Dressed in a white protective suit from head to toe, Jeff Edwards smokes the beehive to calm the bees before his wife, Theresa Edwards, opens it up to check on the honey. “All the honeybees that you see out on all the flowers are female,” she explains. These are called workers, and they collect pollen and nectar from the flowers. The drones, which are male, are responsible for mating with the queen, and if the males don't mate, the other bees will either kill or starve them to death, she says. “When I see a little honeybee out there on a flower, I say, ‘You go, girl!’” Theresa says.
The couple hadn’t planned on keeping bees when they moved to College Station in 2011. But after acquiring eight additional acres of land in their backyard that was previously owned by a beekeeper, Jeff suggested they start beekeeping themselves. “I wasn’t a big fan at first,” Theresa says. “I don’t like things flying around my head.” Now she is the primary beekeeper, she says. “My bees love me,” she says. “When you're working around bees, you have to go slow, methodical, and be kind of gentle.”
HoneyPotDoc began in 2018 with a couple hives, then, as the Edwards settled into it, they began to increase the number of their hives and now have 11. “Then we started getting all the honey, and wondered, What do we do now?” Theresa says. They had so much honey, they didn’t know what to do
with it. “That's when we started going to The Stella at The Local. Then we just gathered a reputation from repeat customers.” Now, HoneyPotDoc will still sell at The Local on occasion; however, they more often offer pickups from their home.
Jeff, a licensed veterinarian and the chief of anatomic pathology at Antech Diagnostics, cares for the bees when they are sick. “I treat them for bacterial diseases, especially, that require antibiotics or antifungals," Jeff says, which requires a license. “The USDA passed that law because of the concern of beekeepers and private beekeepers using antibiotics without any guidance,” Jeff says. “He’s the brains and I’m the brawn,” Theresa says.
HoneyPotDoc honey is 100% unprocessed. “We don't add anything to it, it's just pure,” Theresa says. The bees feed from the flowers around the Edwards’ home and surrounding area, creating a somewhat dark honey that is sweet to the taste. “I call it the color of College Station,” since bees will go wherever they want to go, she says. “They can fly anywhere from a mile-and-a-half to 3 miles but prefer to stay local because it takes a lot of energy.” she says. “But that's what their job is.” But they always come back
home, she says.
Because the pollen is local, the honey contains many benefits specific to Bryan College Station residents, including helping to alleviate allergies and first-aid treatment for burns and cuts. It is also a great alternative to raw sugars, Teresa says. “It really can be used for everything,” Theresa says. “A lot of people swear by it.” She adds, “And it’s just tasty.”
HoneyPotDoc.com.
