Kept by hand on the headwaters of the Aucilla
Red Hills Honey is one family, one apiary, and one river. Wayne Bellamy keeps his bees in Ashville, Florida, where the Aucilla first rises out of the ground — and every jar of Aucilla River Raw Honey we sell came off those hives.
The beekeeper
Wayne Bellamy has spent his whole life in Florida. He started keeping bees the way most people around here did — a couple of hives at the edge of the yard, mostly to see what would happen — and it grew from there into something the whole family has a hand in.
It is still small on purpose. Wayne works the hives himself, pulls the frames himself, and bottles the honey himself. Nobody has ever handled your jar but us.
Where the bees live
The apiary sits at the top of the Aucilla River in Jefferson County, North Florida, where the water first rises out of the ground and the swamp and pine flatwoods still bloom the way they always have. It is not farmland. There is no monoculture within range of these hives, and that is the whole reason the honey tastes the way it does.
Our bees work gallberry, saw palmetto, tupelo and wildflower, depending on what is blooming. Gallberry and palmetto carry the late spring. Tupelo comes and goes in a narrow window along the river. By fall the wildflower sources take over and the honey darkens noticeably.
Why no two jars match
Because we do not blend. A big packer's honey is consistent because it is pooled from many places and many seasons until it averages out to the same amber every time. Ours is not pooled with anything, so it shifts through the year — lighter and more delicate in spring, deeper and more molasses-like toward fall.
If you buy from us twice in a year, you will notice. That difference is the honest signal that a jar came from one place at one time.
How it gets into the jar
Frames come off the hive, get uncapped, and go into the extractor. The honey is strained just enough to take out wax and hive debris, then bottled cold. That is the entire process.
It is never pasteurized. It is never micro-filtered. It is never cut with corn syrup, rice syrup, or another producer's honey, and it never will be. What is filtered out of commercial honey is largely the pollen and enzymes — the part worth paying for. More on what raw actually means ›
Leaving enough behind
We only sell surplus. The hives keep what they need to winter on, and in a thin year that means we bottle less rather than take more. It is the reason a size occasionally sells out here and does not at a grocery store.
Come get it in person. We meet for local pickup in Monticello and Tallahassee, at no charge — and pickup is the only way to get the glass pint and quart jars. Shipping & pickup details ›