White Dog Apiary sees seasonal uptick in sales

Beyond where Shaffer Road turns into Benjamin Hill Road in Newfield, overlooking a valley, Cathy and Mike Griggs have built their home. The sprawling yard where two yellow Labrador dogs run all day is also home to many bees and a lot of honey.

The Griggs family runs White Dog Apiary, which has been serving the honey needs of Newfield and Ithaca since Mike and Cathy got married in 1990.

During the holiday season, producing honey isn’t on the minds of the Griggses, but selling the honey takes center stage.

“Halloween, it starts to tick up, but really, Thanksgiving through Christmas [is our busy season],” Mike said. “When it gets cool, people start buying more honey. When it’s really warm out, people have less interest in honey.”

The apiary sells honey, candles and beeswax balms from the Honey Hut, a stand the family has set up at the end of their driveway.

The stand, which was built from oak taken from Mann Library on Cornell University’s campus, is unmanned. Customers pick what they want, call-ahead orders are placed on the lowest shelf, and they pay using a cash box. White Dog accepts cash, check and Venmo.

The stand started in 2020. Cathy said it was a way to keep people separate during the pandemic. The couple hasn’t had any issues with stealing and said there are in fact times when people overpay for products.

“It really is self-serve. Other than the dogs barking, we really don’t know [we made a sale] until we go out and check what we have to refill,” she said. “I think everyone got accustomed to not having to be person-to-person to get something during the pandemic, so contact-free has been wonderful.”

Cathy continued.

“In the summer, Mike is in the bee yard,” she said. “I’ve got a huge garden, so we’re always outside doing something, but it would be not as fun to have to be running out front to deal with customers. I think it’s a good reflection of the community. Being able to trust people is a good feeling.”

Mike said the stand reminds him of growing up, when there was an unmanned farm stand from the next-door farm where he worked.

“It’s part of a tradition, having the farm stand that’s unattended,” he said. “I remember as a kid I worked for the farm next to me, and they had a farm stand that didn’t even have a cash box — it was just a bucket of money.”

In addition to the Honey Hut, White Dog Apiary has a stand at Fir Farm, located at 486 Shaffer Rd.

“It’s been a steady trickle,” Cathy said. “We might only have three or four sales in a week, but that’s kind of nice. We also have places all over town that we deliver to.”

The apiary’s products can also be found at Gimme! Coffee and Ithaca Coffee Company locations throughout Tompkins County.

Honey comes in wildflower, goldenrod and black locust flavors. It comes in 2-, 8- and 12-ounce containers; 1-, 2- and 5-pound containers and a 1-gallon container.

The candles come in many shapes, including Baby Yoda and the dog that adorns the labels of the honey containers, designed by the Griggses’ niece, Kaitlyn Sampson. There are also beeswax balms that are sold from $3 to $10.

“I figure if you’re going through all the trouble to keep the bees, you might as well get as much product as you can,” Mike said.

Mike and Cathy met at Cornell in the late 1980s. Mike was working for the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) while Cathy was a student, and both were researching sponge moths.

Mike had been a member of the Peace Corps and had kept bees in northern Africa since 1985. He has since retired from the USDA but has maintained his hives.

“Bees are fascinating,” he said. “Behind humans, the second most studied-about creatures are bees, and it’s in our culture: spelling bee, busy as a bee. You see bee-related items built into our flags. They’re amazing little creatures.”

Cathy is a retired principal from the Newfield Central School District. She said the apiary started with selling a few bottles of honey to neighbors, but she knew it could be more.

“He had hives, sold a little bit of honey here and there, and [after] a couple of years, we figured we could do more with it,” she said. “We played around with names, and we’ve always had yellow labs, and that’s where we came up with the name White Dog Apiary.”

The Griggses have always had yellow labs that served as the name for their apiary. Now, customers are greeted by barks from furry friends like Myra, who is 8 years old, and Princess, who is 5 years old.

Other dogs that have been part of the apiary were Sandy, Dutchess and Emily.

Even though the holidays are their busy season, the Griggses are happy to have the business and orders coming in.

Mike said there isn’t much vacation time as a beekeeper. He can relax in January and a portion of February, but after that, he has to prepare for the summer, when he will be harvesting honey and wax.

He said the problem hasn’t been made easier by the introduction of the Varroa mite to the United States in the 1990s, which can eliminate up to 50% of the honey bee population in his hives per year.

“Beekeepers have to be alert of bees and their physiology but also the equipment,” he said. “One of the most important things in beekeeping is to anticipate what’s coming.”

Although the work is constant — building hives, keeping the bees healthy and extracting honey and other resources from the hives — Mike said he wouldn’t want to do anything else. He said the bees work hard not only to pollinate flowers, but also to produce honey that people love during the cold winter months.

He said he should be working just as hard to make sure that the honey lands in kitchens and the candles find homes all over Tompkins County.

“Each bee can bring back one-twelfth of a teaspoon of honey in the summer, so how can I pull 200 pounds off one hive?” he said. “They are busy, and the only thing busier than a bee is the beekeeper trying to keep up with them.”

People can order from the apiary by phone at (607) 227-5678 or through email at whitedogapiary@gmail.com.

Newfield Notes appears every Wednesday in Tompkins Weekly. Send story ideas to editorial@VizellaMedia.com.

In brief:

Newfield to hold tree-lighting ceremony

Newfield’s annual tree-lighting ceremony will take place Dec. 10 at the Newfield Masonic Temple.

The event starts at 5:30 p.m. There will be food, drinks, letters to Santa and tree decorating. The tree will be lit at 6:30 p.m.

The Newfield Masonic Temple is located at 186 Main St.