8.8 oz250 GRAMS
$9per bottle
- Miles flown~30,000
- Flowers visited~1.1 million
- ForageMixed wildflower
◆03 / The story
A college elective that turned into an apiary.
It started as a way to fill a schedule.
In the spring of 2024 I needed a few more credits to stay a full-time engineering student at Iowa State. I signed up for ENT 3580 — Bee Biology, Management, and Beekeeping — because it sounded like a fun, laid back class. But what I didn’t expect was to absolutely love it.
The course taught bee biology and hive management side by side, with hands-on hours as part of the curriculum. Getting to see and experience real bee colonies in action, paired with working the actual honey extraction process, inspired me to try it for myself.
Continuous improvement every season.
I started with 4 hives and slowly grew to 6, but it was not about growing the numbers, rather it was becoming a better beekeeper and understanding how to read and manage a colony more effectively. I would not have succeeded without my mentors Patti and Margi. They were critical in getting me through my first years of beekeeping, and they helped me improve season over season.
Even outside the hive, I found a way to improve the bee’s local environment by planting wildflower seeds. The hives sit on my family’s acreage outside Montezuma, Iowa, ringed by perennial wildflowers and bordered by acres of CRP ground — conservation land planted in native grasses and flowering clover. For a honeybee it’s close to ideal: diverse forage, blooming spring through fall, right outside the hive entrance. The bees don’t have to travel far to find a variety of nectar sources.
An engineering mindset at work.
I spent three years at Iowa State studying industrial engineering — the discipline of how systems, processes, and people fit together, and how to make them run better. When I opened a hive for the first time, I realized bee colonies were nature’s most perfected system.
Tens of thousands of workers divide labor by age, pass information through the comb, hold the brood nest within a degree of temperature, and reallocate the entire workforce when conditions change — with nobody issuing orders. No manager, no schedule, no waste. Nature’s most perfect system.
My engineering background and the incredible mentorship I’ve received have gotten me where I am today. But at the end of the day, the work wouldn’t be possible without the bees.