Pamela V. Brown
Write Path, an L.L.C.
Kauai Business Report, January 2004
Also see: Lo and Bee-Hold: Apiculture in History
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Pamela V. Brown Write Path, an L.L.C. |
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Kauai Business Report, January 2004 |
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Also see: Lo and Bee-Hold: Apiculture in History |
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Sweet Taste of Success |
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By Pamela V. Brown Oliver Shagnasty lifted the lid from one of his beehives and removed a frame of honeycomb - wearing his signature pith helmet but without a protective bee suit - bees buzzing all around him. It became apparent why "crazy" is the first word friends and acquaintances use to describe him. "Are you guys going to be nice?" he asked. They were nice indeed - not one of his lively charges stung him. "We were polite. We didn't invade them very much," he explained, equating honey bees with people: sometimes they're grouchier than others. |
Long time Beekeeper Oliver Shagnasty lifts a frame of bees from their hive. Photo by Pamela V. Brown |
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One of Kauai's two largest and commercially successful beekeepers, Shagnasty jokingly calls his vocation a hobby "so if you don't do well, you're not disappointed." But with 75 hives, a certified kitchen where he harvests and bottles honey and honeycomb which he sells in selected Kauai stores, it's serious business for Shagnasty. It's big business for Chester Danbury, proprietor of Danbury Apiaries in Kilauea. The largest honey producer on Kauai, Danbury produced some 50,000 pounds of honey in 2003 and hopes to increase his production by about 25% this year. With 400 hives spread around the North Shore, at 50,000 to 70,000 bees per hive, that's a lot of buzzing, and a lot of commerce. "Beekeeping has always been a bright spot for diversified agriculture in Hawaii," Danbury said. Kauai Island Honey, Danbury's brand, can be found in grocery stores on Kauai, Maui and Oahu. Danbury, who is in the midst of constructing a certified kitchen, harvesting and bottling facility on his own land, is looking forward to having the space to install modern, mechanized equipment. Currently leasing space in someone else's kitchen, he's been using smaller, portable equipment, creating more work for himself. |
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Fortunately, he said, "beekeepers are famous for their work ethic."
As a pastime, beekeeping seems easy enough and attracts many hobbyists on the island. Danbury confirms that bees can be left to their own devices for months at a time, and honey can still be harvested easily.
But to make it a viable business, the pace and temperature of Kauai's June-through-October harvesting season can be grueling.
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Kilauea Beekeeper Chester Danbury with two of his buddies, bee smoker and protective head gear in foreground. Photo by Pamela V. Brown |
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"It's 10 hours a day, seven days a week in the summer," Danbury said. "It's romantic when you're showing a beautiful jar of honey. But when you're harvesting in your hot bee suit, using a smoker to smoke the bees out in the heat of summer, you're like 'Oh man, this is terrible.' You have to be into it, there's no way around it," he said. And Danbury is definitely into it. Slim, fit and quick with a smile, Danbury is in his element, enthusiastically discoursing on bees, the price of honey, modern beekeeping methods and the craft throughout history, both here on Kauai and the world. He seamlessly transitions from scholarly discussions of plant kingdoms and scientific terminology to humorously affecting a funny voice, mimicking what a bee might say in certain circumstances. Though Kauai beehives look decidedly low-tech, Danbury explained that even the largest companies in the world use the same wooden Langstroth boxes, painted white to reflect heat and stacked one atop another. Developed in 1851 as a major improvement over the more romantic looking but less efficient straw, cone-shaped skeps, the boxes have "frames" that hang from the top ends, on which bees construct their honeycomb. Unbee-lievable Thanks to Hawaii's four or five month harvesting season, Kauai's apiculturists have an advantage over their counterparts on the mainland who only have four to six weeks to collect their honey for the year. "We're protected here on Kauai with our wet weather. It keeps flowers making nectar," Danbury said. "Bees make honey (for themselves) to eat. Winter never comes here so there's always enough for bees to eat. The environment doesn't demand them to stay inside and feed on honey," leaving more to be harvested. But too much rain can be trouble for the beekeeper. "They get feisty when it's rainy. They want to get out," Danbury said. Though