Valley Road Apiary

Valley Road Apiary Natural backyard beekeeping w/Danielle Grant

About our apiary:
We are a tiny backyard operation with 3 Flow Hives (plus one resource hive). We love our bees.

We don’t filter. Our honey comes directly from the hive. It is raw, pure, and incredible.

08/03/2026

Cannot wait for this one ❤️🐝 He REALLY did this scene holding a live queen and allowing the colony to swarm to him. So cool!! 😍

This worker bee is collecting nectar from a Sweet Pepperbush plant in our yard. If you bought honey from us last August,...
07/30/2026

This worker bee is collecting nectar from a Sweet Pepperbush plant in our yard. If you bought honey from us last August, you likely had some of this truly special honey.

Sweet Pepperbush is a native, flowering shrub (Clethra Alnifolia) that blooms late summer. It is so fragrant and full of nectar that if we are not in a dearth (drought where the plants bloom but can’t produce nectar), the bees create the most amazing honey from this plant. It grows wild everywhere here in Massachusetts.

Stay tuned…this rain is exactly what they needed 🐝 🍯 💕

07/26/2026

It was a beautiful day to make honey 🍯

07/22/2026

Raven is our ‘little’ hive. It’s so nice to see them at this time of day doing their orientation flights. They are boosting up just in time for the sweet pepperbush flow. Trying not to get my hopes up, but this is a really promising sight 😍🐝🍯

On the worried days, I prep. Will we have honey this year? I’m hopeful. We did not harvest last year until mid-August so...
07/18/2026

On the worried days, I prep. Will we have honey this year? I’m hopeful. We did not harvest last year until mid-August so let’s see what this rain can do for the sweet pepperbush flow and I promise I’ll post as soon as I know for sure.

Did you know 🤔
- I’m the only beekeeper I know who still buys honey each winter. We keep enough on the bees - but we don’t keep enough in our own pantry to support my honey habit 😂 ALWAYS buy honey from a beekeeper local to you.

-This has been our 3rd straight year in a ‘significant’ drought. The first year (2023) was awesome - but we kept all of the honey on the hives for winter. No regrets. Not many first year beekeepers can say they had no losses first year 💪 🐝

-Drought significantly impacts nectar availability for our girls. Pollen will be coming in but no nectar. No nectar means no honey - for them, or for us. We had no rain almost the entire month of June. Terrible.

-Last year’s sweet pepperbush honey was so special and amazing. Our lovely trash pickup driver fella stopped me while I was walking the dogs one morning to tell me that our honey was the best he (and his wife) had ever tasted 🥹

-An average worker bee produces only one twelfth of a teaspoon of honey in her entire life. A single teaspoon represents nearly 30,000 flower visits. It truly is liquid gold.

-Honey is one of the only foods that will never go bad. The jar of honey pictured is from our first honey harvest in spring of 2024. It is just as perfect today as it was the day it was harvested. No crystallization yet (although almost all honeys will crystallize eventually). If your honey ever crystallizes, just place the whole jar in a pan of hot water for about a half hour. You just want to dissolve the crystals back to liquid. Don’t heat your honey if you want it to maintain its medicinal qualities 🍯😋

07/18/2026

They sprayed for mosquitoes up the street and I think our girls may have been exposed during foraging. It could be anything. Our neighbors have been spraying something on their property. If anything was in bloom there, our bees may have brought the poison home. Pesticides kill bees. Every kind of bee. Find organic solutions to pest control please. 🙏🏻 ❤️🐝

A bear was spotted at the top of our street today. We live on a dead end road just out of the center of town. I’m hoping...
07/09/2026

A bear was spotted at the top of our street today. We live on a dead end road just out of the center of town. I’m hoping he has moved on. Love bears so much but also love our bees just a little bit more 🥺

07/08/2026

Volume up 😍 After two days of much needed rain, the girls are VERY happy to be flying and foraging on this gorgeous day.

07/06/2026

PSA - If you build it, they will come. This is our pollinator garden’s 4th year. What a joy to see the monarchs. I never saw one around here until this garden. We harvested the rose milkweed seeds first year and planted more and voila! This is our 3rd year seeing them and it literally makes my heart explode. This garden provides nectar and pollen to all sorts of insects - even our bees when resources are scarce.

Always plant native. You’ll never bee sorry ❤️ 🐝 🦋

We’re in Massachusetts. Our garden has the following natives:
Rose Milkweed
Coastal Joe Pyeweed
Boneset
Evening Primrose
Butterfly W**d
Cutleaf coneflower
Blue Vervain
Giant Purple Hyssop
Blazing Star Liatris
Low bush blueberry
High bush blueberry
Sweet pepperbush
Goldenrod

06/20/2026

Grated some of their own beeswax on their landing board to see if they would take it in and use it… they immediately knew what to do. So smart. Waste nothing ❤️🐝

Address

Valley Road
Middleboro, MA
02346

Telephone

(508)2694890

Website

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