About us

The mission of The Old Hive is to turn out quite natural and environmentally friendly apicultural products. The Old Hive is an enterprise of beekeepers having 100-year family traditions in the keeping of bee colonies and the harvest of raw/natural honey. The experience acquired by previous generations lies on the basis of the successful development of The Old Hive apiaries. And our years of experience as beekeepers, plus our professional approach, guarantee a constant high quality of the raw/natural apicultural products turned out.
The Old Hive comprises several apiaries of 50 beehives each, in the hilly region around the village of Muhovo, amidst the Ihtiman share of the mountain Sredna Gora. The natural honey quality is influenced by a number of important factors, but above all by the plants surrounding the apiaries, and by the microclimatic and geographical features of the area. The situation of The Old Hive apiaries is not casual, we took care to dispose our hives in a locality enjoying enough diversity of honey plants, which are far from the contemporary ”achievements” of the civilisation (industrial pollutants and congested highways) and from the industrial crops treated with pesticides and insecticides. No pharmaceuticals of antibiotic types are used in raising the honeybee colonies, for treatment or prophylaxis of the honeybees. No sugar feeding is used in feeding the honeybees, but only honey and pollen.
The Old Hive honey has a thick and rich taste. The plants and their flowers determine the taste of the harvested honey the way that the grape crops and varieties determine the wine flavour characteristics. The content of sugars in the nectar varies from one flower to another, and is considerably influenced by the climatic conditions of each year. That is why every honey type, be it acacia, herb, manna or other, is from a definite crop (year). Most of the honey sold in the shops is mixed, with the purpose of obtaining a constant, but maybe dull taste. Do you prefer blended or varietal wines?
We can guarantee that The Old Hive honey is available in its natural state, aromatic, varied and with rich nutritional value, as it was made by the honeybees and taken out of the beehive without being processed, blended or “improved“ in any way whatsoever. The Old Hive honey is rich in the natural sugars and enzymes, as it was not heated or filtered. You will not find in The Old Hive honey admixtures from other foods or sweeteners (glucose, fructose, isosweet, glucose-fructose syrup) and was not derived through the processing of sugar syrup by the bees. This characteristic distinguishes The Old Hive apicultural products from the mass ones, which are available in the supermarket chains, and guarantees their excellent taste and high quality.
The Old Hive is a Bulgarian honey and as such it has several recognizable advantages over other honeys. It is that in Bulgaria the bees collect nectar mostly from herbs. Thanks to this the Bulgarian honey combines two biologically active principles. On the one hand, being a fermentation product, it contains a number of precious ingredients, released by the salivary glands of the bees themselves – enzymes, etc. On the other hand, its composition features also all the biologically active substances intrinsic to herbs, whose nectar the bees collect and transform into honey. Further to being useful for the health, they lend the honey an unequalled flavour, as well.