Photo by Chandler Jones
0613 Doris and Neil Snider
Cahaba Valley Honey owners Doris and Neil Snider operate the business on an on an honor system.
There’s something abuzz on 119.
A four-rung stand in the middle of Doris and Neil Snider’s front porch holds fresh honey, soaps, lotions, moisturizer creams, candles and beeswax. On top, a recycled yellow Wet-Wipe container bears Sharpie marks that read “Honey Money.”
In the yard large signs in the shape of an outstretched pointed finger direct visitors to where to the business. The humming of three on-property hives alerts the ears that life is here. Most likely one of the Sniders is on their way out to greet you, as Southern hospitality opens in full swing with the screen door.
Visitors come to buy Cahaba Valley Honey at all hours. Some come during the day, others after dark.
“We had one come on Christmas Day,” Doris said. “We were sitting in there with our family eating Christmas dinner, and they come driving up wanting honey. A young lady came running up on the porch like she had forgotten somebody.”
The “Honey Money” honor system has served the business well over its nearly a decade-and-a-half. Back in Cahaba Valley Honey’s toddler years, the Sniders never missed a dime until they discovered $80 missing, and as that year progressed $50 more went missing.
“The alarm went off one day,” Neil said. “Doris looked up, the people were coming and the stand was full. She was busy in the house, so she didn’t come out to meet and greet. They came up to the stand, and in a minute they left. She fooled around in there for a while and decided to go see what they got and collect the money. She came out, and nothing was missing. They had come and gone, and nothing was missing. She looked in the box, and there was $130.”
The business began in August 2000 when the Sniders purchased a single hive of bees to pollinate their garden.
As of last year, it has grown to approximately 60 hives of European honeybees on 16 different apiaries, or bee yards, to produce 240 gallons of homemade honey sold last year. Those gallons are now scattered throughout the state on gardens of friends and master gardeners.
To harvest the honey, wooden boxes called Langstroth hives replicate a natural beehive. Inside the box, drawers with small cells for the bees to build upon, lay their eggs and hold honey. Stacking them promotes expansion, so more bees are born. The Sniders take care to watch as hives grow to add additional hives when necessary.
In their basement-turned-honey-making facility, they use an array of equipment. A heated electric knife peels wax and honey off the frames, a machine separates the honey out by melting the wax, and a tank bottles the honey. All their other products are made fresh in their kitchen.
After 51 years of marriage, the Sniders don’t just finish each other sentences; they speak in alternating phrases and clamorously talk over each other, completing and complementing the other’s thoughts. They still refer to each other as “darling” and “yes, dear.”
Thirteen years after a honey-making couple mentored them, they are proud to mentor nine couples and speak at bee seminars in Auburn where they first learned to make wax and creams.
They also teach programs for local schools, homeschoolers, nursing homes, churches and scout groups.
Even through the hard work, blood, sweat and bee-stings, to them, Cahaba Valley Honey is still just a hobby. Neil works as an electrician, and Doris is a retired registered nurse.
“We enjoy our bees, we really do,” Doris said.
They know European honeybee pollinates one-third of our food, and if honeybees were to go extinct, fruit and vegetable vegetation throughout the world would suffer.
“It’s remarkable,” Doris said. “It’s one of God’s smallest creatures, but it’s the only insect that makes something that man can eat.”
Cahaba Valley Honey is located at 6112 Cahaba Valley Road. To get there, the Sniders say to simply follow the honey signs.
