Ever since I can think, I wanted to become a commercial beekeeper – even though one of my first memories is being stung by a bee between the eyes which made me unable to see for a few days. Beekeeping for me always was where my desires for nature, creation and physical work meet. As much as I was fascinated by how bees live and dance with nature I was fascinated by being able to build something together with them. I loved thinking about ways to expand the operation: How can we move bees from crop to crop to maximize our harvest? How can we become more efficient in working on and with the bees? I also just loved the aspect of hard, physical work. I loved working all day on the bees to then load them on to a truck in the evening, drive all night into the sunrise to unload them at a new place in the morning. I loved the adrenaline of working through the night, hoping that everything works out as planned. Those nights were pure flow for me.

Although I thought about becoming a commercial beekeeper very early, my ambitions led me down a different path: Study business and start a technology company. I also loved that for most parts, but I was always craving the connection to nature and physical work. Thats why I still worked on the bees during university breaks or on weekends until I couldn’t manage to do both anymore. Last year, after six years of building, I decided to leave the company. Now, I’m back at the beginning: wanting to become a commercial beekeeper.

I was lucky because the operation continued to grow even though I decided to do something else. My dad got me into beekeeping. Very early on he managed to have a lot of beehives as a side project. When I, as well as my brother, got more and more interested in beekeeping we continuously managed to increase the number of beehives. Then for 1-2 years each my brother and I led the operation full time after finishing highschool before my dad quit his job and led the operation since. What was a side project grew into one of the biggest beekeeping operations in Germany. That sounds much bigger than it actually is though. Commercial beekeeping is very niche, not just in Germany. One of the reasons is that its not easy to make a good living off of it. You need high upfront investments for materials, trucks and warehouses. You are dependend on your bees, the weather and the market. You need employees in a profession that barely anyone can do. There is a beekeeper saying: “The big harvest always comes next year”. You just never know.

With that being said, I want to try it anyways. There are few things that give me more joy than driving hours to a beeyard, opening the lid and seeing the fresh honey as a result of a years work.

And, I want to share that journey. In the startup world, I always liked people building companies in public and sharing their unfiltered ups, downs and learnings. I always wished there would be someone doing it in the commercial beekeeping world. Now that’s going to be me. I will share whats going on with the beekeeping company as well as more information about bees and beekeeping in general. Lets see where that takes us.