Maria Petretchi has loved honey since she was a child in Maglavit, a small rural village in Romania’s Dolj County. And no wonder! The pure, artisanal single-blossom honey beekeepers like her uncle Ghitoiu produce from the abundant flowers of the Danube region is simply incredible – a thrilling contrast to the blended, mass-market honey on the supermarket shelves. Together with her Czech-born partner Vito Frais, she runs The Nature Queen – Greenwich Market’s mainline to the exquisite honey of her native land.

All The Nature Queen’s honey comes from Romania, Europe’s largest producer of the sweet nectar and a hotbed of home honey production. They see honey differently there, appreciating it not only for its exquisite taste, but for its surprisingly beneficial health properties. Organic and raw (unpasteurised), all The Nature Queen’s honeys and bee products are made with minimal intervention. Supermarket honeys can’t always be trusted and are often blended and even sometimes adulterated. ‘Always look for honey from a single apiary’, Maria advises.

Maria and Vito trade in five markets around London, but none is dearer to their hearts than Greenwich Market. Locals from nearby New Cross, they love the creative culture and welcoming family of traders it offers. Their initial preparations to open a stall here began in 2019, but were unfortunately scuppered by the pandemic. However, since The Nature Queen emerged from hibernation in April 2022, it has truly flourished.

Having first envisioned an online shop, Maria and Vito quickly realised that their greatest selling points were the fantastic taste of their honey, and their own infectious enthusiasm for the stuff. Tasting at least one of their five honeys is now not only possible if you come by their stall, it’s basically compulsory! ‘They’re all different!’ Vito enthuses, and the only way to find what you love is to taste them. ‘Plus, people can trust you, if you meet them face to face’.

According to Vito, the process of making single-flower honey is intriguing and ingenious. The hives are mobile, designed to move with the seasons and the blooms they bring. Vito explains, ‘In April, the rapeseed blooms, so you move the hives there for three or four weeks. Next, the acacia forest flowers, so you move there! Same bees, different flowers … It’s also how you cooperate with the farmers, who need the bees for pollination.’ From October to March, the bees hibernate.

Of course, honey and honeycomb aren’t the only products Maria and Vito sell. One unusual side-line is the cutely named ‘bee bread!’. Essentially a mix of bee pollen, saliva and honey, bee bread keeps the bees fed throughout winter. It tastes like dried apple and is packed with nutritional and health benefits. Other side-lines include bee pollen, royal jelly and a tincture of propolis (‘the glue of the hive’: a mixture of bee saliva and tree resin used both to build hives and keep bacteria out) all of which are also very good for you.

Next steps for The Nature Queen include setting up their own hives in the UK, matching Maria and Vito’s passion for bees and honey with increasing demand for local produce. Selling more online and via TikTok are also on the cards. But, for the time being, honey lovers need to get down to Greenwich Market to taste The Nature Queen’s amazing, distinctive honeys and bee products.