Our Story



Champlain Valley Apiaries is a 3rd generation Vermont family owned business. Founded in 1931 by innovative beekeeper Charles Mraz, we have been producing delicious Vermont honey for over 85 years. Our mission, along with producing the highest quality honey, is to foster sustainable agriculture and promote the importance of honeybees to our food system.

We produce both liquid and raw naturally crystallized honey. The raw naturally crystallized honey is both unheated and unfiltered. Because of this, the delicious flavor and many healthy properties remain intact. Our honey is gathered from a variety of floral sources, primarily legumes such as clover, alfalfa, and birdsfoot trefoil. Bees also gather nectar from trees, dandelion, and goldenrod, among many others. Each barrel of honey we produce is a floral snapshot of a particular area at a given time. The exact makeup of our honey will vary from year to year and even from bee yard to bee yard. In order to keep a consistent product, we blend our Vermont honey with other premium honey produced in the U.S. and Canada. We treat our bees organically, and during the winter, leave hives with enough of their own honey for survival. Throughout the company's history, our methods have been widely known among beekeepers to produce a hardy strain of honeybee that is resistant to disease and thrives even in the harshest of Vermont winters.