Honey the Way It Was Meant to Be

Honey was meant to be local and raw. Not filtered, not pasteurized. Not made in China or Australia and shipped half way across the world.

Cardinal Apiaries local raw honey is made in Stafford county Virginia, and it is the next best thing to eating honey straight from the hive. Our apiary is Certified Naturally Grown (CNG), so you can be assured that our honey is pure and our bees properly cared for.

Bees store honey in honey combs, and they build a wax capping on the combs when the honey is ready to harvest. We remove the combs from the hive, cut off the wax cappings, place the combs in a stainless steel extractor and spin them to force the honey out. The extracted honey flows through a wire mesh screen into the bottling tank. That is all the  processing we apply to the honey. We do nothing that might remove the volatile compounds that impart delicate notes to the honey’s complex flavor, or remove the natural pollen that is the hallmark of local raw honey.

Something we really enjoy is the way honey harvested at different times or in different places has different color, flavor, and aroma.

Each jar of honey encapsulates a place and a time that is unique and never to be repeated. Here in Stafford County, the honey tends to have a rich flavor and a light or medium amber color. Depending on what blooms, the honey can be quite dark, with a rich, smooth flavor. The honey pictured on this page was made by the same bees in the same location but in two different years. The difference is amazing.

Our bees make wildflower honey, which means they collect nectar from dozens of different kinds of flowers. They also collect pollen from that huge diversity of flowers, which is why people with pollen allergies like to use local raw honey.