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| Our Sign at the Farm |
Here are some newspaper articles that feature Wild Bee
Honey Farm: About Our Honey, Medford Mail Tribune, September 5, 2005 About Our Berries, Medford Mail Tribune, June 7, 2006
Our Company History...
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, 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 are attending 3
Grower's markets a week, plus craft and Holiday fairs. This venture onto the World Wide Web is the latest
attempt to make our family farm grow and flourish. We hope you enjoy our products -- they are made with lots of
love and care.
In addition to the
bees, 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, together with our honey and beeswax candles.
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