Kathleen began her professional life as a nature lover, ranging the forests and hills of her native West Virginia and near her family’s home in Mountain Lake Park, Maryland. As an adult living in Garrett County, she still regularly meditates in the woods, fields and along the streams of our beautiful mountaintop.

When her husband began keeping bees, it seemed only natural to do something with the leftover beeswax. Much trial and error taught Kathleen the skills for pouring and molding wax, about ingredients, and scents and the medicinal benefits of using beeswax in a variety of self-care products. In late 2023, she began offering the first of these, a mild hand cream that has been shown to have healing properties in a variety of situations.

Since the inception of Country Parson Honey, the idea of using beeswax for beauty and beneficial products has grown and grown! Today, Kathleen (and her husband Chip!) produce small-batch, high-quality, naturally based products and foods with Kathleen handling most of the candle, crafts and medicinal offerings.

You can see her and meet her at a variety of local and regional markets and craft shows. The Country Parson Honey 2025 schedule can be found here…It all begins with and idea that grows… and grows… and grows!

Kathleen Gibbs

It all begins with an idea that grows… and grows… and grows!

The Rev. Dr. Chip Lee

The Parson & His Congregation of Bees

Chip has been an Episcopal priest for nearly 35 years, 32 of which he has served as Rector of St. Matthew’s, Oakland, and Vicar of St. John’s, Deer Park, in the rural mountains of Western Maryland. Chip’s love of rural life comes from famed poet and Anglican priest George Herbert’s only prose work, The Country Parson, first published in 1652 and still read in seminaries to this day. The Country Parson offered practical advice to rural clergy, offering that “things of ordinary use,” such as plows, leaven, or dances, could be made to “serve for lights even of Heavenly Truths.” Chip’s doctoral thesis was about the practical benefits of long-term pastorates in small, rural churches.

Taking Herbert’s advice about “ordinary things”, Chip began keeping bees as a hobby in 2009 with just two hives in the backyard of the Rectory. That number rapidly increased to twenty-five hives in a very short time. Chip and Kathleen began selling surplus honey and hand-crafted beeswax products at the Farmers’ Market in Oakland and expanded to online sales shortly thereafter. Chip holds a Master Beekeeper’s Certificate from the University of Montana, serves on the Board of Directors for the Oakland Farmer’s Market, teaches a course in beginning beekeeping annually, and is vice-president of the Appalachian Beekeeper’s Association.