By Kenneth Books
Business is buzzing for the Register family of Freeport, which has produced some of the cleanest honey available anywhere for 13 years.
After serving in combat roles with the Army, Joseph, Jeremiah, James, Melissa and Alex Register saw a need for the kind of honey that’s not available in grocery stores.
“Our family has the entrepreneurial spirit,” Joseph said. “We always had owning our own business in mind. Dad always had businesses.”
Today, the Register patriarch, Gerry, builds the frames and boxes necessary to maintain a thriving bee business, while matriarch Shelley works behind the scenes, doing a variety of jobs, from extracting honey to sewing bee suits.
“We’re a family of U.S. Army veterans,” Joseph said. “We love to work together. We want the best-tasting, cleanest honey for our customers.”
Jeremiah lit the spark. “He had an orchard and was talking about getting some bees,” Joseph said.
Creating honey isn’t simply a matter of harvesting it from beehives. The task begins with bees collecting nectar from various flowers. According to Joseph, nectar sources bloom for only two to three weeks, although the seasons for the various nectars tend to overlap.
Then comes the necessity of keeping the bees healthy so they can use the nectar to make honey. One significant threat is pests, such as varroa mites and small hive beetles, which can decimate entire colonies if left unchecked. Regular monitoring and integrated pest management strategies are crucial to maintaining healthy hives. Bees live only about six weeks, so it’s imperative to have thriving hives that maintain a relatively stable population.
Jeremiah and Alex tend the hives to keep the bees healthy. Register honey is unusual in that it is completely pure. Many honeys contain corn syrup, high-fructose corn syrup or rice syrup, and some contain glyphosate residue. Glyphosate is an herbicide. All of the family’s honey is tested and certified as pure.
The Registers have about 1,500 bees right now. And do the owners ever get stung? “All the time,” Joseph said, chuckling.
The family also goes out of its way to maintain good relations with neighbors, who might be skittish about having more than a thousand bees next door.
The family produces a wide variety of honey, including creamed, wildflower, tupelo, chocolate creamed and a slightly hot, spicy version.
The honey is available online at registerfamilyfarm.com, as well as at the Staff of Life health food store and the Niceville farmers market on the Twin Cities Pavilion property, both in Niceville. The Registers also have their own farm market in Freeport, which sells the honey, beeswax candles, homemade ice cream and beeswax skin care products.
Photo captions:
Joseph Register with some of the hives that yield his family’s honey.
Candles, skin care products and a variety of beeswax items are part of the Register family line.
Joseph Register looks over the non-honey beeswax products his family produces.
