FARMERS’ MARKET AT THE

BROOKFIELD OLD TOWN HALL

SUNDAY OCTOBER 5, 2025 12:00 – 3:00

Brookfield Bees and other Brookfield farmers, artisans, crafters, cooks and bakers will join together to present a unique day of shopping, eating, community and fun at the Brookfield Old Town Hall, 93 Stone Rd in Brookfield. 

Brookfield Bees had a superb honey harvest this year as well as a good maple syrup season in the spring. Unfortunately, it has been a terrible year for apples so we will have no cider for sale. There will be plenty of candles, soap and shea butter.

In addition to what Brookfield Bees has to offer, other farmers will be offering seasonal vegetables, eggs, mushrooms, fresh roasted coffee, chicken, beef and pork.  Craft items include organic dried flower arrangements, sketches and photography, hand knit accessories, handcrafted functional and decorative pottery including bowls, mugs, vases etc. There will be fiction by a local author. New this year are handwoven items, handmade arts, crafts and curiosities, and herbal wellness and apothecary products.

Lunch items courtesy of the Brookfield Old Town Hall committee will feature a variety of hearty soups and bread.  The Hall is steps from the very picturesque Floating Bridge so make a day of it!

HONEY OPEN HOUSE 2025

Saturday August 23 and Sunday August 24 2025

11:00 AM to 3:00 PM

Brookfield Bees will be holding an Open House Saturday August 23rd and Sunday August 24th, 11am to 3pm for visitors interested in beekeeping and local honey. 

In Mid-August we relieved the bees of about 400 pounds of honey so there will be no shortage of honey available at the open house. The honey was gathered, extracted and 150 lbs bottled all within the past week a week. Honey does not get much fresher than that.

The honey has a great taste with a hint of mint. Our honey is local, raw, unprocessed, with no pasteurizing or ultra-filtering and as a result it has all the good things honey can provide. 

Brookfield Bees has a huge collection of honey from all over the country and all over the world, from Maine to Alaska and Iceland to New Zealand, and visitors will have an opportunity to taste honey various locations and various floral sources. We collect honey whenever we travel and past visitors, knowing about our collection, sometimes send us samples from their travels. As a result, you can taste the differences between orange blossom honey from California, Florida and Egypt, or the subtle variances of taste in honey from 100 different towns in Vermont. For those with a greater sense of adventure, there are always the samples from South Sudan, Kyrgyzstan or even the UN enclave in Geneva.

So come meet the beekeeper, look at an active hive through binoculars, see an observation hive and find out why honey from the supermarket just cannot compete.  We also do maple sugaring…ever wonder what the difference is between the various grades?  Come tour the sugarhouse and taste the difference and see what the buzz is all about!

For those brave enough, there will also be garlic tasting with seven different varieties of stiff neck garlic.

Not all garlic is the same and will have the opportunity to taste those differences.

Brookfield Bees Open Maple Sugar House 2025 Mar 22, 23 11-3pm.

Brookfield Bees is happy to once again be participating in the Vermont Maple Sugarmakers Open House weekend this year!  We invite people to attend on Saturday March 22 and Sunday March 23, 11-3pm.  We collect sap in tubing by gravity and buckets, which you can see along the road as you approach our place, using no vacuum other than that pictured here.

We boil on a wood fired arch with no reverse osmosis and no automatic draw-off…just good old fashioned maple syrup, pressure filtered and packaged in glass so the purity is clear to see. 

We pay close attention as we boil to make sure that we do not burn the pans.

Come watch us boil and learn all that is involved. We will have complimentary sugar on snow, maple treats, sampling of different syrup grades, and mulled cider. We will have maple syrup, honey, boiled cider syrup, beeswax candles, soap and shea butter skin therapy for sale as well.  Join us at 1148 Kibbee Rd in Brookfield.  Sugaring season is mud season so all-wheel drive strongly recommended.  Directions and more information at www.brookfieldbees.com or 8022763808.

