You may have never noticed this while walking around East Nashville, but there’s something special happening on the roof of Turnip Truck’s main location at 701 Woodland St. Since 2016, the staff has maintained beehives on the roof, contributing valuable pollinators to the plants and gardens in the neighborhood. In partnership with Steven Abernathy and Claire Papevies of Greenwood Urban Farm, they are finally ready to share the fruits of their labors.
They recently released Raw Wildflower Honey, harvested from the nine hives, with a limited-edition batch of 150 bottles at $15 each and featuring Abernathy’s original artwork. Each bottle is finished with a wax seal made from the excess honeycomb wax cappings after the harvest, which was then melted down and tinted black with activated charcoal from Turnip Truck.
“We have had bees on our East Nashville rooftop since 2016 to support the local environment,” shares Turnip Truck founder John Dyke, whose store celebrated its 20th anniversary earlier this year. “This is the first time we have bottled and sold our own honey, and we are thrilled to share the ultimate local treat with our neighbors.”
Greenwood Urban's Claire Papevies and Steven Abernathy
“The honey produced at Turnip Truck is true raw, local honey,” beekeeper Abernathy says. “It’s never heated and is made by the bees off local flowers and trees in our East Nashville community.”
In the honey version of a single-barrel bourbon, Turnip Truck and Greenwood named each of the hives after neighborhood plants pollinated by the bees. Rather than blending all the honey together, they are releasing products from individual hives in separate bottlings to showcase the uniqueness of each colony. In addition to selling the raw honey by the bottle, they’ll also be serving it in a special version of their house-made lemonade. Sweet!
