Bees in the Know
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A bee apiary selling honey (What wine goes well with honey?) and beeswax skincare, Creek House Honey Farm was established in 2011. It was during the winter of 2010 that owners George and Paige Nester decided to order a couple of beehives to help pollinate their plants for the love of gardening.
Two hives turned into four, four turned into eight, and the rest is history! Their love for science has turned into a love for beekeeping. They opened a storefront on 4th Ave that has a retail space, commercial kitchen, and education center.
Their customers today are now enjoying the 100% pure honey that they sell. They are also offering beekeeping classes, host school groups in their classroom, and give bee tours.
The Owners
George has a doctorate in Pharmacy and Paige has a teaching certificate in art and Biology. Their beekeeping journey started from just wanting a “hobby” out of the garden and the pumpkin patch they had that they wanted to be pollinated. They got the bees without ever planning to put up a business of their own.
© Three Feather Photography
After the first 2 years of raising bees, they soon realized that local honey was rare. Their waiting list for their honey started to explode — and that’s when the couple decided that there was really a demand for local honey in Canyon. 10 years later, they’re now running the bee farm full-time along with some help from family and friends.
Beekeeping Journey
About two years in their beekeeping journey, the couple started selling their honey and some beeswax skincare products. The business really began to thrive after people started realizing how much not only the honey was helping them, but the beeswax skin care as well.
© Three Feather Photography
Lucky for them, there wasn’t really an existing competition in the market for local, pure honey and/or beeswax skincare. Word of mouth was all it took in advertising their products back in the beginning. After some time, their products were made available to their customers in 16 retail stores!
Having a name for their business and themselves, they also source other varietal honey from other beekeepers in their circle for their production.
Creek House Honey Farm Products
Honey
Creek House Honey Farm sells their own locally-produced honey. Customers may buy them in two variants, either raw or spun.
Raw honey is, of course, raw and unfiltered — which they carry along with other local honey in different Texas varieties. Spun honey is still unfiltered, pure, natural honey made by their bees with the consistency of butter or icing. By using honey's own natural crystallization process, they are able to bring a smooth, creamy, spreadable honey that's easy to use and delicious to taste.
© Three Feather Photography
Their spun honey comes in 6 flavors that you can easily spread on warm toast, bagels (how long do bagels last?), biscuits, rolls, drizzle on cake or ice cream, or use to sweeten your tea and coffee. Generally warm to soften, cool to harden. Pro tip: Vietnamese organic cinnamon added to the Cinnamon Spun Honey makes it taste like Grandma's cinnamon rolls!
Skincare and Healing Products
The couple, specifically Paige, have created their own skincare and healing products line using all-natural raw honey from their bees. Their products include lotions, soaps, anti-aging sets, bee relief, healing cream, and a lot more others. Just name what you need, they have it!
© Three Feather Photography
Beeswax Candles
The farm’s Beeswax candles are clean-burning and soot-free. These candles produce negative ions when burned. Those ions, in turn, help neutralize pollutants in the air. This helps eliminate dust, odors, and mold in the atmosphere, improve breathing for anyone nearby, and ease allergy and asthma symptoms.
© Three Feather Photography
Bestsellers
Creek House Honey Farm’s bestsellers are:
Healing Salve (for healing cuts, burns, and wounds)
Beeswax Chapstick
Healing Cream
Beeswax Lotion
Among the roster of their best selling products, they first started producing lip balm and soap. The lip balm has now evolved into a chapstick. Their first batch of soap was a nightmare! It took the couple about a year to get it right. Now with 25+ products, their products take months of trial and error because they form test groups to make sure that they work.
What to Watch Out For?
The next big thing for the farm is CBD Beeswax products! There are three different kinds of CBD honey, CBD Muscle Rub, CBD Healing Salve, CBD Healing Cream, CBD Face Serum, and a CBD/Honey Tincture. These products should be on the shelves by August.
© Three Feather Photography
The couple is also looking at expanding the farm vicinity to include an Event Classroom Center and a storage space as they do a lot of Bee Tours from hosting school field trips in the fall and spring.
Where to Get Creek House Honey Farm Products?
If you want to personally try their products, you may place your orders online on their website or better yet — visit their retail store and catch a glimpse of the farm!
The couple jokingly talked about opening another farm on their vacation in Fredericksburg. Sorry to disappoint, though, it isn’t on their actual plans yet.
© Three Feather Photography
Insider tip: They also have the Honey Buzz Winery where you can drink mead from all different parts of Texas and all over the world. George started brewing mead (honey wine) just a couple of years back. Their winery now sells honey wine, mead slushies, and cheese trays you may also want to check out!
