The Story of Love and Honey
Love and Honey is a love note to our family matriarch, Peggy. She was a strong woman that lived a life of hard work. She loved her family and her community and they loved her. When she passed away in 2020, we knew that we had to keep her memory alive. Let's go back to the beginning. A poker game in 1941.
A Lucky Game
In a sleepy town in Western Colorado in 1941, Sam had luck on his side. He was a gold miner and always had a vial of pure gold in his pocket. That particular late night in Hadley’s Pool Hall around 2:00am when things were closing up and patrons were tired, the man holding the deed wanted one last poker match. Neither man had much to wager but both had something of value. In his words, the man said he had a “junk piece of property” that he had just cleared the deed from the bank that day and Sam had a vial of gold. As luck would have it, Sam was the winner and walked away with the deed to what would become part of the Love and Honey Bee Company apiary.
Keith and Peggy
50 years to the day of that fateful game, Keith(Pop) and Peggy bought that piece of property from Sam. Peggy (known to her friends and family as Gram) saw an opportunity to take that rocky piece of property and turn it into something special. As a certified master gardener, she wasted no time planting an orchard of peach, plum, apple, and cherry trees. She also planted an enormous garden full of various vegetables. She adorned the fences of her propery with various kinds of grape vines. Her grape jelly became a local sensation. For Keith and Peggy it was a lot of work but very satisfying. They had transformed what Keith described as a "rocky knob" into a paradise.
The San Juan Mountains near Pop and Gram's farm.
All good things....
Pop's health started to fail and he unfortunately passed away. Gram was left to tend to the farm by herself. Luckily, her daughter Donna and her husband Sherman took up the slack. Gram was able to pass on a lot of her gardening tricks to them as they worked tending the property.
Cancer
One fateful day, Gram learned that she had cancer and the outlook wasn't great. As the end was nearing, she told her grandson Sean that she wanted to keep bees the following Spring. Sean had already been studying up on beekeeping and told her he would help get it going.
Next Spring
Gram didn't make it to the following Spring but the promise made was still very much alive. Sean and his parents vowed to start an apiary that Pop and Gram would be proud of. Love and Honey Bee Company was born.
Bees
Gram and Pop were so full of love and that is what we wanted to show in our approach for beekeeping. Each one of our colonies is named after an important woman that has impacted our life. Of course namesake hive number one was for our beloved Peggy. As we tend to the hives and their needs, we reflect on the example of those powerful women.
Legacy
Love and Honey is our love note to all of the women in our lives that show us what love looks like. Gram left us with a powerful example. We practice those lessons of love with the colonies of bees that are in our care.
