Why Bees?
As we work to move our farm away from meat animals and toward bees and all things honey, a common question we’ve gotten is “why bees?”
And it’s a good question! Beekeeping isn’t any easier than raising chicken and pork.
The hours aren’t less. We’re still out in all sorts of weather. We still have creatures to care for.
In order to answer the question, we need to rewind back to they WHY behind Wilde Rose Farm.
Kenneth and I met in college. We studied criminal justice and history. We knew we wanted to own land, to grow our own food, to raise our family close to nature but we didn’t know yet what that would look like.
See, we were both raised in the suburbs by white collar professionals.
In both our families you’d have to go back generations before you found people farming the land.
So we did what every millennial does—we took to the internet. We followed farmers of all types in Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube.
We saw so many different ways to farm: urban farming, micro farming, aquaponics, no-till, quail, rabbit, chicken, pork, goats, cows, homesteading and on and on and on.
As we began our careers (in criminal justice and retail management) and our family, we talked and dreamed and planned for what our farm life could look like.
We knew we wanted to raise food in an ethical way that respected the land and provided good, nutritious food to our community.
We knew we didn’t want to raise vegetables (bless a vegetable farmer, talk about WORK).
We also took into account the land we settled on. Cleared pasture, little trees, and a limited acreage.
Right away we decided against goats, sheep, and cows—we didn’t feel we had the pasture to support enough to be profitable.
Chickens seemed like a good place to start to grow. We knew how to raise them, we knew how to process them, and we knew that the meat we were making was delicious and nutritious.
So off we went.
First 100, then 400, and then 1,000 a year.
Our land wasn’t exactly right for pigs but we knew we could raise a great animal and offer an exceptional product. And we’d always wanted to try raising pigs.
So off we went.
First 6, then, 12, then breeding them.
In the background of all of this, Kenneth was quietly working on his bees. Building hives and other woodwork. Capturing swarms and manipulating splits. Dealing with losses and solving problems.
For three years, he worked with his bees before he saw a honey harvest.
Now raising 1000 chickens a year (plus processing and packaging on farm) and 20 pigs and managing 50+ hives and going to multiple markets a week is more than one full time job. It’s more than two.
And after two years of this, we knew we needed a change. Something had to give.
So now we’re back to the original question, why Bees?
Why not chickens? Why not pigs? Why not something else entirely?
Here’s the thing: farming is hard.
Whether your farming flowers, chickens, vegetables, or honey. It’s freaking hard.
So we chose our hard.
Kenneth loves the bees. He enjoys tending to them, the science in caring for a large number of hives, the management aspects behind running multiple bee yards. He looks forward to when bee season starts.
And that right there would be enough. Doesn’t everyone want to get up in the morning and look forward to what their day holds?
But on a practical level, honey is a shelf stable product that has a lot of versatility (ex: creamed honey, infused honey, honey comb, honey and wax based beauty products, etc) that gives us lots of avenues to explore.
We see better future growth as a single commercial beekeeper (with seasonal help) and the ability to grow and manage the business over the years.
Beekeeping allows us to continue to make a nutritious, quality product to feed our community. It allows us to continue to stay close to nature and mindful of our environment.
And Kenneth wakes up every morning excited to check on his bugs.
We hope you stay with us as we grow in our beekeeping era!
Thank you for all the support thus far,
Sarah