Our Story
Our family jumped into beekeeping in the spring of 2018 with our first hive. In the beginning there were some bumps in the road and learning curves we had to endure as the bees taught us many lessons along the way.
In 2021, we finally had produced enough honey to share with friends, family and new customers. The bees produced around 250 pounds of honey that year. We were wondering how we would be able to use this much honey. We then discovered the Tennessee Honey Festival in downtown Nashville. This festival's goal was to connect the local community to local farmers who sold fresh products to the consumer. In addition, The Tennessee Honey Festival also held a contest to see who had the best tasting honey in Tennessee. With almost 30 honey entries from across the state entered into this contest, we were elated when we brought home the trophy for "Best Honey in Tennessee!"
We were blessed with another great honey crop in 2022 and took our honeybees' glorious "wildflower liquid gold" to the festival where we entered into the competition once again. We were shocked to win the esteemed title of "Best Honey in Tennessee" for the second straight year. We are the only apiary to win this award multiple times. We are honored to represent Tennessee and share God's greatest sweetener!
In 2023 we decided to enter an even bigger contest on the national stage. This time we selected our "smoked" honey to represent our outfit. We entered into the Garden & Gun Southern magazine "Made in the South Awards." Our smoked honey made us very proud by making it all the way to the semi-finals of this esteemed contest.
As the success of our little apiary continued gaining recognition, in 2023 we decided to make a change. After much thought and consideration, we all decided to set the family name of Patterson's Pollinators on the shelf and launched Orlinda Honey Company. We felt as if this new name would have better marketability and recognition as we moved forward in the industry. Orlinda, known as "The Sunniest Spot in Tennessee", is a small farming community north of Nashville but it's packed with some hidden business gems. Many may have run across the amazing craftsmanship of the Orlinda Furniture Company. They have been producing one-of-a-kind furniture with raw materials from fallen barns for years. Orlinda Melon Company produces some of the best tasting watermelons in the south as well as pumpkins in the fall. Being the youngest brother on the block, Orlinda Honey Company has been producing some of the tastiest honey around the state since 2021. Since Orlinda is tagged as the "Sunniest Spot in Tennessee" it only makes sense that our amazing honeybees know how to make some magic and produce some of nature's finest sweetener here in our quaint little town.
In January 2024, we decided to gain some more bee keeping knowledge and attended the largest bee keeping conference in our country, The North American Honey Bee Expo. Just to explain how big it was, every single state and continent (with the exception of Antarctica), was represented at this conference. Naturally, we took our honey to the test and entered it into the largest honey show in the United States. More than 1400 entries from across the globe were entered and just over 200 ribbons were given out. We were once again blessed by bringing home an award to Orlinda, Tennessee! Our precious bees continue to amaze us. They proved they not only can hang with the best in Tennessee, but also the rest of our country. We would love for you to be the judge for yourself and discover some of our amazing unfiltered raw honey produced by the bees but stolen by Orlinda Honey Company.
