{"id":27443,"date":"2024-05-28T18:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-05-29T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/farmers-market-hog-heaven-honey-also-sells-the-bees\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T00:01:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T06:01:10","slug":"farmers-market-hog-heaven-honey-also-sells-the-bees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/farmers-market-hog-heaven-honey-also-sells-the-bees\/","title":{"rendered":"Farmers Market: Hog Heaven Honey also sells the bees"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Tina
Tina and Neil Sebestyen\u2019s Hog Heaven Honey sell honey at the Durango Farmers Market. (Nick Gonzales\/Durango Herald)<\/span>Nick Gonzales<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

For customers interested in beekeeping, or just looking to get rid of some bees, Hog Heaven Honey<\/a> is a comprehensive operation.<\/p>\n

Tina and Neil Sebestyen sell honey at the Durango Farmers Market, but Hog Heaven also specializes in raising bees \u2013 and removing them when they\u2019re unwanted.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe sell honey and we also do bee removals from structures, when bees move into somebody\u2019s attic or soffit or whatever. We\u2019ll go rescue the bees,\u201d Tina Sebesteyen said.<\/p>\n

Customers who want bees for the purpose of starting a colony can purchase both queen bees and nucs, which are special frames for starting a new hive.<\/p>\n

Sebesteyen, who has been a beekeeper for 18 years, teaches classes on the subject and writes about bees for publications such as the American Bee Journal. That knowledge is on display as she sells her honey.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people ask me for local honey for their allergies because there\u2019s an urban myth that local honey is great for your allergies,\u201d she said. \u201cBut the fact is that allergies are caused by wind-borne pollen, and bees collect nectar from plants that are not wind-borne; they\u2019re insect-borne. Totally different plants.<\/p>\n

\u201c \u2026 Raw honey really does help with your allergies just because it\u2019s such an amazing immune booster \u2026 it just doesn\u2019t have to be from right where you live.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sebesteyen said Hog Heaven Honey is based halfway between Durango and Pagosa Springs, but has bees all over. As a result, the flavor of each batch of honey is unique.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of my colonies are in alfalfa fields, and even the alfalfa honey from next year will taste different from this year\u2019s,\u201d she said. \u201cYou know the wine term \u2018terroir\u2019? That works with honey, too. The sun is different, the rain is different. And every plant that the bees produce honey from is very different as well. \u2026 For instance, my alfalfa honey probably also has some apricot blossoms in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sebestyen said she sold honey at the Bayfield Farmers Market last year, but this year was planning to focus on just the Durango Farmers Market.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a really neat way to have something that is local, raw and real,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

ngonzales@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Neil Sebestyen also remove unwanted bees<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27444,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[431,950,1934,28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-27443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-business-general","tag-durango","tag-farmers-market","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27443"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80057,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27443\/revisions\/80057"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27443"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=27443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}