Our First Raw Honey Harvest (We Were Not Ready)

We thought we’d get a few cute jars — just enough to put on the shelf for some shelf-esteem as new beekeepers.

What we got instead was 130 pounds of raw honey.

No one prepares you for the fact that your first real raw honey harvest doesn’t arrive as expected. Sometimes it arrives in volume.

🔥 The Honey Haus: 97 Degrees & Getting Personal

By sundown, the Honey Haus was pushing 97 degrees while we scrapped beautiful yellow wax off heavy and full honey frames.

Windows fogged. Fans roaring. Old-school 1950s love songs blasting in the background — because somehow that just felt right when you’re harvesting honey.

And the smell… oh my goodness, the smell.

Warm, raw honey has a perfume that fills the entire room

-floral

-citrus

-herby

Summer in liquid form.

We uncapped the first frame and harvested the bright yellow, beautiful beeswax.

Every single frame tasted different. One was wildflowers. One was lemony. One tasted like it had been steeped in herbs.

Our bees weren’t just productive — they were very productive.

130 pounds of raw honey was something we never expected. The Honey Haus smelled like magic. A late-night harvest with oldies crooning while we laughed, slipped, stuck to things, and just kept going.

We were so wildly proud of what those tiny bees had made.

This is the raw honey that built OxWOOD Honey — the moment we learned what’s possible when care, curiosity, and a whole lot of heart meet the hive. And yes, we’ve refined the process since then… but we’ll never forget the harvest that started it all.