Because our honey is raw, the bits of pollen that are naturally found within the honey can trigger the sugars to start binding to each other to form crystals. This is a similar process to how rock candy is made.

If your honey crystallizes, it is still safe to eat and remains delicious!

But if you don’t like crystallized honey, there are easy methods that you can use to change it back to its liquid state. We recommend submerging the entire glass jar in a hot water bath. By doing this, the honey will slowly de-crystallize without destroying the beneficial qualities of raw honey and be good as new! However, heating the honey too high should be avoided, as it destroys the enzymes and nutrients, so use discretion and try not to heat the honey hotter than needed.

As the weather temperatures start to drop, you may find that your jar of raw honey is crystallizing faster than usual. Crystallization of raw honey can be affected by temperature, so during the colder months, people find that their honey may crystallize faster. Honey bees maintain their colonies above 90F throughout the year, so most honey varieties will not crystallize within the colonies, even during the wintertime.

Raw honey is unpasteurized and straight from the hive. It is often lightly strained to remove any extraneous objects such as wax cappings. Raw honey contains natural enzymes, pollen, and yeasts which are produced by the flowers the bees forage on within their environment. Many prefer raw honey to pasteurized honey due to the health perks it offers.

Pasteurized honey begins as raw honey, but is finely filtered and heated to a high temperature to remove any enzymes, pollen, and yeasts found within the honey. Pollen is removed from raw honey to prevent crystallization which makes it more visually appealing on grocery store shelves.

YES!

Raw honey is perfectly safe and healthy, though not recommended for infants or young children. All of our honey is below 18% water content so it will never go bad or ferment.

Raw honey isn't pasteurized.

Pasteurization removes all the pollen from the honey, and kills most enzymes, including diastase (amylase), invertase and glucose oxidase. The heat from pasteurization also damages many of the vitamins and minerals commonly found in natural honey.

We sure do! 

You can return your jars to us at our self-serve honey shop, at Chapel Hill Farmers’ Market, at South Durham Farmers’ Market, and at Holly Springs Farmers' Market.

All orders are processed within 5 to 8 business days. If we are experiencing a high volume of orders, shipments may be delayed by a few days. Please allow additional days in transit for delivery. Orders are not shipped or delivered on weekends or holidays.

We work hard to get orders to you on time. It's just the two of us - we care for the bees, we harvest the honey, we fill the honey jars, we hand-label the jars, we make the candles, we pack the orders, and we take the orders to the post office.

Absolutely!

Select "Pickup at King Cobra Apiary" during checkout. The turnaround time for an order is 2 to 5 days. We will notify you by the email you provided during checkout when your order is ready for pickup. Your order will be ready for pickup in our self-serve honey shop which is located to the right of the driveway at 5955 Thom Road, Mebane, NC 27302.

Yes!

Select "Pickup at Chapel Hill Farmers' Market," "Pickup at South Durham Farmers' Market,” or "Pickup at Holly Springs Farmers' Market" during checkout. Your order will be ready for pickup at market the Saturday after you make your order if we are at the market that weekend (please check our schedule or email us.) We will notify you by email when your order is ready for pickup. The cutoff time for pickup orders is 5pm on the Friday before market.