Chesapeake Honey is a family-owned small business located in Salisbury on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. The Pettis Family formed Chesapeake Honey in 2017 to allow our family to manage honey bees and bring pure raw local honey to the community. We started with 20 hives and now have expanded to around 100 hives spread out in nine apiaries in Wicomico and Somerset Counties, Maryland. We manage our bees organically, using only formic and oxalic acids to control Varroa mites. Our goal is to eventually breed a locally adapted bee that can thrive with little or no Varroa treatment. We manage the bees for both honey production and pollination of local crops including watermelons, peppers, pumpkins, and other vegetables. We harvest only the excess honey and extract it and bottle it without heat or filtration creating pure raw, local honey.
Chesapeake Honey is a family of three with Jeff and Kevin in charge of the bees and honey production and Marianne in charge of honey sales and marketing. Jeff has been a beekeeper for over 35 years and has had a long career as a bee scientist with the U.S. Dept. of Ag. and continues to consult globally on bee health issues. Kevin is learning the art of beekeeping and also helps with the in-house bottling and market preparations. Marianne is adding to our product line, developing several body products featuring our own beeswax, propolis and honey. We sell our honey at two farmers markets, Camden Avenue Market in Salisbury on Tuesday from 2:30 to 5:30 and Saint Michaels Farmers Market in Saint Michaels on Saturdays from 8:30-11:30 as well as a at few local retail outlets. We normally start the markets in June and sell out of honey by late fall.
We strive to bring you the best that our bees produce. We do not buy and re-sell honey from others, we only sell what we produce. Our honey crop varies from year to year, but you can be confident it is pure raw local honey from the beautiful Eastern Shore.