Show me,
don't tell me.
A working apiary in the Missouri Ozarks. Started with one hive. Now there are more. The honey ships, the bees pollinate, and a few of them live on someone else's block.
[Founder Name]
Working beekeeper · Springfield, MO
One hive in '08, then more.
Started in 2008 with one hive in a back pasture outside Springfield. The first year we lost it to a cold snap. The second year we lost it to mites. The third year was the one that stuck.
Eighteen seasons later it's [TBD] colonies across the Ozarks region, a handful of pollination contracts with growers we trust, and a Bee Nook program in towns we'd never been to before we put a hive on their block.
Honest work, made visible.
We don't import nucs from Florida. We don't pump our jars with corn syrup. We don't pretend Missouri honey tastes like California honey or Florida honey.
It tastes like clover and Ozark rain and the meadow it came from — and that's the whole point. Every jar prints the apiary and the batch. Every contract is a number you'll see again. Every Bee Nook host knows the beekeeper by first name.
We chose the name "Show Me" because Missouri made us prove it. Now we put our phone number on every jar.
What we won't do.
- No imported honey blended in. What's in the jar came from our colonies in Missouri.
- No corn syrup, no "honey product". Honey is honey. The FDA has rules; we read them carefully.
- No fine-cloth filtering. Raw means raw — pollen, propolis, the actual stuff bees made.
- No cross-country trucking. Missouri-resident colonies. Healthier bees, smaller footprint, fewer pathogen vectors.
- No surprise re-bills on pollination contracts. The number on the contract is the number you pay.
- No taking contracts we can't staff. When we're full, we say so.
Where it's going.
Two things to share. First, we're partnered with Vavan to build the operational layer behind everything we do — the host portal for Bee Nooks, the monitoring reports for pollination, the order system behind the jars. Same brand, same voice; the technology runs in the background so we can keep working the bees.
Second, we're growing the Bee Nook program quietly and carefully. Two new counties a quarter, no faster. If we're not in your county yet — get on the list, and we'll write when we are.
A small operation, doing real things.
From one hive.
One hive in a back pasture.
Lost it the first winter. Started over the next spring.
Three hives, first jars.
First Mason jars. First neighbor sales. The phone number went on the label — and it's still the same number today.
First pollination contract.
A blueberry farmer needed bees. We delivered ten colonies the week before bloom. The grower called us back the next spring — and every spring since.
Body care line — beeswax for the workshop.
We were rendering more beeswax than we knew what to do with. Lip balm. Hand salve. Candles. Soap. Same hive, different shelf.
First Bee Nooks.
A backyard in Springfield. A schoolyard in Ozark. A church in Branson. The pilot worked. The waitlist started.
Vavan partnership. New brand. Same bees.
Eighteen years in. Operational layer underneath everything we do — host portal, monitoring reports, the order system. So we can keep working the bees.