The first time Keith Duarte tasted honey from his own hive, he declared to his wife Jen, “That’s damn good.”

In 2017, Keith and Jen Duarte launched their own beekeeping company, or apiculture, selling honey at their stand in Kerhonkson (located at 15 Old Queens Highway), and providing installation and consulting services for other beekeepers. Now, they are opening a farm-to-table kitchen window at their farm stand, with the expectation that their sandwiches, soups, and salads will be just as damn good as their honey.

“Being able to actually serve food is something that we've wanted to do for a long time,” Keith said.

Besides a range of honey-based concoctions, including skin care products and candles, Damn Good Honey Farm sells fresh produce grown on the Duartes’ nearby farm. The new kitchen, headed by the third Damn Good team member, Mischa Shacht, will serve grab and go meals with entirely homegrown and locally sourced ingredients. The farm stand’s recent inclusion within a new water district opened the pathway to building an equipped kitchen, which they hope to open by late October.

Seizing An Opportunity

“I've always said that we're a business that's been built on opportunity as it presents itself,” said Keith.

Opportunity perhaps first presented itself in Keith’s grandfather. Though he died when he was very young, his work outdoors in carpentry, farming — and beekeeping — made an impression on Keith as a young boy growing up in Sullivan County.

“Some of the strongest memories of my childhood are of him working with bees,” Keith said.

Jen was also always drawn to nature. Though she grew up on the outskirts of Poughkeepsie, she spent a lot of time in her grandparents’ backyard garden.

“I always wanted to be outdoors,” she said. “My dad said I was always like a little tomboy, outside all day long.”

With a combined “affinity for agriculture,” the couple began Damn Good Honey Farm five years ago as both a business and an effort to engage and inform the community about apiculture. Keith began offering hive set-ups, installations, and inspections, Jen became a master soap maker, and Hunter, their son, ran around the farm stand.

Interestingly enough, the Duartes found their farm while being interviewed by a reporter. Upon hearing about their desire to farm, the reporter told them of the farm he owned on Route 209. Keith and Jen took over the property and, with no prior experience in farming, dove right in. To say they “figured it out” would be too ambitious, according to Keith.

“I don’t think we’ve figured anything out yet,” he joked.

Nevertheless, the produce and livestock from the little farm has inspired recipes that the Damn Good Honey team is eager to try out on the community. A hefty extension on the farm stand’s building along Old Queens Highway, the kitchen is almost complete and has already garnered some attention.

“All the customers are asking questions,” said Jen. “Every week we’re getting closer and closer, and they’re getting more excited.”

Updates can be found at damngoodhoney.com.