As a young child, his older brother, Jay, kept several hives of honey bees. He can remember being forced to go along to assist his brother, on occasion, (with no suit or other protective gear) getting stung, and hating it. However, I guess you could say that he was “bit by the bug” (literally), and spent many years thinking about getting back into beekeeping – however, it just never seemed to be t
he “right time” with often traveling extensively for his work in the construction industry and trying to juggle all the demands of raising a young family. Finally, in 2009, despite little enthusiasm from the rest of his family, he made the decision to give it a try. After signing himself and son Kyle up to attend a “Nu-bee” class given by Jeremy Barnes and others one Saturday at Nixon County Park, he started with one nuc given to him by Jeremy. He struggled to establish, maintain a viable queen, and successfully over-winter his one hive. (Attempting to keep just one hive is a big mistake as he now knows….) Demoralized from the experience, but definitely not out of the fight, he was hooked by these amazing insects. Everything that he observed, researched and read about, and talked to other beekeepers about, just made him more determined that he was going to figure out a way to succeed at this new hobby. Besides, if nothing else, there was nothing more relaxing than coming home from a stressful day at work, popping the cover on the hive, and watching tens of thousands of God’s creatures all work together in harmony to accomplish amazing things. As a bonus, his oldest son, Kyle, had taken some interest in it as well and would often join him in tending to his bees. So, keeping one fledgling hive quickly expanded into three, then fifteen, and the rest is history so to say…. As the leisure pastime of occasionally checking on a hive or two started to turn into more work with the increased numbers of hives, Kyle began to lose interest in the “hobby”. Thankfully, Heather started to take an interest in things – first starting by hanging out at a distance while Jesse worked the hives, then taking the occasional peek into the hive, to very quickly suiting-up and working along-side her husband as they tended the bees together. It soon became apparent that weekends weren’t always the most opportune time to accomplish everything that needed to be done, so Heather quickly took over many of the tasks herself during the week. Now, she’s just as knowledgeable, and probably more involved with the bees than Jesse is. With both of them now hooked on beekeeping, they began trying to figure out the best way to integrate their love for the bees with how to help the struggling bee populations, while at the same time, hopefully, starting to recoup some of the extensive money they were investing in their “hobby”. Being most-interested in the propagation and continued improvement of northern-hardy bees, combined with helping others discover the joy that is beekeeping, they decided to go into creating and selling nucs to other beekeepers. Beam’s Bees started selling nucs to others in 2014 and has enjoyed great compliments, referrals, and repeat business from many of our initial customers. In addition, to creating and selling nucs, we take our bees “on tour” once in awhile, setting up our observation hive and talking to the public and educating groups of all ages about honey bees. Although time-consuming, this is a lot of fun and very rewarding because even though many people are initially afraid of bees, everyone loves to watch them safely behind glass, and hardly anyone doesn’t walk away with a greater appreciation of just how important they are to our environment and economy. If we can encourage everyone to do “just a little something” to help the bees, the world will ultimately be a better place for all of us. Thanks for checking us out!
