LA Backwards Beekeeper Max lives in Mt. Washington, and she wrote a great story for her neighborhood paper about how she and Steve added beekeeping to their lives:
We sold all forty gallons of honey, in four ounce jar increments, in just one week, making $300. This almost covered all of our start up costs. Since the waiting list for our honey is as long as my arm, I know that we’ll have no problem selling out our future harvests and we’ll be operating in the black as soon as January.
In addition to making money from the sale of honey and beeswax from our backyard bees, I’ve been hired by a variety of clients – including many of my neighbors, the City of Beverly Hills, a reality television show, and a local graveyard – to remove bee swarms and colonies on other people’s property. Although I treat beekeeping as my hobby job, several Backwards Beekeeping members have started doing bee rescue as their full time profession.
At a time when the economy is so shaky, I feel lucky that I’ve created a valuable service job for myself that cannot be outsourced beyond the community, doesn’t have to be subsidized by the government or a private financing source, generates next to no trash, doesn’t rely on the exploitation of animals or people, and has such a positive impact on the environment.
"Beekeeping" (Max Wong in the Mount Washington Association newsletter) (pdf)
