Livingston, Montana – In the center of Livingston, a new general store is opening that specializes in selling honey.
Alpine Peaks Honey Farm, headquartered in Paradise Valley, was the company’s original name. Before deciding to grow and build their own retail store so they could sell more than just the honey they make, owner Donna Moyer said she and Bret Garretson sold honey at farmer’s markets and neighborhood gatherings in the area for several years.
Moyer and Garretson’s honey is available at Alpine Peaks Country Store in a wide range of flavors, including habanero, peanut butter, and elderberry.
Also, the shop sells honey from other Paradise Valley and Montana producers as well as from other parts of the globe. They even have rainforest honey and Patagonian honey, she noted, in addition to Macadamia nut flower honey from Hawaii, Manuka honey from New Zealand, and others.
“It’s a pretty stringent process to get that here, but we love the different varieties that we have, and I really enjoy looking for different honeys. And of course, tasting it. It’s a hard job,” Moyer said.
The store carries a wide variety of goods in addition to local and imported honeys, including salsas, fruit preserves, confectionery, herbs, and spices, beeswax candles, woolen blankets and yarn, and even beekeeping supplies.
She claimed that unlike many other honey farms, the honeybees on the Alpine Peaks farm do not make circuitous trips to other orchards and farms. Hence, all honey produced is free of pesticides and herbicides and is made from Paradise Valley’s native flowers.
“The honeybees can forage, you know they’ll go five miles and so they manage to find a lot. We have some natural springs for water source… So, it’s worked out really well for us. And we produce a really good honey,” Moyer said.
Moyer was raised learning how to take care of honeybees and make honey; he is a fourth-generation beekeeper. She claimed that her grandma could identify the flowers that were used to create honey by tasting a sample. She intends to start teaching beekeeping classes soon.
