scent holds the hive together, the workers raise her replacement, and when a swarm needs a new home, scouts argue it out in waggle dances and the hive votes. A pilgrim goose explains.
Animation and narration are AI-generated. Sources are in the video description.
How Honey Bees Find Their Way: Sun, Sky, Clocks and Dances
Bees have no map, no phone and a brain smaller than a sesame seed, yet they find their way home. The sun is their compass, a patch of blue sky helps, an internal clock corrects for the sun's movement, and the waggle dance tells sisters where to go. A pilgrim goose explains.
Animation and narration are AI-generated. Sources are in the video description.
A worker honey bee changes jobs as she ages: cleaner, nurse, builder, guard, forager and more. A pilgrim goose tours the roles, and explains why the workers push the drones out of the hive in autumn, when nectar runs short and winter stores must last.
Animation and narration are AI-generated. Sources are in the video description.