CIDER PRESSING OPEN HOUSE

OCTOBER 12th and OCTOBER 13th, 2024

11:00 AM to 3:00 PM

Brookfield Bees will be open for visitors from 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM on Saturday October 12th and Sunday October 13th 2024 for those who want to see how we grind our apples and press cider. Free apple related snacks and cider will be available.

In addition to fresh sweet cider we will also have boiled cider, honey, candles, soap, shea butter skin therapy and maple syrup available for purchase. The bees outdid themselves this year and as a result we have plenty of honey.

During the winter of 2023-2024 we embarked on a large pruning program. In addition to the usual trees we tend, we freed up many trees that have not been pruned for years, if at all. This involved the removal of a lot of brush and competing growth. Sometimes the differences were quite dramatic.

In May we had one of the best apple blooms we have ever seen here in Central Vermont. Unlike 2023 there was no hard freeze, and we were anticipating a bumper crop. However, the fruit set on the trees was unimpressive. Many trees we usually pick had no fruit at all. As a result, we were only able to pick 8 full boxes of apples from about 40 different trees. They range in size from the gigantic Wolf River, has plenty of juice with a somewhat bland taste, to tiny crabs which have little juice but pack a punch.

Those apples are now sweating” in their boxes, developing sugar.

So come on by and sample some delicious sweet cider. Prices for fresh cider are $8/gallon and $4/ half gallon. For those interested in hard cider, bring your carboy and we will fill it up. Please call ahead to let us know you want to fill a carboy.

OPEN FARM WEEK 2024

AUGUST 10th and AUGUST 11th

`

11:00 AM to 3:00 PM

Brookfield Bees is participating in the Vermont Fresh Net/Dig In VT Open Farm week.  We will be open Saturday August 10th and Sunday August 11th, 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM. for visitors interested in beekeeping and local honey.  Our honey is unprocessed, with no heating or filtering so you get all the good things honey can provide.

The bees here in Brookfield have been hard at work. They have been out and about since late February and benefited from a great bloom of fruit trees and dandelions. As a result, we have already harvested over 500 pounds of honey, and the season is not yet over.

We have a huge collection of honey from all over the country and all over the world that was recently recognized as a Vermont “Next Level Food Experience” by New York Magazine. Check out the article at https://nymag.com/article/2022/10/best-food-in-vermont.html

This year we have additions from Alaska, Colorado as well as several more towns in Vermont including Landgrove in our endless quest to get honey from all 251 towns and cities in the state. Visitors will have an opportunity to taste any honey they want and compare it to our local Brookfield honey.

So come meet the beekeeper, observe bee activity close up (but not too close), check out an observation hive where you can see the bees close up, talk about swarms, find out how bees survive the Vermont winter, learn which flowers bees prefer, and find out why honey from the supermarket just cannot compete.

We sugar in the spring, and you will have the opportunity to taste all of the Vermont syrup grades to find out which one is really your favorite. In the fall we press cider, some of which we boil into apple cider syrup which will also be available for tasting and buying.

In addition to honey, maple syrup and apple cider syrup we will also be selling several varieties of stiff neck garlic freshly harvested from our garden.

Those brave enough can try all eight varieties of garlic to figure out which flavor profile suits them best.

There will also be beeswax candles and soap for sale. And of course there will be complimentary cider and sweet treats.

From Exit 4 of I-89 follow Rt 66 East for about a mile. Turn left onto Ridge Road. Go 1.3 miles to N. Randolph Road and turn right. Go 1.8 miles to Curtis Road at Neighborly Farms and turn left. Go 1 mile to Kibbee Road and turn Right. Go 1.1 miles  (bearing right at Y at Kibbee Extension and look for Brookfield Bees sign 1148 Kibbee Rd.

SUGARING OPEN HOUSE 2024

Brookfield Bees is once again be participating in the Vermont Maple Sugarmakers Open House weekend this year! We invite people to attend on Saturday March 23rd and Sunday March 24th, 11AM – 3PM.

The tapping crew has been hard at work setting buckets along the road.

The collecting crew has been hard at work bringing sap from the road to the sugarhouse.

The sap tank has been cleaned by professionals.

