Asheville Reboot

The Sweet Life of Bees: How Hoopers Creek Bee Company and Engadine’s Sourwood Tree Created Something Special

• Brian Hamrick • Season 1 • Episode 8

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In this episode of Asheville Reboot, Alex Jarbo visits Hoopers Creek Bee Company
in Arden, North Carolina — just minutes from the Asheville Airport — to talk with owner John Robertson about the fascinating world of beekeeping in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

John shares how his family business grew from a backyard hobby into a 500-colony operation producing some of Western North Carolina’s most sought-after honey, including the rare and prized Sourwood Honey.

We’re especially proud to share that Hoopers Creek Bee Company has installed hives right here at Engadine Inn & Cabins, where our historic property is home to a very special Sourwood tree. You can now taste the results of this local partnership — Honey Creek Bee honey is available for purchase at Engadine!

You’ll learn:

  • How mountain elevation affects honey production
  • What makes Sourwood honey so rare and valuable
  • How hurricanes and weather patterns impact bee colonies
  • The growing importance of local honey and sustainable beekeeping

Whether you’re a honey lover, gardener, or just curious about life in the mountains, this episode will give you a sweet new appreciation for nature’s hardest workers.

🎧 Listen now to discover how Engadine’s own Sourwood tree helped inspire a delicious collaboration.

🌐 Learn more: https://hooperscreekbees.com

🌄 Connect & Learn More

🏡 Engadine Inn & Cabins
Website: www.EngadineInnAndCabins.com

Instagram: @engadineinnandcabins

Facebook: facebook.com/EngadineInnandCabins

YouTube: @EngadineInnAndCabins

🎧 Asheville Reboot Podcast
YouTube: @AshevilleReboot

Substack: ashevillereboot.substack.com

Alex:

Welcome to another episode of Asheville Reboot. I'm Alex Jarbo, the owner of Engadine in and Cabins. And today we have the owner of Hoopers Creek Bee Company. We're actually in their shop right now. Hoopers Creek Bee Company manages and owns the hives at Engadine and I'm super excited to have you on, man.

John:

Thanks for having me on. as Alex mentioned, my name is John Robertson. I'm one of the owners, here. It's a family owned and operated business. So, my daughters and wife and myself own this business. we've been in business since basically 2021. Started out as a hobby. As far as beekeeping, we fell in love with it. And fast forward to today, we have about 500 colonies. We have a, a bee supply, where we sell bee supplies. we also sell honey obviously.

Alex:

Where were you at when the hurricane happened?

John:

We were actually down in Florida. we had moved some hives down there. the good news is most of our hives were down there. Two weeks earlier, it would've been a major loss. so many of our friends and, clients, lost a lot of bees during that hurricane.

Alex:

And then going a month after the hurricane, what did your business look like then? I mean, for us the first two, three weeks was just like, go, go, go. almost like no plan, just to essentially save what we had,

John:

Well, I guess, a good thing for us is that is our slow season. So starting about the middle to end of August, we go into what is our slow season so beekeeping, is slowing down. So anyway, it was mostly just, help our neighbors out And whatnot. But business standpoint, it was not a super busy time for us. and we're thankful for that.

Alex:

Yeah.

John:

allowed us to focus on other things.

Alex:

Have you guys grown as a business since the hurricane? Are you guys keeping steady? How is that working?

John:

Sure. So been just about doubling every year, since we started.

Alex:

So even with the hurricane Yes.

John:

I would say last year, honey sales, slumped off, because of the hurricane. We didn't have the, visitors from out of town coming up to the mountains. So I would attribute it to that. The store was slow, but that was due to the beekeeping season being pretty much over.

Alex:

What type of honey and what type of seasons do we have here in the mountains for honey?

John:

So fortunately, for us, we live in a great area for honey. we have the potential for two, sometimes three harvest. So we have what we call our wildflower in the, Spring. that's a combination of Tulip poplar, black locust, and blackberry bushes. So that doesn't all start blooming at the same time. But the bloom, the bloom overlaps. first you'd have locusts, then the blackberry bushes will start blooming, and then tulip poplar. That happens about the last week of April first of May. And we would harvest that. The end of May, first part of June. so that would be our first harvest, so to speak. And then we have, potential for Basswood that comes in the end of June, right before Sourwood. Sourwood is something our area is well known for. Tricky. You gotta keep other stuff out of it. So you gotta make sure that as it starts, you bet everything else off. So what starts right before that is basswood. Basswood is short, maybe a week and a half. Phenomenal honey. So you wanna get that off, right before Sourwood starts. And so that would be, first of July, second, third. Depending on when, sourwood starts coming in it's not the same every year. I mean, it's within that week, but you're testing and as soon as wood starts coming in, your basswood comes off.

