Discover the Unparalleled Quality of Stayia Farm

Evia is Greece’s second largest island, a long ridge of pine, fir and oak forest running parallel to the mainland, with heather, wild herbs and thyme on the drier slopes above the sea. That range of flowering is why the island has been one of the country’s serious honey regions for generations, and it is the reason a single producer here can offer thyme, wild forest, pine, fir and heather honeys without moving far.

Stayia Farm works that calendar rather than a production schedule. The thyme honey exists only for the few weeks the white thyme blossom is open, roughly mid-June to mid-July, and the farm is explicit that colour, texture and flavour shift from season to season according to rainfall, temperature and light. Everything is certified organic by BioHellas, the Greek inspection body, and the honey is extracted cold and left unfiltered and unheated.

What makes Stayia Farm special

  • Certified organic by BioHellas, covering the apiaries as well as the packing.
  • Raw honey: cold extracted, unfiltered, unpasteurised, with no added sugars or preservatives.
  • Thyme honey gathered in a single short window, mid-June to mid-July.
  • Family beekeeping knowledge on Evia running back to the early 1950s.
  • A consistent record at the Great Taste Awards in London since 2016.

Evia gives the honeys their character. The thyme honey is light amber, with a floral and mildly spicy aroma and a cedar and herbal finish. The wild forest honey, gathered from heather and wild herbs, is floral with a similar resinous edge. Neither is simply sweet, which is the point.

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The People Behind Stayia Farm

The People Behind Stayia Farm

Yannis Karypidis and Stavroula Theodorou founded Stayia Farm in 2012 and still run it from Chalkida, on Evia. Stavroula is a third generation beekeeper; her family’s hives and her family’s knowledge were what made the first season possible. Yannis came from accountancy and advertising, and took on the commercial side of a business that now sells into more than thirty countries.

The pair were, by their own account, on the point of moving abroad when they looked properly at what Evia’s flowering season could support. They stayed, registered the company, and began with three honeys. The range has since grown past twenty products, including honeys with lavender, cinnamon, chilli, Chios mastic and Greek black truffle, alongside olive oil and pasteli.

How Stayia Farm began

The company was formally established in 2012, but the practical starting point was a set of hives that had been in Stavroula’s family since the 1950s and a decision to certify everything organic from the outset rather than convert later. Organic apiculture places real constraints on where hives may be sited and what may be used in them, and building the operation around those rules from day one avoided the compromise of retrofitting them.

Recognition arrived quickly. At the Great Taste Awards in 2016, the Vasilissa organic thyme honey took three stars and placed in the top fifty of roughly 10,000 entries, with the wild forest honey with royal jelly and pollen taking two stars and the wild forest honey with mastic of Chios taking one. That result opened the export doors the business now depends on.

Couple at Stayia Farm

Working with the flowering calendar

A honey named after a single plant can only be made while that plant is in flower, which means the year is organised around a sequence of narrow windows rather than a steady output. Thyme comes in high summer on the open slopes. Fir, pine, oak and heather belong to the forest and to different weeks entirely. Hives are moved to meet the bloom, and the farm states that colonies are not given supplementary feed during the flowering season.

Verification matters at this level of specificity, and Stayia Farm has taken part in Honey AI, a Horizon 2020 project developing a robotised digital microscope that identifies and counts pollen grains by computer vision, replacing a manual laboratory analysis that takes one to two hours per sample. Pollen analysis is how a claim like “thyme honey” is actually proved.

Why this matters

  • Organic certification by BioHellas applies to the apiaries, not only the label.
  • Cold extraction and no filtration keep the honey in the state it left the comb.
  • Single-flowering harvests mean each jar reflects one plant and one short season.
  • Seasonal variation in colour and texture is disclosed rather than smoothed out.
  • Pollen analysis provides an objective check on what a honey is made from.

“Stayia Farm reads Evia’s flowering calendar rather than a production schedule, and bottles what each short season actually gave.”

A Daily Ritual from Evia

Each Vasilissa jar reflects the way honey is used in Greek households, which is generously and at almost any hour: on yoghurt in the morning, over cheese at the end of a meal, stirred into a herbal tea, spooned onto bread. It is a store cupboard staple rather than an occasional treat.

  • Raw, cold extracted, unfiltered and unheated
  • Certified organic by BioHellas
  • Thyme, wild forest, pine, fir and heather honeys from Evia
  • Seasonal variation in colour, texture and flavour, by design
  • A considered choice for people who read labels before they buy

Stayia Farm brings together an island with an unusually broad flowering range, a family that has kept bees there since the 1950s, and a Greek honey tradition that has been written about since antiquity.

Stayia Farm: What Sets Raw Organic Greek Honey Apart

Two things determine what ends up in the jar: where the hives stand while the bees are foraging, and what happens to the honey after it leaves the comb. Stayia Farm holds both ends, with organic certification governing the first and a deliberately minimal process governing the second.

