Kellie Honey Farm

10/02/2026

Some of you from Larned, may remember Richard Adee when he had one of his operations here. I was lucky to have him as a mentor teaching me about beekeeping, business , finances and a model for my personal life. He awakened my interest in beekeeping by showing me slides of beekeeping one evening. 50 years later I am still at it. The beekeeping industry will miss him. Thank you Rich for teaching me both in my personal life and beekeeping.

With heavy hearts, we share the passing of our beloved founder, Richard Adee, who went to be with our Savior on September 30, 2026, at the age of 90.

Richard lived a life rooted in faith, family, hard work, and a love for the bees. For nearly seven decades, he poured his heart into his family, his bees, and the life they built together.

To those who knew him, he was so much more than a beekeeper. He was a husband, dad, grandpa, teacher, storyteller, and friend—someone whose kindness and steady presence will be deeply missed.

As our family grieves, we welcome any stories or memories you may have of our beloved “Bee Man.” We will cherish them as we remember and honor his life.

Thank you for keeping our family in your thoughts and prayers during this time.

- The Adee's

09/26/2026

We spent our Saturday at the Kansas Wildlife Center where we did education on butterflies and pollinators. We handed out hundreds of stickers to the kids finding the queen. Beautiful to see golden rod, sunflowers and milkweed for all the pollinators.

09/25/2026

This week has been emptying the tanks, honey in buckets and barrels, hot water hoses out, cleaning equipment and melting wax. Along with one muddy truck. Been waiting two months to see mud on the truck.😀

09/18/2026

We are down at the State Fair working the Kansas Honey Producers booth at the pride building today. Great fun with fellow beekeepers and selling honey.

09/14/2026

Last frame down at 11:57am. 2026 Harvest is complete. Lights out letting the tanks settle. Then tomorrow it is clean, clean, clean, preferably with a hot fire hose😀.

09/12/2026

Last super is pulled and on the trailer for this year. 76 years old and still at it. Hot room is full and we let it warm on Sunday. Then Monday it is extracting tell I am done.

09/11/2026

09/10/2026

We have been at the State Fair today helping with the judging of honey. It is always a fun day working with fellow Beekeepers and getting the booth ready. Stop by the Kansas Honey Producers booth. In the Pride of Kansas Building.

09/01/2026

We started the official harvest on Monday. The bees are looking good. It is 94 degrees in our extracting room and we are having some nice looking frames coming through today. We pulled double duty today extracting, plus bottling honey, and starting to store buckets of honey. Barrels will be last. We will be labeling honey this evening when it will be cooler. Harvest has always been fast and furious but still fun. We will be at it for a couple of weeks.

06/19/2026

We finished our last yard adding supers. Nectar is finally starting to be stored. One can tell by the whitening of the comes. It was pretty warm one day this week and the bees had their AC running by having water placed in droplets through the hive. At the entrance there are bees using their wings to bring air into the hive and bees on the other side of the entrance drawing air out. This is also close to the summer solstice. I find all our hives that have issues, and will not likely make it through winter. One way to tell is the brood pattern. The queen is old and failing so we have new queens to introduce plus I make a few splits and add new queens to them. I am mostly completed with outside work again for a couple of weeks. The rest of today I am reading the book “Bitter Honey”. Which is a look at big Ag, commodity farming, and how it affects bees and our food. Oh and maybe the left hand could be more important this warm day.