Alex:

Is basswood a certain tree? It is. Okay.

John:

Most of our honey here in the mountains comes from trees. Which I didn't know I thought was wildflower and whatnot. Yeah. It's a lot different from other areas of the country where it might be clover, or wildflowers in a field. start traditionally right around the 4th of July and it would go, if we're lucky till the third week in July. And then That's it for the season.

Alex:

So being in September, we're pretty much done with the season.

John:

so our wildflower honey would be darker, bolder in flavor. what makes it dark is the, tulip poplar. Both the locusts and the blackberry tend to be lighter honeys. But when that tulip poplar gets mixed in, it's darker, looks amber, almost like red wine. that combination of those three things is phenomenal tasting honey. Tulip Poplar by itself tastes like molasses, so it's definitely edible, but not great tasting. But when you combine those three things, or the bees combine those three things, phenomenal tasting honey.

Alex:

So for people who don't know what Sourwood honey is,'cause I didn't know even, I've lived here for eight years. What makes Sourwood honey so prize? Why it's so expensive as well.

John:

it doesn't produce everywhere either. It's an elevation thing. it's a mountain thing. it doesn't start producing significant amounts of nectar until you're above 14, 1500 feet in elevation. down into 800 feet above sea level areas, but it blooms, it doesn't produce nectar. so that's one thing. it's a very finicky tree in that, even though it blooms here in the mountains every year and looks beautiful It doesn't always produce nectar. you could make a massive crop, in one of your yards and next year it would bloom beautifully and produce little to nothing. It's not consistent. So there's always more demand for it than there is product.

Alex:

it.

John:

an interesting fact about the sourwood tree. when people are tasting sourwood, they think it's gonna be sour, but the reason it's called a sourwood tree is because if you were to, break off a twig and chew it, that would be sour. And what causes that to be sour is oxic acid. Same thing that makes spinach sour. Interesting.

Alex:

so going forward now looking, say a year or two into your business and also just honey in general, where do you see your business and beekeeping going in general?'cause you guys run classes here. You guys sell nukes, which is essentially a pre started bee colony. Mm-hmm. Where do you see your business in the next, year or two? Along with honey?

John:

Yes. We're trying to expand cells here in the store. As you mentioned, we sell, bees in the forms of nukes packages, Queens in the spring. Those are ours. And we produce them. And honey as well. Right now we had a lot of rain this year So honey production is down for the year, so we're filling the pinch on that. we've got a lot of orders to fill and, at some point we're gonna run outta honey. So we'll be growing, the quantity of hives that we have. right now we're around 500 and our intention is to be at a thousand, before long. we'll expand after that, but that's our next goal, the reason for expanding those bees is to meet the demand for our honey as well as to meet the demand for our bees. So not only do we retail the honey, but we also wholesale the honey to other stores. And the same thing with the bees. retail the bees here at our location, but we also wholesale bees to other bee stores, other bee supplies.

Alex:

Wrapping up here, where can people find you guys? what's your guys' website and. we're in Arden, North Carolina.

John:

Yeah, so our store, is in Arden, North Carolina. it's 11 Business Park Circle, here in Arden. we're about two minutes from the Asheville Airport right off of 26th. you can find us on Facebook, Instagram. And our website is, Hoopers Creek bees. Dot com.

Alex:

Awesome. That wraps up this episode of the Asheville Reboot. John, thanks for letting me do this in your store.

John:

so much for coming in.

Alex:

We, if I didn't mention previously, how many hives do we have at Engadine that are yours we have 48. So we have 48 hives from, that's why, that's where that relationship started back in, I think. February, March

John:

timeframe. Absolutely.

Alex:

So if you guys, are in the area it's two minutes away from the airport, feel free to swing in or check'em out on their website. I will see everyone on the next podcast. Thanks.

John:

Thanks so much, Alex.