Morgantown has a brand new bee store: The Newbee Store!
Meet The Newbees: brothers Christian and Paxton Coby, and the former’s husband, Mike Lamp. Despite their name, the trio is anything but new to the business of beekeeping. In fact, they began raising their first hive back in 2020—today, they manage around 50 hives.
The Newbees have spent the past six years selling products like honey and beeswax candles at local markets, but they’ve also been in the business of supporting fellow beekeepers by selling beekeeping basics like bee boxes and even honeybees themselves. They knew Monongalia County is home to hundreds of beekeepers and enjoyers of honeybee products—so why not open a storefront for all things bees?
They did just that at the beginning of August: The Newbee Store in the Morgantown Mall.
“We’re one of the few stores like this in the state,” says Lamp, who is also president of the West Virginia Beekeepers Association. “There might be two or three other stores who do what we do.”
There’s a strategy behind the location: bringing local businesses into malls. Best of Morgantown 2026 winner Grandma’s Country Kitchen recently made a similar move into the Morgantown Mall—between breakfast and beekeeping, maybe we’re seeing the start of a trend.
Before your next trip to the mall, take a look at which unique products The Newbees are most excited to sell in their new storefront:
Otherworld Apiaries’ Cosmic Candy Pure Honey
Otherworld Apiaries is the trio’s own brand. “Cosmic Candy is what folks think of when they think of good raw, local honey here in West Virginia,” Lamp says. “Honey is a lot like wine, because it’s made from nectar. Honeybees go to a source of nectar, bring that nectar back to their hives, and then they cure it and turn it into honey.” What’s blooming at the time drives the flavor of the honey, he explains.
“We tend to pull our honey frames out of our hives around June and July—that’s after your blackberry and fruit trees have bloomed. We find that our Morgantown honey tends to have a nice diverse, fruity taste. The honey from our hives in Burlington, West Virginia, because they have a lot of basswood trees, they get what we would call monofloral honey. It has a slightly minty taste. Very sweet and very delicious.”
PRO-TONIC 20% Propolis Tincture
“Honeybees collect resins—all of those really beneficial plant compounds—and produce propolis. It’s a tacky orange resin that seals the hive into a sanitary environment, and beekeepers often overlook it. But it’s antimicrobial, antifungal, and antibacterial—it keeps all the bad things away,” says Paxton Coby.
“People take it to make cuts cure faster. There’s been a lot of really cool research into propolis in the last few years, so we’re fortunate enough to be some of the folks who have adopted it earlier than other beekeepers,” adds Lamp. “Folks use it to help canker sores heal quicker. You can mix it with honey and it helps sore throats. There’s all kinds of uses for propolis.”
Yes Honey drinks
“We met the owner of Yes Honey—Heather Mincer—at a regional beekeeping conference. She’s from Missouri, and she got bit by a Lone Star tick and developed alpha-gal syndrome,” says Lamp. Alpha-gal syndrome causes an allergy to red meats and other mammalian products. “Then she learned that sodas have animal byproducts in the dyes, and she was no longer able to drink regular sodas. Well, she was a beekeeper and had plenty of honey, so she decided she wasn’t going to just not drink soda anymore—she was going to do something about it.”
“So she created Yes Honey. It’s an all-natural honey-sweetened soda alternative. It’s way healthier than drinking corn syrup or cane sugar or Stevia. And the ones that are caffeinated are made with green tea.”
You can meet Mincer and learn more about her story at The Newbee Store on October 3 for a release party celebrating a new Yes Honey product. And mark your calendars for another event co-organized by The Newbees: The Bee Fair & Honey Show at Mylan Park on September 18 and 19.
In the meantime, pick up some tasty honey, boost your immune system, and put an all-natural twist on your typical soda.
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