QualityDescription
Certified organicBioHellas certification, covering hive siting, apiary management and the absence of chemical herbicides, pesticides, fungicides and insecticides.
Raw and unheatedCold extracted and never pasteurised, which is why the honey crystallises naturally over time rather than staying uniformly liquid.
UnfilteredLeft with its natural pollen content instead of being fine-filtered for appearance.
Single-flowering harvestsThyme honey gathered only between mid-June and mid-July; forest honeys taken in their own separate windows.
Audited productionFood safety certification alongside halal and kosher approval, with laboratory testing on the finished honey.

Crystallisation is worth expecting rather than worrying about. Raw honey sets to a granular texture at cool temperatures, and it can be returned to a pourable state by standing the jar in warm, not hot, water.

Daily Use in the Greek Kitchen

Greek cooking treats honey as an ingredient rather than a condiment, and a jar of it moves between the breakfast table, the cheeseboard and the oven within the same week. The thyme and wild forest honeys are assertive enough to be tasted through whatever they are put with.

UseHow to Enjoy
With yoghurtThick strained yoghurt and a spoonful of thyme honey, with walnuts if you have them. The herbal, resinous edge cuts through the sourness of the yoghurt.
With cheesePoured over feta, manouri or a hard graviera. Salt and honey is one of the oldest pairings in the Greek repertoire.
On breadGood bread and raw honey, on its own or with butter. The most direct way to judge any honey, and the fastest breakfast in the house.
In baking and cookingBrushed over roast figs or grilled stone fruit, folded into a marinade for lamb or chicken, or used in place of sugar in a syrup.
In drinksStirred into mountain tea, chamomile or coffee once the liquid has cooled slightly, so the aromatics are not driven off.

Store the jar closed at room temperature, away from direct sunlight, and use a dry spoon. Raw honey keeps for a very long time, and the only thing that will really spoil it is water.

Sustainable and Ethical Practices at Stayia Farm

Sustainable and Ethical Practices at Stayia Farm

At Stayia Farm, organic certification was the starting condition rather than a later addition, and it shapes decisions that are invisible in the finished jar: where hives may be placed, how far they must sit from conventional agriculture and roads, and what may be used to treat a colony.

The wider commitment is to the bees rather than to the yield. Colonies are not given supplementary feed while the flowers are open, hives are moved to follow the bloom instead of being pushed to produce out of season, and the honey leaves the extraction room without heat or filtration. The business also works alongside beekeepers elsewhere in Greece, which keeps the knowledge and the income inside the country’s own beekeeping community.

Their approach

A company founded in 2012 by two people from outside the food trade, on the strength of a family apiary that had been running on Evia since the early 1950s, has ended up with an unusually complete answer to the question of what is in the jar: BioHellas organic certification across the apiaries, cold extraction with no pasteurisation or fine filtration, harvests tied to single flowering windows, in-house laboratory testing, and participation in a Horizon 2020 project building automated pollen analysis for exactly this purpose. Stavroula Theodorou and Yannis Karypidis run the operation from Chalkida with a small seasonal team, and the Vasilissa honeys now reach more than thirty countries, including listings with international department stores such as Harrods in London.

Learn more Stayia Farm

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Award-Winning Greek Honey

Stayia Farm has been judged at the Great Taste Awards in London repeatedly and consistently. The Vasilissa organic thyme honey took three stars in 2016 and placed in the top fifty of roughly 10,000 entries; 2018 brought 13 awards and 19 stars across the honey and olive oil range, 2019 brought 12 awards and 16 stars, and 2021 brought 15 awards and 18 stars. Alongside those, the fir honey took a gold medal at the Bio Miel competition in 2017, the range collected silver and bronze at the Olymp Awards in Athens in 2018, and The Bee Bros honey spread with cocoa was given a one star Superior Taste Award by the International Taste and Quality Institute in Brussels the same year.

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Frequently Asked Questions About Stayia Farm

  • What is Stayia Farm?

    Stayia Farm is a family organic apiary and honey producer based at Chalkida on the island of Evia, Greece. It was founded in 2012 by Yannis Karypidis and Stavroula Theodorou, and its honey is sold under the Vasilissa name.

  • What does Vasilissa mean?

    Vasilissa is the Greek word for queen, a reference to the queen bee. Stayia, the company name, is made from the founders’ two first names.

  • Is the honey certified organic?

    Yes. Stayia Farm’s products are certified organic by BioHellas, the Greek organic inspection and certification body, covering the apiaries and the production of the honey.

  • What does raw and unfiltered actually mean here?

    The honey is extracted cold, is not pasteurised, and is not fine-filtered. It retains its natural pollen content, and it will crystallise over time, which is normal for raw honey and reversible by standing the jar in warm water.

  • What awards has the honey won?

    Great Taste Awards in London across several years, including three stars and a top fifty placing for the thyme honey in 2016, 13 awards and 19 stars in 2018, 12 awards and 16 stars in 2019 and 15 awards and 18 stars in 2021, along with a Bio Miel gold medal for the fir honey in 2017.

Explore the Stayia Farm Collection

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