The buckets and lines are up and even with the odd weather, sap has been coming in to the sugarhouse and we have been making delicious syrup.

Our arch is wood-fired.

We do not use reverse osmosis, vacuum or automatic draw-off…just good old fashioned maple syrup, pressure filtered and packaged in glass so the purity is clear to see.

Come watch us boil and learn all that is involved.

You can try to drink the sap directly from the tree or just look to see what is in the buckets.

Don’t let the cold weather dissuade you from coming.

We will have complimentary sugar on snow, maple treats, sampling of different syrup grades, and mulled cider. We will have maple syrup, honey, boiled cider, beeswax candles, soap and shea butter skin therapy for sale as well.

Join us at 1148 Kibbee Rd in Brookfield. Sugaring season is mud
season so all wheel drive strongly recommended.

CIDER PRESSING AT BROOKFIELD BEES

SATURDAY OCTOBER 7th

and

SUNDAY OCTOBER 8th 2023

11:00 AM to 3:00 PM

Brookfield Bees will be open for visitors from 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM on Saturday October 7 and Sunday October 8 2023 for those who want to see how we grind our apples and press cider. In addition to fresh sweet cider we will also have boiled cider, honey, candles, soap, shea butter skin therapy and maple syrup available for purchase. Free apple related snacks and cider will be available.

Despite a hard freeze in May, 2023 has been a pretty good year for apples here in central Vermont. Some of the trees we usually pick had no apples whatsoever. Others were loaded. It all depended on the stage of the bloom when it fell to 23 degrees. Last year we only picked 6 boxes of apples. This year we have 12 full boxes. The apples are all now “sweating” in their boxes, developing sugar. At the end of September we started pressing. The cider is not as sweet as last years, and has more of a zing to it.

So come on by and sample just some delicious sweet cider. Prices for fresh cider are $8/gallon and $4/ half gallon.  For those interested in making hard cider bring your carboy and we can fill it up for a discount. Please call ahead to let us know you want to fill a carboy.

For directions see our Contact Us Page

OPEN FARM WEEK

SATURDAY AUGUST 12th and

SUNDAY AUGUST 13th, 2023

Brookfield Bees is participating in the Vermont Fresh Net/Dig In VT Open Farm week.  We will be open Saturday August 12^th and Sunday August 13^th, 11am – 3pm for visitors interested in beekeeping and local honey.  Our honey is unprocessed, with no heating or filtering so you get all the good things honey can provide.

We have a huge collection of honey from all over the country and all over the world that was recently recognized as a Vermont “Next Level Food Experience” by New York Magazine. Check out the article at https://nymag.com/article/2022/10/best-food-in-vermont.html

This year we have additions from Martha’s Vineyard, Cuba, Indonesia, and Austria as well as several more towns in Vermont on our endless quest to get honey from all 251 towns and cities in the state. Visitors will have an opportunity to taste any honey they want and compare it to our local Brookfield honey.

2023 has been a big year for swarms here in Brookfield. With help from Silas, we managed to capture many of them, thereby increasing the number of hives in the apiary.

So come meet the beekeeper, observe bee activity close up (but not too close), check out an observation hive where you, talk about swarms, find out how bees survive the Vermont winter, learn which flowers bees prefer, and find out why honey from the supermarket just cannot compete.

We sugar in the spring, and you will have the opportunity to taste all of the Vermont syrup grades to find out which one is really your favorite. In the fall we press cider, some of which we boil into apple cider syrup which will also be available for tasting and buying.

In addition to honey, maple syrup and apple cider syrup we will also be selling several varieties of stiff neck garlic freshly harvested from our garden, as well as beeswax candles and soap. And of course there will be complimentary cider and sweet treats.

From Exit 4 of I-89 follow Rt 66 East for about a mile. Turn left onto Ridge Road. Go 1.3 miles to N. Randolph Road and turn right. Go 1.8 miles to Curtis Road at Neighborly Farms and turn left. Go 1 mile to Kibbee Road and turn Right. Go 1.1 miles  (bearing right at Y at Kibbee Extension and look for Brookfield Bees sign 1148 Kibbee Rd. DO NOT COME UP FROM ROUTE 14! A bridge on North Randolph Road has been washed out by the recent flooding.

