It's a Honey of a Job

Steve and Ellie Conlon left Philadelphia more than 25 years ago in search of a new life away from the city.

Ellie loaded her car with houseplants, dogs, cats, and goldfish, while Steve and their 10-year-old son drove a U-Haul carrying furniture and two beehives.

They arrived in the hills of West Virginia with no definite plans during a huge winter snowstorm.

But they stayed, bought a farm in the town of Proctor in Wetzel County (pop. 18,000), and multiplied—gaining three more sons and 700 bee colonies.

Today, ThistleDew Farm—named because it was once covered in thistles—produces 50,000 pounds of honey a year, making everything from honey mustard and honey vinegar to beeswax candles and skin creams.

But the Conlons never dreamed those two beehives would become the root of a thriving business.

“We just thought it was part of the whole agricultural picture. In any type of farming endeavor, you need honeybees,” Ellie says. “I didn’t think that we’d be doing this today.”

Honeybees are an important behind-the-scenes part of most farming because they are pollinators. In fact, they are irreplaceable agents of pollination for many common farm crops.

Steve and Ellie bought the original hives from an uncle a year before leaving the city. And after moving to West Virginia, they found the mountainous wildflowers the perfect ingredient for producing various types of delicious honey. Each type of wildflower produces a different honey taste, and while some honey is dark in color, others are very light.

The bees go to the wildflowers and gather nectar, which is taken back to the hive and made into honey. The nectar also comes from such blooming mountain trees as the tulip poplar, basswood, and sourwood, or from clover and blue thistle in the lowlands.

“You have to carve out a niche because there’s lots of honey out there, and you have to make yours distinctive—and it is,” Ellie says. “These hills produce wonderful honey.”

But credit for the company’s originality also goes to Steve. About 15 years ago, he sat at the county fair trying to sell jars of honey packaged in recycled mayonnaise containers. It was hot, and few people were interested in his product. But everyone wanted to visit the exhibit next door.

“They had the ‘world’s largest steer,’ and people were paying 50 cents a clip to see this,” Steve recalls. “I got to thinking, ‘Well, honeybees are certainly a lot more fascinating than a steer,’ and that kind of put the bug in me that something could be done with bees.”

Today, Steve’s face is the company’s trademark—literally. At various fairs and festivals, he’s been known to sport a “bee beard.” He’s even appeared on The Tonight Show to demonstrate how easily honeybees can be handled if they’re understood. But he strongly cautions spectators not to try the feat themselves.

For the beard, Steve releases about 10,000 young, docile honeybees into a netted dome after placing the queen bee on his chin. As the bees form a cloud around his face, he explains the bees aren’t attacking him but simply trying to get near the queen.

And while it’s helped the business gain notoriety, Steve says his demonstrations also are educational, because he has the opportunity to explain the rewards of beekeeping and the importance of honeybees.

Beekeeping allows the Conlons to work outside with nature and to make a living from a unique type of farming, especially since beekeeping isn’t widely practiced in West Virginia.

“It’s a lot of fun,” Steve says. “I think it’s real important that people are continually learning stuff, and I think I help people in doing that.”

While they are the state’s second-largest honey producer, Steve, 48, and Ellie, 54, say it’s taken years of work and innovation to get where they are.

The couple works out of an old elementary school nearby, which they bought in 1989. Nearly everything, right down to the honey harvesting, is done by hand. Along with their four employees, they label, package, and ship everything produced at ThistleDew Farm, which spans some 270 acres.

And while their sales continue to rise, Ellie says they’ve stayed true to the ideals they left the city to find.

“You’ve got to love to work outside. You’ve got to love bees and nature,” she says. “We’re not just selling honey, we’re selling West Virginia.”

Margie Mason is a freelance writer and a West Virginia native. She now lives in San Francisco.

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