Kauai has the perfect weather for bees and world record honey yields - two to four times the national average, Danbury said - island bees don't produce world class quality honey because the island doesn't have world class floral sources. But Kauai's special Christmasberry honey - generated from bees' pollination of the Christmasberry bush, also known as Brazilian pepper - has high medicinal value. Danbury was thrilled to learn that the Christmasberry bush, which is plentiful on Kauai, is from the same plant kingdom as manuka honey, which can be used topically. "From my perspective, it's unbelievable," he said. "This is the best place on the planet to be a beekeeper." Some people think of bees and their stingers as things to be avoided at all costs. But some, like Shagnasty, were positively stung during their first exposure. He recalls watching in fascination as beekeepers removed bees that had inhabited a trunk in his back yard 30 years ago. "I was hooked," he said. "I thought 'That looks like fun.' " Danbury and Shagnasty have seen a number of Kauai beekeepers come and go over the 30-plus years they've each been in business here. Both men can recount who had how many hives, when they sold them, when they leased them back, what difficulties befell them that drove them out of the business. Marge Ferguson, a professional bookkeeper in Lihue and president of the Kauai Beekeepers Association in the early 1980s, lost all of her hives in Hurricane Iniki 11 years ago. Just talking about beekeeping starts her thinking about how much she enjoyed it. "It's a lot of work but it's rewarding." The more she talks, the more enthusiasm for her past passion creeps into her voice, especially as she notes that her company logo is a bee. What would it take to get her back into it? "Probably wouldn't take too much," she said. Mutual Admiration When the buzzing subsides, only Danbury and Shagnasty remain commercially viable on Kauai - and they sound like a mutual admiration society. "Oliver and I have been here from the start," Danbury said. "We caught all our own bees. We didn't buy them from anyone else. We're the home grown." Shagnasty, who has scaled his operation back to about one-third the size it used to be, can't say enough about Danbury and his successful business. "I respect his work and everything he does here. He's a real uptown guy," Shagnasty said. "Chester is like an ambassador and helps promote the industry." Danbury has spoken on local radio talk shows and written papers about apiculture. He clearly loves sharing with people the wonders of bees and all the good they bring to our lives. In keeping with his personality, Shagnasty brings beekeeping to the public's attention in a slightly quirkier way. He was profiled years ago in a Honolulu newspaper which dubbed him "The Cosmic Beekeeper," in part because of a discourse Shagnasty thought was off the record about the difference between a bartender and a monkey. "I won't say it," he said. "I've learned my lesson." He's also the namesake of a menu item at Gaylord's Restaurant, "Oliver Shagnasty's Ribs," but is elusive about how and why that came about. "Whatever it is, we can't let the secret out," he said. Though Shagnasty has toyed with the idea of expansion, he's comfortable at his current pace, saying if he was 10 years younger, he'd probably expand. "I've got a little niche and this is where I want to be." Danbury hopes to expand into "kitchen cosmetics," bringing the therapeutic aspects of bees' labor to the public the way the popular brand Burt's Bees has done. He envisions creating and bottling three products in his new on-site plant: lip balm, hand lotion and night cream. The latter is a light, fragrant, all-natural moisturizer which includes as ingredients honey, beeswax, propolis and royal jelly, all created by his bees - and some closely-guarded secret ingredients. His working name for it is "Nutritive Night Cream," though he realizes when he's ready to market it, he'll need to come up with a name that has a more commercial ring. Danbury feels no pressure to rush the process. Beekeeping allows him the freedom to control his own destiny and he thinks his planned expansion this year will put him exactly where he wants to be. "I don't want to make a million dollars. I don't see that as the avenue to happiness," Danbury said. "I just want to have a unique lifestyle." Also see: Lo and Bee-Hold: Apiculture in History
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Contact Information: Pamela V. Brown (808) 651-3533 cell (808) 821-1027 fax |
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"Individuality of expression is the beginning and end of all art." --- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Proverbs in Prose |
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Official web site of Write Path, an L.L.C. and Pamela V. Brown © 2003 All material, pictures, concepts, intellectual property and rights reserved. |
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