Her Majesty’s Secret Beekeeper

Sorry they closed before I ever got to visit. I guess they just didn’t do enough … bzzzzz-​ness.

First physical experience w/​Her Majesty’s Secret Beekeeper was during a honey tasting event at Berkeley Botanical Garden where they were the featured speakers
Purchased some neighborhood honey — their suppliers are actual beehives from around SF — & was surprised at how over-​the-​top delish it was. Raw, good for you & tasty — it’s the ultimate trifecta
So as the holidays were rolling around, I thought local SF honey would make for great gifts so I sought out the shop
No wandering chickens as I visited but there was 1 in its coop happily clucking a hello as I entered
The smell of the place is absolute heaven — honey just permeates the air
Scored some Stern Grove & Lavender Honeys & also a most treasured White Truffle Honey that will be 1^st on my list of honeys to drizzle
Would like to come back & explore their other wares but I was illegally parked & needed to dash before the parking-​ticket-​monsters showed up

This is my go-​to place for a wide variety of local and specialty honey. I also use their beeswax for crafts and cosmetics. Friendly chickens and service is a plus!

They have very delicious honeycombs that it is so hard to find honeycomb in SF with a good price. Also they are very helpful and friendly. They deserve 5 stars without any doubt.

I just happened to come upon the store today. What a beautiful surprise! I was late to meet a friend so i went in just for a bit. My husband is a honey fanatic so i went in to buy him a jar. The first thing that hit me was the awesome smell of honey and beeswax! Delicious. The gentleman working there was very kind and friendly too. Can’t wait to go back and try the eggs and get more honey!

San Francisco’s premier apiarist supply and infoshop.
Bryon, the wonderful owner of the store is full of knowledge and patience for those interested in the world of beekeeping. Whether you are looking to get into beekeeping, learn more about bees or just find some neighborhood specific local honey… this is the place for you. HMSBeekeper also sells fresh local eggs, chicks and supplies to help the urban farmer get their coop together.
In addition to beekeeping and chicken tending supplies, one can purchase wax, books, art… and maybe if you’re lucky, a sliding scale lesson from a pro.
Unilocal, please add one additional star to my rating. Five stars just isn’t enough!

I bought a DIY lip balm making kit for $ 35 for a Christmas gift making party with several 8 year old girls. It was a huge hit! It included everything we needed for 25 lip balms, and really well thought out instructions. We especially loved the four tiny bottles of essential oils. The kit would make a great gift for girls or teens.
My in-​store experience was great — there were two guys working and they seemed to have it all under control. I tasted and bought a few micro-​local honeys while I was there.

Live chickens. They have live chickens— and they manage to keep their store spotless!
Also, they help you start up your own beekeeping unit. This place exists and life is beautiful.

HELLO! This is what San Francisco is about. Tons of REAL local honey choices (we’re talking from Noe Valley and Inner Mission, and other SF neighborhoods) — and live GORGEOUS chickens. They sell 1 fresh egg each. My God I love this place. I live for this sort of thing.

Bryon is such an amazing person, the least I can do is give this ***** five star Unilocal.
My son and I walked in with a bee book and a prayer that someone would help us on our way to the wonderful world of beekeeping. We got that and so much more. We found an instructor, a bee lover, a honest business man, a kind, generous person, who is a world of knowledge, he has a ton of patience, and he is a friend to my son and I! This is the type person that would make me fully support cloning! I wish all my encounters were this amazing!
WE LOVE, «HER MAJESTY’S SECRET BEEKEEPER SHOP»!

About 6 of my friends, many of whom I didn’t know cared a whit about honey, have told me about this. It is full of beekeeping lore and affection for that buzzing universe, and the goods are diverse and excellent.
For people just looking for raw and local honeys, this is an amazing place to browse and shop, but it really shines in support for those raising bees or learning how. The HMSB proprietress is a card; the staff can help you with every aspect of raising (or considering raising) the hive (s) you’ve been dreaming of.