Maple Sugar Open House Weekend

March 25th and March 26th 2023

11:00 AM to 3:00 PM

Brookfield Bees is happy to once again be participating in the Vermont Maple Sugarmakers Open House weekend this year! We invite people to attend on Saturday March 25th, and Sunday March 26th, 11AM – 3PM.

We use tubing and buckets to collect sap.

Our arch is wood-fired.

We do not use reverse osmosis, vacuum or automatic draw-off…just good old fashioned maple syrup, pressure filtered and packaged in glass so the purity is clear to see.

Come watch us boil and learn all that is involved. We will have complimentary sugar on snow, maple treats, sampling of different syrup grades, and mulled cider. We will have maple syrup, honey, boiled cider, beeswax candles, soap and shea butter skin therapy for sale as well.

Join us at 1148 Kibbee Rd in Brookfield. Sugaring season is mud
season so all wheel drive strongly recommended.

CIDER PRESSING AT BROOKFIELD BEES

OCTOBER 8 AND OCTOBER 9, 2022

Brookfield Bees will be open for visitors from 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM on Saturday October 8 and Sunday October 9 2022 for those who want to see how we grind our apples and press cider. In addition to fresh sweet cider we will also have boiled cider, honey, candles, soap, shea butter skin therapy and maple syrup available for purchase. Free apple related snacks and cider will be available for free.

2022 has been a so-so year for apples. Some of the trees we usually pick had no apples whatsoever. Others only had a few. Instead of the 14 boxes (about 3 tons) we only filled 6, where the apples are now sitting developing sugar as they “sweat.” We did press some cider on October 1^st and can report that the juice is sweeter than usual.

So come on by and sample just some delicious sweet cider. Prices for fresh cider are $8/gallon and $4/ half gallon.  For those interested in making hard cider bring your carboy and we can fill it up for a discount. Please call ahead to let us know you want to fill a carboy.

For directions see our Contact Us Page

OPEN FARM WEEK SATURDAY AUGUST 13th AND SUNDAY AUGUST 14th, 2022

Brookfield Bees is participating in the Vermont Fresh Net/Dig In VT Open Farm week.  We will be open Saturday August 13^th and Sunday August 14^th, 11am – 3pm for visitors interested in beekeeping and local honey.  Our honey is unprocessed, with no heating or filtering so you get all the good things honey can provide.

We have a huge collection of honey from all over the country and all over the world.  This year we have additions from Alaska, Louisiana, New Mexico, Ukraine, Portugal and Switzerland as well as several more towns in Vermont on our endless quest to get honey from all 251 towns and cities in the state. Visitors will have an opportunity to taste any honey they want and compare it to our local Brookfield honey.

 So come meet the beekeeper, check out an observation hive, talk about swarms, find out how bees survive the Vermont winter, learn which flowers bees prefer, and find out why honey from the supermarket just cannot compete.

We sugar in the spring, and you will have the opportunity to taste all of the Vermont syrup grades to find out which one is really your favorite. In the fall we press cider, some of which we boil into apple cider syrup which will also be available for tasting and buying.

There will also be some produce from our garden including a wide selection of stiff neck garlic.

From Exit 4 of I-89 follow Rt 66 East for about a mile. Turn left onto Ridge Road. Go 1.3 miles to N. Randolph Road and turn right. Go 1.8 miles to Curtis Road at Neighborly Farms and turn left. Go 1 mile to Kibbee Road and turn Right. Go 1.1 miles  (bearing right at Y after Fat Toad Farm) and look for Brookfield Bees sign 1148 Kibbee Rd.

Maple Sugar Open House March 26, 27 2022

Brookfield Bees will once again be participating in the Vermont Maple Sugar Manufacturer’s Association Maple Open House Weekend.  The dates are March 26 and 27, 2022.  Come and visit our operation between 11:00 AM and 3:00 PM on either day to see how delicious maple syrup is made.  You can take a maple facial by simply inhaling the steam, sample sugar on snow, try the different grades of syrup to see which one you like the best, and enjoy hot mulled cider and other treats.

