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Harroll Bell runs a honey business out of his Cupertino backyard.
Photograph by Skye Dunlap
Sweet Success
Harroll Bell's bees drum up a thriving business
By Kelly Wilkinson
Harroll Bell's steady gait matches the measured pace of his speech, which matches the rhythm of his gestures. And all that steadiness comes in handy for Bell's 35-year hobby of keeping bees.
Dressed in the standard one-piece nylon bee suit and mesh beekeepers helmet with his metal smoking can in hand, Bell looks something like a cross between an infectious disease worker and the Tin Man as he wanders out to the leafy corner of his backyard where the hum is coming from.
"Once you get stung a lot, you become calmer," he tells anxious visitors summoning up the nerve to follow him. "You just have to be brave."
Bell got into beekeeping while he was working as a shrinkwrap artist, and a beekeeping friend asked him to design a honeybee for members of his guild. Bell says he didn't have any hobbies at the time, and asked to go along to a meeting.
Since then, he's been selling honey produced in his Cupertino backyard to local stores and farm stands, including locations in Sunnyvale and Cupertino.
"The best part about it is you don't have to feed them or clean up after them or all the other stuff you have to do with other pets," he explains of his attraction to the pastime.
Shari Barbella, owner of Cupertino Natural Foods, says her store has been buying his honey for 15 years.
"People want local honey, and are just amazed that there is still a beekeeper here in Cupertino," she says. "His local honey is real special here, and he's like family."
Another pull for Bell's honey is taking a small amount as an alternative for allergy medication, Barbella says. She encourages people to take a small amount of honey each day, which she says is effective in warding off allergy symptoms.
"I probably sell about 31 one-pound jars and 12 two-pound jars a month," she says.
Photograph by Skye Dunlap
For many people, the honey produced by Bell's bees serves as an alternative to allergy medication. When Bell works with the insects, he carries a can that funnels smoke into the hive. He says the smoke encourages the bees to keep their stingers to themselves.
At the peak of his honey-producing days several years ago, Bell used to have 45 hives, with approximately 10 frames contained in each hive. He's gradually been cutting back to only a few, and the remnants of his more productive honey days linger in the backyard in what look like old dresser drawers.
"It got to be too much work," Bell says, as he recalls lifting the boxes of full honeycomb which would each weigh 80 pounds.
But he still can't completely divest himself of the practice. In his suit with a small bee iron-on patch on his upper arm, he walks assuredly around the boxes with his smoking can, funneling smoke into the hives to settle the bees down.
"Years ago, back when bees were wild and there were no beekeepers around, every time [the bees] smelled smoke, they figured their house was going to be on fire, because it usually meant there was going to be a forest fire," he explains. "So they filled themselves with honey thinking that their homes were going to be burnt down, and flew away. Theoretically, it makes them not sting as much since they're full."
"But that's not always true," he adds.
When Bell became interested in keeping bees, he checked out all the books he could find on beekeeping at the library before setting up his hives, and subscribed to two bee trade journals. And the knowledge he gained over the years is still very much with him, as he reels through information and mini-lectures on the mating patterns of the queen bee, the variation in shades of honey depending on the season, and the pollen sacks on honeybees' legs.
He has also become seasoned at coaxing the timid--familiar with what seems to be a universal sense that calmly walking into the whirring bee hub is counter-intuitive. So he passes out hats to visitors and says that the bees might "just bump into you, but that's all."
And they do. As Bell carries a tray of swarming bees clinging to their perfectly formed honeycomb a little closer to his guests for inspection, it seems the bees really aren't too interested in what's going on outside of the hive. Or maybe Bell's calmness has caught on.
"See," he says to one nervous (and allergic) visitor. "You're all right."
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Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