We visited last night as part of the micro neighborhood exploration, and it was amazing. Just the smell alone is enough to make me fall in love– but there’s more! You MUST, MUST try the lavender honey. The bees feed on lavender and make honey– never had honey so good.
The owner was delightful, she made honey cake (and let me buy one, and put up with my tipsy silliness). She also provided Mead, which helped me to feel really good about honey.
They do classes on raising bees too. Anyway, we bought the lavender honey. And the honey lotion bar.

This is a great store!
If you like honey — they have delicious and various local honeys from local bees flying around San Francisco.
If you have bees, or are thinking about starting up beekeeping, they offer classes, advice and have pretty much everything there that you need to get started.
The owner is very knowledgeable and helpful and the store smells wonderfully of beeswax.

I walked into this shop yesterday with a group of my honey enthusiast friends who were visiting from out of town, we had somehow been talking off and on about honey since breakfast and we decided to go on in and check some out. I had every intention to buy something so I wanted to know about everything… the owner was not paying attention to me she was too busy constantly looking over at my friends who were looking at some other honeys and carrying on conversation. I asked her about her bee pollen, which she showed me, yet didn’t really know that much about to be honest, and got offended when one of my friends stepped into the conversation with great information.
She gave me and my friends all a taste of the bee pollen and when I said I would take a jar she gave me the one she had been taking samples from… which she had probably been using to give out samples all day. Overall it wasn’t the best honey experience I have had… I felt that she wasn’t as excited or informed about honey as she could have been. If it wasn’t for my constant need of the sweet golden nectar I would probably never go back, yet this place is close enough to my house where convenience is worth it. The only thing is I recommend studying before you come in.

Mitsi H!!! My honey! I smooch you for turning me on to this place!
It was less than 72 hours of my having read your review, that my husband practically forced me to come here, if only to stop my gabbing about the happy fact that a honey store exists.
Giddy with anticipation, I nearly walked right past this new store when looking for it (signage is not large). But then, the pristine white store with gleaming rows of honey jars caught my eye. Upon entering, I was immediately taken with the gorgeous mural behind the cash register. Doing a slow 360, I surveyed the goods, all carefully placed with museum-​like attention to detail and space.
They have:
local honey (really local, like Glen Park and the Sunset honeys)
bee-​keeping paraphernalia and how-​to books
non-​local honey (like gourmet Hawaiian honey)
bees’ wax candles/​soaps
honey tastings
honey lip balms and healing salves
plans for honey tasting/​wine/​cheese pairing events
and more!!!
As I stood ogling the rows and rows of honey happiness, I was greeted by a delightful woman who turned out to be the owner. She was most informative and pleasant even though she was probably secretly chuckling over my infantile enthusiasm. (At one point, I had even pulled my shirt half off to show her my bee tattoo!) She guided me through my first honey tasting, (which was brave of her, giving me sugar, as I was seriously hopped up already on the mere thought of all that honey). Oh the wonderousness of it all! If you haven’t tried real gourmet honeys, you have got to try this stuff. Some are so complex, ranging from buttery caramel to rose and cilantro tinged.
My favorites were the Glen Park honey, La Honda cappings honey (I finally learned what that means), the gourmet Hawaiian honey, and the one she didn’t have in stock from Chicago that tasted like roses. I bought the first 3 honeys, and I’ve become a serious fiend for that Hawaiian honey. I don’t even want to «waste» it by spreading it on anything, preferring instead to just eat it by the spoonful. My husband prefers the Glen Park honey. The point is, the honeys are obviously all carefully selected and exquisitely presented in this fine, fine store.
Long live the Queen!
Long live Her Majesty’s Beekeeper (who hopefully won’t stay a «secret» for long, because I want to see this place buzzin’!)

I have tasted Glen Canyon. I have tasted the Sunset District, and I have tasted Liberty Hill. Soon, I am hoping to get a sampling of Bernal Heights. The neighborhoods of our fair city are strong and lovely characters each with their own flavor. It is a joy to find a literal manifestation of their unique qualities, and I have found it at HMS Beekeeper.
I left with a jar of the Liberty Hill Honey, a jar of California Eucalyptus, and a desire for homemade biscuits. I can’t wait to go back for more.

