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Liam Becker and John Berdux have been running their local honey operation, Apis Mercantile, on John’s Island since 2017. A few years prior, Becker and Berdux were college roommates living in one of downtown Charleston’s clapboard rowhomes where, out of curiosity and the desire to learn more about bees, Berdux placed two hives in their backyard. Intrigued by bees, the pair learned everything they could from these environmental superheroes and started selling the honey to friends, family, and a few local businesses. Although they took time away from the bees post-grad, their passion never died, and Berdux and Becker eventually reunited to dive head-first into honey with one goal in mind: Emphasize the importance of sustainable and ethical sourcing practices while making local honey more accessible.
To do this, they partner with a wide variety of local apiaries across the Southeast to ensure that they have a dependable supply that maintains the same level of high-quality honey in every jar they fill.
Once all cells are capped, the honey is ready for harvest. The beekeeper removes the supers, or bee boxes, from the hives and extracts the bees using a harmless smoke. The caps are taken from the cells and placed in a centrifuge that spins quickly to force the honey out of the frames. The honey then drips down into a collection reservoir, is transferred into 55-gallon drums, and delivered to the Apis Warehouse on John’s Island for bottling. The Apis team gently heats the honey to produce a less viscous consistency, pumps the honey through their bottling system, and each jar of Apis Mercantile honey is filled, labeled, and capped by hand, ready to be enjoyed.
