Cherry City Honey offers variety of sweet, natural products

BELLEVUE — Back in 2016, Tami Clark-Wylie started beekeeping with two hives. As of 2021 — just five years later — she and husband Gary had grown to owning 40 bee hives, opened a new store and harvested more than 4,300 pounds of raw honey.

While the Cherry City Honey Farms,1000 CR 312 (Northwest Road), opened their building in 2021, due to COVID-19, they just had their official grand opening and open house earlier this month with the Sandusky County Chamber of Commerce.

The couple started this season with 40 bee hives surviving winter, but by summer's end it will be closer to 60 hives as swarms are added and hives are split.

Gary said it's an interesting story how his wife got them into the bee business.

Tami returned a book to the Clyde Public Library in 2016 and met Clyde resident Tom Rathbun from the Sandusky River Valley Beekeeping group, who was speaking about beekeeping. She went home and told her husband she thought they needed to get into beekeeping, Gary said.

"I just went to return a book," she said about her fateful encounter with Rathbun, who has been a longtime beekeeper.

When Tami started with her bees, she was still working full-time. Her husband had a training and engineering business and she also worked there with bookkeeping.

Still, the bee business was hers at the start.

Cherry City Honey grew by doing Fremont, Port Clinton farm markets

"Tami ran into doing farm markets," Gary said about the first years. She was one of the first vendors to participate in Port Clinton's downtown farm market and she became a regular vendor at Downtown Fremont farm markets plus others and craft shows where she sold her raw honey.

"I was one of the original eight," Tami said about setting up in Port Clinton. Going from market to market, Cherry City Honey Farms drew a following and fans became dedicated to their raw honey and honeys flavored with spices such as cinnamon or even hot spices. Then, four years ago, Gary retired and the honey farm took on an expanded role in their lives.

Gary and Tami continued to add hives and became an active part of the Sandusky River Valley Beekeeping Association. The product lines also kept expanding.

Then COVID-19 hit in 2020 and the Wylies had to adjust. They began selling mail-order honey boxes and marketing their products on the web. Their flavored honeys were packaged and shipped in gift boxes.

"We went from farm markets to shipping product or pickup," Gary said. "We had a pretty good following. We wanted to put up a store."

He said customers were hesitant to stop at their home and knock on their door for honey purchases.

Built a store near their home

In 2021, the couple had carpenters build a new building near their home and they opened it in April that year.

The store allowed people to come out and shop for raw honey, flavors and various natural products they had available. The new building also allowed Cherry City Honey Farms to stock items that beekeepers and newcomers to the field needed, such as bee hive boxes and other parts.

Gary said the closest location to purchase those supplies had been an hour away until Cherry City Honey Farms began stocking Amish-made boxes.

The honey farms building includes not only a store but a large area where tables and chairs are set up for classes or visiting clubs interested in learning about bees and beekeeping. Gary also is now president of the Sandusky River Beekeeping and the room provides a place for them to meet.

Tami also searched for bee-themed gift items for the store.

"Everybody is into 'save the bees,' " she added.  Tami became interested in bees  because she is health, and environmentally conscious, she said. "I am into clean food."

She also is invested in clean-burning bees wax for candles, honey-based lotions, soaps made with essential oils, and natural wood polishes — now all available in the store. "I make a body scrub with honey," she added.

When people enter the shop at Cherry City Honey Farms, they comment on the natural, fresh smells, according to staff.

Besides offering raw honey in various sized jars, the store will take their jars back when empty to recycle them.

Try to meet customers' preferences for different types of honey

Gary said the couple also work to provide the types of honeys people want. Ohio is known for its sweet clover honey, which is a light golden brown in the spring. As bees find other flowers during the summer, the honey will become darker.

The one type of honey many people seem to want is buckwheat. Gary said there is not as much buckwheat growing as in the past, but they have found farmers who raise the crop and they move several hives to those fields to allow the bees to create buckwheat honey — a very dark honey with almost a molasses flavor.

While the Wylies will move hives for buckwheat, they have retired from renting out hives to other farms as Gary said that is for younger beekeepers to handle. But as members of the Sandusky River Beekeeping group, they do know a few other beekeepers as the organization has 121 members.

Despite COVID-19, due to Rathbun's leadership and Zoom meetings, the beekeeping group has not lost members.

"Beekeeping is fairly popular in our area here," Gary Wylie said. "I took over for (Rathbun) and those are big shoes to fill." Gary is now president of the organization as his predecessor has moved up to an office in the state beekeepers group.

"We have a really positive outlook on the bee business," the Bellevue man said.

For more information on Cherry City Honey and its store, visit Cherrycityhoney.com or call 419-271-2720.

rbrooks@gannett.com

419-334-1059

This article originally appeared on Fremont News-Messenger: Cherry City Honey offers variety of sweet, natural products