Our apiary, tucked away behind the vegetable garden, is home to a number of colonies of honeybees. They are tended to throughout the seasons by resident beekeeper Melanie Penn, co-founder of Bilston Creek Farm.

During the spring and early summer the honeybees are busy pollinating trees around the farm such as pear, plum, and apple, as well as blackberry bushes and of course our lavender.

Our bees make two types of honey. Lavender-Blackberry and Wildflower.

When the lavender and blackberry flowers are in bloom right here on the farm, the nectar collected results in our very special Lavender-Blackberry Honey.

After the blackberry bloom finishes we move the hives to the Sooke hills area for the summer months where fireweed is abundant, and this is where our Wildflower honey is made.

Once the honey is ready, a special tool is used to remove the wax cappings to expose the honey, and then the frames are put into an extractor (much like a centrifuge) to remove the honey from the frames. From there it is filtered and put into jars.

The wax that is gathered during this process is melted and filtered until it’s clean.

The honey and wax are used to make the products sold in the Bilston Creek Farm store. Our entire collection is made on our farm with our own lavender, apples, honey, locally foraged botanicals, and thoughtfully sourced ingredients. The products are carefully hand crafted in small batches in the farm product kitchen.