Honor Among Bees

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Travelers who take State Highway 53 through the southeast corner of Missouri slow down-and usually stop—when they see our sign: "FOR SALE : Pure, Natural Honey, Homegrown. Serve Yourself ... Make Your Own Change."

And, despite the crime reports that flood the media, our customers constantly prove that people are basically honest, that our world isn't "goin' to the dogs", and that the "honor system" is a great way to sell a product.

As you've probably guessed by now, my husband (Hank) and I are beekeepers ... but this isn't a how-to article on apiculture (there are plenty of books that do that job better than we could). We just want to share some of the joys of our particular lifestyle, so that other folks can benefit from what we've learned.

HOW IT HAPPENED

My husband and I have kept a few hives ever since the early years of our marriage, and—if a bad heart ailment hadn't forced Hank into an unexpected retirement—that might have been the extent of our love affair with bees.

That illness, however, forced us to take a hard look at our options. Should I, we asked ourselves, keep the security of my job as a school bookkeeper ... or was this the time for us to take a chance and embark upon our long-dreamed-of adventure: fulltime beekeeping?

Somehow, good judgment won out ... and—a little over a year ago—we moved to this fertile farm country of cotton, soybeans, and excellent bee pastures. And it wasn't long before our buzzing colonies had increased to their present number of 100-plus.

Because of my husband's condition, we had to keep our workload to a minimum, and Hank (who reads bee journals as faithfully as he reads MOTHER) learned that the "honor system" had worked for others in honey sales. We decided that this sales method—based upon trust—was the best route for us to take.

Fortunately, the land that we had purchased included a small building next to the highway, which was pretty easy to convert into a honey stand. This 8- by 12-foot structure advertises our "golden delight" . . . and houses our cases of bottled, labeled, and ready-for-market bee produce.

THE ULTIMATE "SOFT SELL"

Each morning we fill up the shelves in front of our stand with honey, and every night we carry whatever's left back inside the building. A pain in the neck, you might say ... but these tasks require only 20 minutes of labor ... as opposed to the (at least) eight hours that" running" the stand would demand. We also refill the shelves on busy days, and occasionally "rob" the honor box (thereby removing temptation), but these few chores are the only work involved in our retail sales operation.

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