Nature's remedy: Local honey producer goes national

When Nathan Sheets bought his first beehive on a whim nearly 20 years ago, the Frisco resident would not have believed he would be selling honey to half of America. But 15 years after purchasing a regional company, Nature Nate's Honey Company is now going national.

"We'll do five times the amount of honey this year packing than we packed last year," Sheets said. "There's a huge craze and movement in America to obviously get away from things like high fructose corn syrup. Honey is one of these weird products that's right on the forefront of this."

Sheets, whose personal hives are located in McKinney, ended up in the business after he and his wife decided to come up with a hobby for them to do together shortly after being married.

"I always loved honey and I saw a commercial that said, 'you can buy anything on the Internet,'" said Sheets, 42. "So I typed in 'beekeeping Dallas' and up came North Dallas Honey Company."

Sheets bought a beehive from the local producer and convinced his parents to let him keep it in their backyard.

"I absolutely fell in love with it, it's just fascinating, the whole ways the bees work," he said.

Soon after purchasing his first hive, Sheets became friends with the company's owner, and began helping him pack the honey and deliver them to Tom Thumb stores across the DFW area. A couple of years later, the owner became ill and sold the company to Sheets.

Since the purchase, the Sheets have been busy expanding the 40-year-old company to almost all grocery stores in the area, their most recent ones being Walmart and Costco in 2010.

By sourcing local honey from local beekeepers and selling it, Sheets came up with the idea of starting a creating a local honey company by regionally sourcing the honey and selling it in stores nationwide. By doing so, Nature Nate's has been launched in 27 states with Kroger and is expanding to the rest of Texas with Walmart and Costco.

"I've got a great network of people," Sheets said. "We have five full time employees that really focus on developing a network of producers around the country."

Sheetss producers in the Farmersville/Greenville area are currently wrapping up honey production. The bees will then be sent to Houston, then on to California for almond pollination in February as part of what Sheets called "the honey flow."

All honey is not the same, however, as processed honey from large packers typically has the pollen pulled out of it using high temperatures and filters, Sheets said. When honey is raw, it is heated at a lower temperature; unfiltered means that the pollen is left in.

"They're trying to extend the shelf life before the honey crystallizes," Sheets said. "But in that you lose all the health benefits of the honey. That's really been our goal is to help people live healthier lives."

Many of Sheets' customers have began eating his honey to help cope with their allergies, and it is also used for healing blisters, burns and sunburns.

"We get calls all the time, now we get them from all over the country," Sheets said. "It really works, because as you're ingesting the pollen, the body creates its own resistance and antihistamines that coats the nerve receptors in your ear and nose receptors. There's really a science behind it."

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