Three generations · Four hundred hives
Thyme flowers for roughly three weeks, on dry stony ground that grows almost nothing else, and only hives standing among it during those weeks produce the honey that comes from it. We move ours by night to hillsides at four locations, leave them there for the flow and take them away when it ends, which is why our jars carry a place and a year instead of a brand promise. Nothing is heated, nothing is filtered beyond a coarse strainer, and every batch is pollen tested before it is sold.
About us
The apiary was started in 1974 by a grandfather with twelve hives and a small truck, in a family that had kept bees informally for far longer than anyone bothered to record. It is now run by his granddaughter with four hundred hives, the same truck route to the thyme hills, and the same working principle: the honey is made by where the bees stand, so the whole skill of the job is deciding where to put them and when to move them again.
Migratory beekeeping is unglamorous work. Hives are loaded and driven in darkness when the foragers are home, sited on ground negotiated with landowners years in advance, and inspected every ten days through the season. Thyme grows on the poorest, driest, stoniest slopes — land nobody farms and nobody sprays — which is precisely why the honey from it is clean, but it also means rough tracks, no shade, and a hive count that is limited by how many the ground can actually support.
We produce far less honey than we could. Hives are not fed sugar to inflate yields, supers are taken only when the majority of frames are capped, and enough is always left for the colony to overwinter without intervention. In a dry year the thyme barely flows and we simply have less to sell, which is the honest consequence of not blending. Customers who understand this come back every autumn and ask which hillside did well.
Advantages
Six things you can check for yourself, and one thing you have to take on trust.
Heating honey makes it pour beautifully, keeps it liquid on a shelf for a year and destroys most of what distinguishes it from syrup: the enzymes, the volatile aromatics and the delicate compounds that give thyme honey its bite at the back of the throat. Ours never goes above the temperature inside a hive. It crystallises eventually, as real honey does, and that is a sign of quality rather than a fault to be corrected with a water bath.
Anyone can print the word thyme on a label. A microscopic pollen count tells you what the bees actually visited, and an independent laboratory does one for every harvest we bottle, with the result available to any customer who asks. Batches that do not reach the threshold are sold honestly as wildflower honey at a lower price rather than being described as something they are not. That single test is the difference between a claim and a fact.
Nothing is blended. Each batch comes from one location in one season, and the label says which and when, so the honey from the exposed southern slope tastes noticeably sharper than the one from the sheltered valley and you can choose accordingly. Blending exists to make every jar taste the same regardless of weather; we would rather sell you an unusual year and tell you why it is unusual.
Thyme colonises thin, stony, waterless ground that has no agricultural use, which places our hives several kilometres from any cultivation and well outside the flight range that would bring treated crops into the honey. We map every site against surrounding land use before agreeing to it and re-check when neighbouring parcels change hands. Residue testing confirms the result, but the real protection is simply standing the hives where there is nothing to spray.
The common practice is to take everything and feed sugar syrup back. It raises the saleable yield substantially and produces weaker colonies that need more treatment the following spring. We leave enough capped stores in every hive to carry it through winter unaided, which costs us perhaps a fifth of the crop and buys healthier bees, fewer losses and honey that has never shared a super with syrup. It is the least visible thing we do and probably the most important.
In a poor year the thyme flow lasts ten days instead of twenty and there is simply less honey. We do not buy in from other producers to cover the gap, so occasionally the shop tells you the thyme is finished until next August. Regular customers order in advance for that reason. A supplier who never runs out of a seasonal single-origin product is telling you something about their supply chain that they would rather you did not think about.
Services
Honey by harvest, comb, beeswax and propolis, pollination hire, apiary visits, wholesale and gift orders.
Raw, unheated, coarsely strained thyme honey in jars of 450 and 950 grams, each labelled with the hillside and the year, and each backed by its laboratory pollen analysis. The four sites give noticeably different results, and we are happy to send a tasting set of small jars so you can decide which one you actually want before committing to a case. Available from late August until the year's crop runs out.
The hives spend the rest of the year elsewhere, so we also produce pine honey from the coastal forests in autumn, orange blossom in spring from groves where we agree no-spray windows with the growers, and a spring wildflower honey from the mountain meadows. Each is treated exactly like the thyme: single site, single season, unheated, pollen tested and sold until it is finished rather than blended to last.
Cut comb sections taken straight from the frame for people who want the wax as well as the honey, filtered beeswax in blocks for candle makers, cosmetic producers and woodworkers, and raw propolis scraped from the hives during autumn inspections. Quantities are small and seasonal because these are genuine by-products of the beekeeping rather than a separate production line, and they usually sell out within weeks.
Hives placed in orchards, melon fields and greenhouse crops for the flowering period, at densities calculated for the crop rather than for our convenience, with placement advised so the colonies actually work the whole area. We require a written agreement on spraying during the contract because a single careless application costs us a colony. Growers we work with regularly get the same hives and the same timing each year.
Small groups are taken to a working apiary in suits we provide, shown an open hive, walked through what happens across a season, and finished with a comparative tasting of every honey we currently have. It runs from May to September, lasts about two hours, and is limited to eight people because a larger group upsets the bees and nobody can see anything. Children over eight are welcome with an adult.
Restaurants, delicatessens and hotels buy by the case with the batch documentation included, which is what a serious kitchen wants to show a customer who asks. Corporate and wedding orders are packed with plain or personalised labels, and we ship across the country and abroad in packaging designed to survive couriers. Crystallised jars in transit are normal and we say so on the box rather than fielding the question later.
Contacts
Tell us roughly how much honey you get through in a year and we will suggest whether a tasting set or a case makes more sense. Wholesale enquiries should include the quantity and how you intend to present it, since batch documentation takes a little preparation.
Apiary visits must be booked ahead — we are frequently out with the hives and the yard is closed when nobody is there.
Apiary and shop36 Odos Ermou, 811 00 Mytilene, Lesvos, Greece
Phone+30 225 104 73 68
Shop hoursMonday–Friday 09:00–18:00, Saturday 09:00–15:00