Spun cold
Frames come off the ridge and into the shed the same morning. We spin them at cellar temperature, never warm. Heat makes honey pour fast and lose the smell of its own flowers; we trade the speed for the smell.
Nine hives. One ridge. No blending.
Honey that tastes like one hillside.
We keep bees on a single south-facing ridge above the Lamoille valley and pour what they make, one season at a time — unfiltered, unblended, never warmed past the temperature of the hive.
Lot No. 14 · poured 4–5 September · 312 jars
A ridge, and what grows on it.
Everything in a jar of Hollowback honey was within a bee’s morning flight of the same nine hives. That is the whole idea, and it is also the whole limit.
The hives sit at the top of an old sheep pasture that runs down toward the Lamoille. From May the bees work the wild raspberry and the clover that took the field back; by July they are up in the basswood; in the cool weeks before frost they bring in goldenrod and aster, dark and a little wild on the tongue.
We do not move the hives to follow a crop, and we do not buy honey from anyone else to stretch a season. So a poor June is a smaller June, and the summer lot says so. We would rather sell less and have it be honestly from here.
The honey is spun cold, strained once through cloth to take out the wax, and poured by hand the same week. Nothing is heated to make it pour faster or filtered bright to make it sit longer on a shelf. It will cloud and set in the cold — that is honey doing what raw honey does. Warm the jar in a bowl of tap-hot water and it comes back clear.
- Hives
- 9
- Elevation
- 1,180 ft
- Forage
- Wild
- Pour
- By hand
All on one ridge, all overwintered in place.
South-facing, above the valley frost line.
Raspberry, clover, basswood, goldenrod, aster.
Cold-spun, strained once, jarred the same week.
This season’s lot
Four pours from the 2026 season, each from one stretch of the bloom. When a pour is gone it is gone until the same flowers come round again next year.
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Lot 14-A · late May
Raspberry & Clover
The first and palest pour. Light, almost floral, the taste of the field coming back after the sheep. Sets soft and white in the cold.
$16 / 12 oz
Reserve14 jars left
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Lot 14-B · early July
Basswood
Our shortest bloom and the one we wait for. Cool and green-edged, a little minty, with the smell of the linden flower still in it. Stays liquid longest.
$19 / 12 oz
ReserveSold out for 2026
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Lot 14-C · high summer
Ridge Summer
Everything blooming at once — the household jar. Round and even, equal parts clover and wildflower. The one we put on toast and never label fussily.
$15 / 12 oz
ReserveIn the pantry now
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Lot 14-D · before frost
Goldenrod & Aster
The last and darkest pour, brought in cool. Malty, almost smoky, with the bite the goldenrod leaves behind. For cheese, dark bread, strong tea.
$17 / 12 oz
ReserveIn the pantry now
Every jar carries its lot letter and pour date. Shipped in straw, padded by hand; flat-rate within New England, at cost beyond it.
How a jar is filled
Four steps, and not one of them is in a hurry. The whole point of small-batch is that no part of it scales.
Strained once
One pass through a square of cloth takes out the wax and a stray bit of comb. That is all. We don’t fine it bright or push it through paper — the pollen and the cloud are the honey, not a flaw in it.
Settled a week
The strained honey rests in a covered tank for several days so the last air and froth rise on their own. No pump, no pressure, nothing forced. It clears the way a pond clears after rain.
Poured by hand
We fill, weigh, and cap each jar one at a time, write the lot and the date on the label, and pack it in straw. A good day is a few hundred jars — and then that pour is closed.
Keep a jar standing.
A standing jar is the simplest way we know to sell honey: tell us your address once, and one jar of whatever we’re pouring arrives at the turn of each season — four jars a year, billed the week each ships. Pause or stop with one reply. No tiers, no app, no club.