Seattle honey maker busy as a bee

Bob Redmond is quick to wax poetic about the work of bees, citing Lars Gustafsson’s “Death of a Beekeeper.”

“There’s a refrain in there in which he says, ‘We begin again. We never give up; we begin again,’ and this is what the bees do,” he said. “In the face of all of the things we keep throwing at them — with pesticides and diseases and loss of habitat — and nature doesn’t ring her hands and say, ‘Oh, no, what is going to happen to us?’ Nature just does.”

And as goes nature, so goes Redmond, who founded Urban Bee Co. in 2009. Both Urban Bee and its complementary nonprofit, The Common Acre, are run out of the same Capitol Hill apartment.

Buzzing with plans

When he first started, Redmond’s head was buzzing with grandiose plans for his new business.

“I thought we were going to be the next Burt’s Bees,” he said. “And so far, I haven’t inked that $600 million deal with Unilever.”

Though the first couple of years since the company’s launch were all about “throwing mud at the wall and seeing what works,” along with making the best honey possible, Urban Bee’s efforts have now expanded well beyond the sweet nectar.

The key, Redmond said, is discovering what efforts complement each other.

“That’s the trick,” he said, “is you have to find things that work harmonically in your business…not create a completely new business that takes completely different modalities and operations.”

Along with honey, Urban Bee produces a salve made from surplus wax from the hives and sells seed mixes designed to provide foraging resources for both honeybees and other native pollinators.

Next up? Converting old bee boxes into furniture, an idea born out of household necessity.

“I needed some shelves, so I made some out of the boxes,” he said, “and it was like, well, people might like this.”

However, the honey still takes center stage.

Eager consumers can either become a Honey CSA member and get a 1-pound jar of honey delivered to their home each month or frequent the retailers that carry Urban Bee products, which include Rainbow Natural Remedies in Capitol Hill, Cone and Steiner in Pioneer Square and Ken’s Market on Queen Anne. 

The company is also the exclusive honey supplier for Theo Chocolate, which also sells Urban Bee honey at its factory store in Fremont.

Those who join the CSA (which encompasses the 98144, 98122, 98112, 98102, 98104, 98101 and 98121 ZIP codes) also get to attend a class — another prong of Urban Bee’s business — and see a hive in action.

In the coming months, Urban Bee will also likely seek new backyard hosts for hives. Currently, Urban Bee has about 50 hives in 15 different apiaries, and Redmond said the company will add more.

Environmental ethic

For Karyn Schwartz, owner of the herbal apothecary SugarPill on Capitol Hill, which stocks Urban Bee’s offerings, there’s an intersection between her shop and their efforts in helping people partner with nature. 

“I think that even though people have a consciousness about sustainability, there’s a way in which — in places where there’s a lot of access to nice things — we sometimes forget that natural things are actually limited resources,” Schwartz said. “That plants actually grow in the ground and honey is actually made by bees.”

Schwartz said she also appreciates how Redmond does more than make a “beautiful product”; he teaches people about the necessity of the bees and an understanding that naturally produced items come from finite resources.

“I feel like there’s something about that kind of work ethic and that kind of environmental ethic that really appeals to me in the way that I would do anything for people like that to survive,” she said.

Michelle Lanker was of that hive mind for several years and joined the ranks of backyard hive hosts earlier this spring.

“I’ve loved it,” said Lanker, who has three hives in her yard near Volunteer Park. “I think the benefits that I never realized was just how relaxing it is to be out in that space with the bees.”

Lanker said she wishes she had been more hands-on with the hives, but hosts can do as little or as much as they want to.

“We really enjoyed it,” she said, “and can’t wait to taste our honey.”

Providing resources

Recently, The Common Acre also made strides and received a $21,000 grant from the King Conservation District to restore habitat under power lines in South Seattle. And while that effort doesn’t involve bees or honey, “it’s all addressing some of the same needs,” Redmond said. 

The organization is also starting its third year of contracting with the Port of Seattle for restoration work that does involve honeybees.

And as to whether someone can host a hive, Redmond has some advice to improve the odds for bees and pollinators: “If people want to help the bees, all the bees — which includes all of the wild pollinators and butterflies — then it really behooves them to tear up their parking strip and plant a succession of blooms that pollinators will like.”

Most of all, Redmond said, habitat is what those pollinators need: “If we’re going to produce food in the city, then we have to provide resources for the pollinators that make food possible.”

And while the business is a livelihood, Redmond quipped that neither he nor anyone else is doing this work for the payday.

“There’s a joke in our industry that you’re a beekeeper until your back gives out or your bank account goes empty,” he said. “No one, at all, is making any money at being a beekeeper.”

Despite the sting of running a business with tiny margins, Redmond takes a page from nature’s book. He doesn’t wring his hands about the hurdles ahead; he just does.

“What I’ve learned is to just keep on going,” Redmond said, “and try to do really good work along the way.”

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