One day Ed came by with a flier from the local Agricultural Extension Service.  Handing it to me, he said, "Here, you could do this".  It was a notice of the upcoming bee keeping school offered jointly by Henderson and Buncombe Counties in North Carolina - and after thinking it over for about 15 seconds I agreed that I could, indeed, do this.  Having grown up on a farm in eastern Virginia I missed that part of life.  It's hard to keep cows in a city neighborhood, but bees - they're pretty small.  So I went to bee school and that spring we started with a dozen hives.

Ed had an ulterior motive...  he was a mead maker and needed a source for reliably unadulterated honey.  His beekeeping friend in Tennessee was winding down.  We laugh about it being the mead that convinced me to marry him...

Ed has enjoyed careers in trucking, banking, insurance and a commercial microbrewery. Five years after getting me involved with bees, Ed attended bee school as well (so now he can be my assistant : )  Actually, Ed is the business mind behind Sweet Betty Bee's, and has on his slate commercial mead making and plans for honey vinegar production.

I have been a registered nurse for about 30 years.  Up until the time Ed got me involved in keeping bees, I didn't think much about life after nursing.  A few years ago I had the opportunity to attend an annual conference and study group of the American Apitherapy Society, and that is the direction my nursing will go. 

In the meantime, we and the bees produce some of the finest, purest honey available.

Ed and I grew up immersed in nature and through our life's work we want to give something back to that which sustains us. It is our belief that much of the sickness and disease that plagues this planet comes from increasingly widespread use of man-concocted stuff, and so we are concerned with responsible living; eating natural, unprocessed, pesticide free foods; and supporting local western North Carolina farmers with like concerns.

The bee deck at home

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