After two years of no Maple Sugar Open House we are thrilled to be open to guests this year. Needless to say, we will be doing it in a COVID safe manner. Guests will be welcome in the sugarhouse, however, because of the confined space we are asking that they wear a mask. Maple treats, mulled cider, sugar on snow and grade sampling will be in our barn where there is more space. Maple syrup, honey, boiled cider, sweet (frozen) cider, soap and candles will also be available for purchase in the barn.

This year we had some new help with the tapping.

We collect from both buckets and tubing and boil on a wood fired arch.  There is no vacuum, no automatic draw-off and no Reverse Osmosis.  Just good old fashioned Vermont maple syrup.  On your way just up the road you can stop at the Fat Toad Farm store (787 Kibbee Rd) and pick up some of their award-winning caramel.

Sugaring season is mud season, so we advise your car has at least all wheel drive, as our roads get pretty muddy. From Exit 4 of I-89 follow Rt 66 East for about a mile. Turn left onto Ridge Road. Go 1.3 miles to N. Randolph Road and turn right. Go 1.8 miles to Curtis Road at Neighborly Farms and turn left. Go 1 mile to Kibbee Road and turn Right. Go 1.1 miles  (bearing right at Y after Fat Toad Farm) and look for Brookfield Bees sign 1148 Kibbee Rd.

Call 802 276 3808 if you need more info

CIDER PRESSING 2021

Brookfield Bees will be pressing cider on Saturday September 25 and Sunday September 26 2021. We usually do this with an open house, but because of COVID that will not be happening in 2021. However, if you are looking to purchase some delicious unpasteurized cider made from local apples, please stop by after 4:00 PM on either Saturday or Sunday.

2021 has been one of the best apple years ever, and we have made the most of it. In all, we have gathered about 3 tons of apples from approximately 25 trees in our neighborhood. The apples were so abundant this year we had to make some additional boxes where the apples could sweat for two weeks.

Prices for fresh cider are $7/gallon and $4/ half gallon.  Boiled cider (cider syrup) will be available next week at $12 for 12 oz or $15 for a pint.  For those interested in making hard cider bring your carboy.  We can fill up a 5 gallon container at a discount.

For directions see our Contact Us Page

While you are here, you can try some of the recent honey samples we collected on a trip through southern Vermont

 

 

Brookfield Bees and Holiday Markets 2019

Just in time for all your holiday shopping!  Brookfield Bees will be participating in the following holiday markets:

Friday December 6, 2019 4:00 PM to 7:00 PM – Northfield Common Tree Lighting and Winter Market on the common in Northfield.

Saturday December 7, 2019 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM – Randolph Elementary School in Randolph

Sunday December 15, 2019 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM – Northfield Middle-High School in Northfield

Brookfield Bees will have the following products for sale:  Honey, Maple Syrup, Boiled Cider, Beeswax Candles, Shea Butter Skin Therapy, and Soap.   

 

 

Cider Pressing Open House October 13 and 14, 2019  11:00 AM to 3:00 PM

It is early fall and time to get ready for cider pressing.  2019 has been a banner year for apples and there will be no shortage of varieties to include in our cider.  The picking is all done and the apples are sitting in boxes developing sugar.  Grinding and pressing will begin the second weekend of October.

Brookfield Bees will be open for visitors from 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM on Sunday October 13 and Monday October 14 for those who want to see how our cider is pressed and boiled.  In addition to cider and boiled cider we will have honey, candles, soap and maple syrup available for purchase.  There will be apple-related snacks and cider tasting for free.

Prices for fresh cider are $7/gallon and $4/ half gallon.  Boiled cider or cider syrup is available at a price of $11 for 12 oz or $14 for a pint.  For those interested in making hard cider bring your carboy.  We can fill up a 5 gallon container at a discount.

For directions see our Contact Us Page