Apiary celebrates first year of success in new home

The Honeybee Embassy, located at 4061 Swamp College Rd. in Trumansburg, is celebrating its first year in its new location and enjoying sweet success.

In 2019, husband-and-wife owners Brent Welch and Teresa Vanek decided to fully transition Bright Raven Farm from fruits and vegetables to a full-time apiary.

“We had been working with a minimal apiary for roughly 20 years as a side to our vegetable and fruit farm on our property prior to this,” Vanek said. “We decided in 2020 to go in whole hog, so to speak, with the bees and dropped all of the veggies and fruits. We realized that as time went on, we became more and more fascinated and involved with the bees and that they would be a more viable option for sustainability.”

Vanek said that for a while, she and her husband sold fruits and vegetables at farmers markets, along with a small amount of honey.

“It became evident after a while that honey was a better option moving forward because the climate and different seasons would not affect the honey very much, as it is one of the few foods that is almost completely nonperishable,” she said. “We found that we ended up talking to a lot of people about bees and honey. We found that there was a lot of interest, and it started to stand out how much consumer education we were providing. The decision to commit our land fully to an apiary was driven by customers.”

The fascination with bees was born of a multi-generation love of beekeeping and honey processing.

Vanek’s grandmother became a beekeeper in Czechoslovakia when that country was under the Nazi regime. She realized honey was something that she could trade on the black market. After she eventually escaped to Switzerland, she continued to keep bees and harvest honey.

“When I was a kid, I would visit her,” Vanek said. “She would give me lit cigarettes to walk around the bees and the hives because it calms them. I became fascinated with bees then. They were interesting, and it was fun.”

Vanek added with a laugh, “I remember my mom was always alarmed to see me walking around with cigarettes!”

Vanek’s dad, however, loves bees.

“He was a Cornell professor and lived in an apartment and couldn’t have them,” she said. “When we got our property and were deciding what to do with it, he was insistent that we had to have bees in some capacity.”

When the decision was made to transition the property solely to an apiary business, Vanek and Welch set about designing the unique and eclectic structure that would house their endeavor. They chose to enlist notable Trumansburg designer Jonathan Ferrari from Studio Ferrari Architecture to help build a structure that was not only functional but eye-catching as well.

Built out of a variety of unfinished wood boards with a honeycomb design entrance, the structure allows for open air flow and natural light to easily access the areas inside. Inside, you will find a gift shop and a kitchen, which is closed to the public and used to process and package items for in-house and online retail sales.

The Honeybee Embassy offers something for everyone. Five micro-harvested cold processed honeys are produced each year, with differences in taste that come from a variety of nectar sources. In addition to the honey selection, the shop also offers infused honeys and a large variety of honey-sweetened green, black and herbal teas.

This year has seen the addition of minimally processed gourmet snack bars and pastries featuring some of the ingredients sourced from their apiary, such as their honey version of Halva, Honey Peanut Butter Cups and Ginger Date Pastries.

“We have been offering semi-private honey, tea and pastry tastings as well as smaller public walk-in honey tastings and snack sampling on the weekends,” Vanek said. “With the pandemic concerns, we have found that our foot traffic has stayed strong and consistent because of the open-air design of the building and the open spaces of the property. It just seems to make people feel more comfortable continuing to come out.”

With the fast-approaching new year, Vanek and Welch are looking forward to sharing their products and their love of bees with more people.

“We’re very close to Taughannock Falls, Black Diamond Trails and the [Finger Lakes] National Forest,” Vanek said. “As the seasons change and more people come out to sightsee, explore and hike, we are hoping they make their way here to enjoy some hot tea or a snack. We already meet a lot of new people that stop in because they’re fascinated by the building. We very much look forward to meeting more.”

Hours of operation and upcoming events can be found at the apiary website at brightravenfarm.com and on its Facebook page at Bright Raven Farm and Apiary.

Trumansburg Connection appears every week in Tompkins Weekly. Send story ideas to editorial@vizellamedia.com.