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Luke Wagner
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Luke and his rescued companion, Bindi.
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To my daughters, my mother is “Honey”—a moniker evoking something simple and sweet. First a plaintive “On-yay” mustered by my eldest, and later a squealing “Honey!” on sight, the name oozes affection, doting attention, and easy comfort.
It is only fitting that my mother, who wears the title well, first discovered the honey house. She found the little wooden box in that endless sunshine time after becoming a new grandparent, but before the magic of small, unexpected childhood surprises could fade. Often, she would push my daughter in her stroller down the road to the neighborhood park, pointing out trees and trucks along the way.
It was on a day like this that the honey house appeared at the corner of a dead-end street several houses away, whimsically painted with a cheerful yellow-gold honeycomb. Beside it, a sign boldly proclaimed “HONEY FOR SALE” in large, capital letters, with a smaller “self service” addendum at the bottom. After opening a glass door, customers can help themselves to bottles of organic honey in two different sizes, along with honey and oatmeal milk soap. It was a treat that far surpassed the wonder of trees and trucks.
The honey house is one of six across the greater Baton Rouge area and the brainchild of 29-year-old Luke Wagner, founder of Bindi’s Bees Apiary. As Wagner tells it, beekeeping became an unexpected hobby, later snowballing into a small business, after one hive purchased for his garden-loving father’s Christmas gift in 2019 turned into three, then twenty—and eventually, eighty-five.
Wagner didn’t initially intend to take over his father’s hive and dive head-first into the world of beekeeping, but researching the gift early on piqued his interest and sparked an unexpected passion.
“I was like, ‘Oh, man, this is really cool,’” he said. “Learning about nature and learning about how bees work. And the more you learn about bees, the more you realize that they are very intelligent creatures.”
Molly McNeal
The queen.
Wagner knew from the start he didn’t want to purchase bees from a supplier, but rather draw the bees to a hive himself. So how does one tame wild bees and entice them to make a new home? He learned that around the second week of March, in the Baton Rouge and Lafayette areas, bees begin to procreate, swarming as half the hive leaves with the old queen to find a new dwelling.
Setting out wooden boxes containing a little honey, Wagner was able to coax those bees scouting for a new home inside, where they settled down to make a new hive. Now, he places around twenty boxes in different locations on his properties, catching one to two swarms in each box annually.
What began as a labor of love (and fascination) naturally grew into a small business when Wagner found himself positively inundated with excess honey. And Wagner has something that he believes elevates his product—a commitment to keeping his bees and honey all-natural, avoiding the chemicals and oils some apiarists use to protect their colonies from pests. Instead, he works to keep his hives healthy and his bees strong enough to withstand pest invasions.
“I don't feed them with sugar water or anything like that,” he added. “Whatever they have, they got themselves. So everything's from nature.”
With an “organic” label, and a catchy, alliterative name (“Bindi” is the name of his Australian Cattle Dog who has romped along beside him to catch swarms and check hives over the years), the honey just needed a home.
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Cue the honey houses. Wagner knew what he wanted and hired a woodworker to create something “old-school,” commissioning his cousin, Danielle Blanchard, to paint the boxes with playful images of honeycombs and bees.
Working full-time in marketing by day, Wagner has learned about beekeeping without any formal training, instead finding information on his own by watching YouTube videos and attending Capital Area Beekeepers' Association meetings. After several years of beekeeping, he has become the go-to in the association when someone wants to start a hive themselves.
“You just absorb it over time when you're in the beekeeping community,” Wagner said of the wealth of information on running an apiary. “When you're in it, you're in it.”
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His eighty-five hives are spread across three locations: about half are off South Harrell’s Ferry Road and Jones Creek Road, the other half on River Road, and a few in his own backyard in the Bluebonnet area. Last year, Wagner harvested about thirty-five pounds of honey per colony—and this year, he expects to double his production.
Harvest usually commences the first week of July, around the Independence Day holiday weekend. “I do it then because it's at the end of the big honey flow,” Wagner explained. Honey flow, also known as nectar flow, is a period of time (usually in the warmer months) when plants release an abundance of nectar—ideal for bees to collect for honey-making.
“The Chinese tallow flow goes from about mid-May through June, and that's when we're really packing in the honey,” he added. Mid-April through the first week of May is when the ligustrum blooms for a smaller collection, while the flow from goldenrod and fall asters is harvested in October. “[There’s] a whole bunch of other things blooming. It’s just these are the main nectar producers.”
“We’re all connected. Giving back to nature is just my part of the puzzle."
— Luke Wagner, Bindi's Bees Apiary
Wagner’s is largely a solo operation, save when it’s time to harvest the honey in that first week of July. Luckily, the date falls near Wagner’s birthday, meaning he can harness the goodwill of friends and family for a honey-processing party. Usually around six people come with him to pull the honey, taking it off the colonies, while four people work as extractors. Wagner estimates it takes about two eight-hour days. “There’s a lot of free tastings if you come and help,” he quipped.
Besides the honey houses, Bindi’s Bees products can be purchased at various brick-and-mortar locations, including Goodwood Hardware, Red Stick Pharmacy on Old Jefferson, and a few other locations. Wagner also said he is willing to ship honey to interested purchasers, who can contact him through the company’s Facebook page.
At this point, he’s not sure if he will expand his business to a full-time operation; close to one hundred hives is a lot to keep up with, and he isn’t sure if he could handle more. In the meantime, he’s spending his days “test-driving” a honey chapstick.
“We’re all connected. Giving back to nature is just my part of the puzzle,” Wagner said. “I feel like as organisms, we take a lot, you know. If there’s something we can give back, I’d love to be a part of that.”
As for my mother, a small pot of Bindi’s Bees honey lives on her counter, and has remained (regularly replenished from the neighborhood honey house) for the last couple of years—a mascot of sorts. When she visits, my daughter scampers across the kitchen for a taste. In her mind, she has never lived in a world without readily available honey, just around the corner.
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Wagner’s honey houses can be found off Jones Creek Road, on Antioch Boulevard through the Shenandoah neighborhood, near Jefferson Terrace Academy, off Kenilworth, in the Oak Hills area, and in Old Jefferson. Keep up with Bindi’s Bees on their Facebook Page.
