We were lucky to catch up with Wendy Fujita recently and have shared our conversation below.
Wendy, so good to have you with us today. We’ve always been impressed with folks who have a very clear sense of purpose and so maybe we can jump right in and talk about how you found your purpose?
I was layed off from a job that I had for 14 years. I continued to search for a job but because I didn’t have a degree no one would hire me. Because I was laid off my husband was working longer hours. I decided I would take a leap into the thing that terrified me, Beekeeping. My husband had bees as a hobby and I decided to help out. I was hooked immediatley, watching them work and communicate I was completely amazed. They are definetly smarter than humans. I decided to turn my love for bees into a business. Now I just needed to like honey. That’s right not only didn’t I like bees I didn’t like honey.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I am the owner of Funny Farm Apiaries, LLC. We are a small honey bee farm to which we care for a little over 100 hives. Our amazing bees produce our amazing raw honey. We infuse raw honey & raw apple cider vinegar to create a beautiful flavor for your palate. We also offer other items made from the hive such as salves and throat spray. Like the bees we like to utilize everything we can from the hive. The bees know it is all good for them so we should partake in it also.
As owner, my main focus is raising happy healthy honey bees. Bees are amazing creatures they know exactly what they need to do they day they are born. Everything they do is all done for the good of their hive. Nothing in the hive is done for “Me” it’s done for the good of everyone. I love this mentality, I feel we have a lot to learn from the bees.
I love sharing the world of bees with people. I’m an intovert by nature but one I start talking about bees I just can’t stop. People tell me that when I talk about bees my face lites up. I feel that this is really where I am supposed to bee 🙂 This has been the second most amazing journey in my life, motherhood being the first.
To help educate and form a bond with our community, we offer beekeeper experiences where you suit up and go into a live hive all while we teach you what we look for as beekeepers. For children & those who aren’t as brave we offer bee talks where we use an observation hive. The hive is fully contained with plexiglass so you can see the workings of the hive. We also offer hive to bottle experiences and hope in the very near future to have a honey and Apple Cider Vinegar pairing at the farm. We want to show people how to use our products as well as explain about the amazing honey bee.
But, one of the best things we do is mentor Veterans and First Responders. Beekeeping is very theraputic and can help relax and calm you. Studies have shown that beekeeping can help with PTSD and anxiety. We love working with those that serve our Nation and Community it just a small way we can thank them for their service.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
My desire to make my husband proud, kept me going when I found it hard to talk to people when approaching other business to carry our products.
My determination to try new things and reseach to produce new products that set us apart from others.
My thirst for learning. You definetly need that in this constant changing world of beekeeping. The bees definetly keep you on your toes.
My suggestions to someone is, face your fears, step out of your comfort zone every chance you can, take a leap of faith, focus on one thing at a time don’t scatter all over. Stay grounded and bee kind. If you don’t try you will never know and may just sit with regret. Someone once said to me, if you fail so what, at least you tried you can always go back and get a job in corporate again.
If you knew you only had a decade of life left, how would you spend that decade?
Since COVID so many people started beekeeping. This has been a challenge mentally for me, a lot of those same people didn’t do any research and think it is ok to sacrafice the lives of our honey bees while they try and figure it out. I am not ok with this. If you aren’t going to research and learn or take a class chances are you are going to sacrafice your bees. It has also made it hard to finding places to put hives for adequate forage for the bees.
A small business owners biggest challenge I think, is trying to stay ahead of the competition, making yourself stand out against the rest.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://funnyfarmapiaries.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/funnyfarmapiaries/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/funnyfarmapiaries/
Image Credits
Photo credit: Kevin Fujita, Logo Credit: Jill Kile
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