Four of my nieces went to the bee store yesterday. My brother in law Ben says: Bee store FTW! My niece Laurel (age 11) wrote this review:
I liked its appearance. It was really beautiful. You got to sample the honey that was local and honey that was from Chicago. In the store it smelled really good because of the beeswax candles. When we got there there were a lot of honeys that were sold out but they told us that they get a lot very frequently because of the local bee keepers coming in and delivering their honey. A lot of bee keepers just walk in and out and you can talk to them. Most of the bee keepers that come in kept their bees on their roof. The person behind the counter explained why the honeys tasted the way they did because of where the bees lived
We bought 2 candles and four honey sticks. Honey sticks were only 25 cents.
Friendly service, but there wasnt much actually for sale. If you wanted to buy bees, there wasnt much wealth of information, but you could ask the nice lady who worked there.

I had to go to the NEW Her Majesty’s Secret Beekeeper because I love honey. I have many opened & unopened jar at home since it’s the one food that doesn’t spoil.
The store is small, but she has lots of cool stuff inside.
Local SF honey: Glen Canyon honey from Glen Park 8oz $ 11.99 or 16oz for $ 23.99
Uncle Mike Sunset honey 1lb $ 15.99
Marshall Farm’s SF City limit small jar $ 5.99
Snyder’s honey from La Honda, CA — Eucalyptus or Wildflower 1lb/​$ 17.99
Marshall Farm’s honeycomb in jar $ 25.99
Nuts in Honey: pecan nut sweeties or macadamia nut sweeties, some Hawaiian honey: Hawaiian creamy lehua honey, Hawaiian Christmas Berry, etc.
Lg rolled beeswax taper candles $ 3.99
Honey blossom soap $ 13.99−14.99
Kosher honey — didn’t get price
honey sticks .25c ea
lip balm $ 3 ea
Moonshine Trading Co: yellow star thistle $ 7.99 — named «champagne of honey» by Food & Wine Magazine she wrote.
Moonshine Trading Co Calif. apricot or cherry honey spread
Supplies for beekeepers
Books & «The Secret Life of Bees» movie.
Some samples given if you ask.
Recommended.
Website:
Hrs: Daily 12−7p

So there I was, all jacked up on Ritual wandering around the Mission asking people «Excuse me, do you know where the honey store is?»
stranger in Ritual also waiting for coffee «Wha? Oh, no, no thank you»
nice ladies outside in unison «yes its on 17^th/​21^st/​I can look it up for you»
bike cops eyeing me suspiciously «No, we haven’t seen anything like that around here.»
lady in wheelchair «There’s a Popeye’s down the street»
old schooler «that sounds like it would be on Valencia»
THEN I FOUND IT! Yay! I KNEW it existed somewhere around 20^th! See, I’m not crazy.
I bought 3 kinds of SF honey, a tube of honey lip balm and 2 honey wax candles. I’ve already lost the candles. The Snyders honey is especially delicious. Thanks honey store!

I love honey. Love. It is the nectar of the gods. Or, er, the bees. Who cares. It’s such an amazing, perfect food and I can never have enough of it.
When my friend sent me the posting from Daily Candy of a new store opening in the Mission that featured honey and honey products, well, you know I had to get there within the first week of opening.
I met Cameo, who is very sweet and knowledgeable, and being that she is an apiarist herself, she can take you on a honey tour to a land where everything is golden delicious. We looked around the shop and admired the soap and beeswax products, but then it was on to the good stuff… the tasting.
All honey is not created alike. What really makes HMSB unique among stores is that they offer local honey (really local, like made right in Glen Park), and some different varieties the likes of which will curl your toes. I must have sampled over 15 kinds, each one completely different from the last, from simple everyday varieties to ones that had layers of flavor. It was a truly unique experience. So many people are interested in local honey that she was low in supply on some of them — a good thing! With the demand out there, I am anxious to see the shelves refilled with jars and jars of sweet sticky goodness.
I bought some honeycomb from Moon Shine Trading Company, which is begging to be paired with a strong cheese or mixed into some Greek yogurt.
Cameo told us that she is planning to add some infused honeys to her offerings, which is something that is hard to find outside of Europe. I can’t wait to see what she has up her sleeve.
Be sure to stop in next time you are in the neighborhood and see what the buzz is all about.