All About Wild Bee Honey
Farm:
Wild Bee Honey Farm is a second
generation company founded in 1966. We maintain 500-600 colonies of bees, although the number of hives varies seasonally.
Morris,80, the founder of the company, tells the story:
In the middle '60's, there was a great movement of people to the mountains in our area. They were called hippies
and they loved raw honey. So that's what I produced. Since these people liked wild things, I called my outfit Wild Bee
Honey Farm. Everybody loved the name. Bees reproduce by the old queen taking the field force of worker bees with
her to start a new hive somewhere else. Lots of people catch swarms to start new hives. That's what I did when
I got started. My youngest son Mike kept bees with me all the time while going to school and to trade school. In 1995
I retired from the business and he runs the outfit. We're still producing raw honey. Honey heated over 110 degrees Fahrenheit
is no longer raw honey. So we use low heat in our extracting and bottling processes. Extracting is when you take
frames of honey out of the hive, cut off the caps with a hot sharp knife and put the frames into a special machine
called an extractor. It spins the frames around causing the honey to come out of the comb. Sometimes the bees eat up
all of their honey then you can help them stay alive by feeding them special sugar or sugar syrup.
Mike tells the story: My father Morris Curtis started the business and I became
a full-time beekeeper at age 19 after 2 years of trade school. At one time we took our bees to California, Nevada,
Oregon and Washington. Now we stay in Oregon and California. In 1995 Angelika joined with me in marriage and we
work together. We now have a son, Daniel, and daughter, Rachel, who might become the third generation beekeepers.
We'll let them decide when they are older. We try to keep our different honeys separate so they are as close as possible
to the pure variety of plant the bees are collecting from. Sometimes it is impossible to do that because far too many
plants are blooming at the same time so we give them a more generic name like Wildflower or Spring Blossom.
Angelika tells the story: When I first met Mike and he told me he kept
bees, I really never thought of such a profession but it seemed mighty interesting. I drove with him a couple times
on day trips to pick up equipment, etc., but I found out most of the driving is at night because the bees have
to be at home in their box when you move them.
A
year after we were married, I was laid off from my job so I started helping with the bee business. My mother-in-law
decided she wanted to go to the Grower's Market and sell honey there... but it was somewhat slow so she discontinued
doing it. I thought I'd give it a try. At that time, we were only selling honey from our little stand at our house
and we didn't have a label to speak of. There was a paper label that came in white and fluorescent orange with
the outline of the State of Oregon on it and not much else. After sales started improving we designed a pretty new label
for the honey. The view of the mountain is what we see from our house.
We started trying to make more and more varietal honeys to give our customers
a choice. Now we can offer anywhere from 3 to upwards of half a dozen types, depending on the time of year.
I'd always made a few candles, more as a hobby than anything else.
In late 2006-early 2007, I decided to try really getting into the candle business and building up my assortment. I purchased
some molds but more than that I learned to make custom molds so I can pretty much make a candle out of anything I want.
My goal is to have the largest assortment of beeswax candles on the web.
In
addition to the bees, the honey and the candles, we farm a small, 7-acre CERTIFIED ORGANIC property in Eagle Point,
Oregon. Our Strawberries and other produce can be found at all the local Grower's Markets in Southern Oregon. From March to November, we attend 3 Grower's markets a week and 4 a
week from May to October. Then there are craft and Holiday fairs, and a growing portion of online sales.
We want to do everything we can to make our
family farm continue to grow and flourish. We hope you enjoy our products -- they are made with lots of love and
care.
After a very successful year in 2009, We are ready to continue to the next level, whatever that might be... Cheers
to all those who support us all year round...we really appreciate you!
