How this 70-year-old honey bee farmer is keeping his family farm alive
For David Bradshaw, beekeeping has always been a family affair.
Bradshaw, 70, is the second-generation owner of the company. Bradshaw Honey Farms In Visalia, California. His father, Howard Bradshaw, started the farm in their backyard in 1958.
David Bradshaw remembers playing outside as a little boy and “learning not to get too close” to beehives. He has been attacked “thousands of times” since then, but that hasn’t stopped him from continuing the work.
It also involved the next generation: Bradshaw’s daughter works full-time on the farm, where she manages the honey bottling operations and her son helps out when needed. And he says, “In a way, I think my bees are my children.”
Establishing the family farm
Before starting Bradshaw Honey Farms, Howard Bradshaw worked as an aircraft mechanic and raised bees as a hobby. According to David, he quit his job to focus on beekeeping full-time after witnessing a fatal work accident.
“I remember him coming home crying as a kid; probably the first time I ever saw my father cry,” recalls David Bradshaw. “He said, ‘I resigned. I’m not coming back. The bees are much safer.'”
In 1970, the Bradshaw family, including David and his four siblings, moved to a five-acre property in Visalia; Here Howard Bradshaw founded his honey business and began renting his bees to local farmers to pollinate their crops.
A young David Bradshaw among the beehives in his family’s backyard.
Courtesy of David Bradshaw
Was David Bradshaw always interested in taking over the honey farm? “Hell no,” he says. As a “rebellious young boy” he wanted to be a car mechanic. But his father needed help with the bees, so he earned an associate’s degree in agricultural mechanics and started working on the farm instead. Bradshaw says that in the mid-’80s he and his father owned a colony of 2,000 bees.
Howard Bradshaw was excited to have his son take on more responsibilities on the farm. “He said, ‘All I need is a lunch pail and you tell me what to do,'” David Bradshaw recalls. “He was as happy as could be.”
The duo ran Bradshaw Honey Farms together until Howard passed away in 2019 at the age of 81.
Working in ‘wide open spaces’
David Bradshaw still operates Bradshaw Honey Farms on the same property in Visalia where he lives with his wife, but Their bees travel throughout the San Joaquin Valley to pollinate crops and make honey.
He rents his bees to farmers in an annual rotation that starts with the opening of almond blossoms, and leaves his hives in almond orchards in mid-February. He then gets bees to pollinate cherries and prunes before moving on to oranges, lemons and grapefruits in late spring. From summer through early fall, Bradshaw takes his bees into the Sierras to stock up on pollen and make honey from native plants.
Bradshaw takes care of his bees.
Courtesy of David Bradshaw
According to Bradshaw, extracting honey is a long, difficult and hot job. He and his staff collect honey supers (special boxes located above the hives that store excess honey) from each colony. Using a forklift, they load the heavy supers onto Bradshaw’s truck and drive back to his Visalia property, where they spend “days extracting honey.” Bradshaw’s daughter bottles the honey to sell.
When his bees aren’t busy pollinating crops, Bradshaw rents pastures from local farmers, particularly cattle ranchers, to house his own hives while the bees rest and build their food stores for the winter. Bradshaw says many are willing to lend their land in exchange for a steady supply of free honey.
Bradshaw rents land from local farmers and ranchers for his bees to rest and collect pollen.
Courtesy of David Bradshaw
“If you’re a beekeeper of any size, you have to rely on the generosity of farmers and ranchers to let you put bees on their land,” he says. “You need wide open spaces and you need to move them around all the time.”
Keeping up with increasing costs
The bulk of Bradshaw Honey Farms’ revenue comes from renting bees for pollination services, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It.
Over the last decade, “bees aren’t making much honey,” he says, and as domestic honey production declines, the market is flooded with cheaper honey imported honey products.
Bradshaw still sells small quantities of honey, but this is no longer a significant source of income. He also sells specialized beekeeping equipment and bee food supplements through the farm’s online store and extracts honey for other local beekeepers to generate extra income.
Bradshaw sells his honey in small quantities through the farm’s online store.
Courtesy of David Bradshaw
Bradshaw Honey Farms earned about $1.8 million in gross revenue last year, but after expenses, the business ended the year at a loss, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. Labor is one of the biggest expenses for the farm, which has two full-time employees, including his daughter. Rising fuel prices and tariffs on essential supplies such as honey bottles are causing extra financial hardship, he says.
Bradshaw usually lives on “what’s left over” after all the bills are paid, but says he’s had to dip into his savings over the last few years, which are now down to “zippo.” “I constantly put money back into the business,” he adds. “This is a legacy I feel responsible for.”
protection of the hive
In the bee business, “You trust Mother Nature,” Bradshaw says, but nature doesn’t always cooperate. Without enough rain, plants won’t grow, reducing the pollen supply. If it rains too much, bees can’t leave their hives to collect food, so Bradshaw must supplement his stores with artificial protein and sugar syrup.
A frame of bees from one of Bradshaw’s hives.
Courtesy of David Bradshaw
One of Bradshaw’s primary concerns parasitic mitesIt can weaken or kill honeybees and transmit deadly diseases. deformed wing virus. He and his staff regularly treat the bees to prevent mites, but once a virus enters the hive, “you’re done,” he says.
Bradshaw estimates the bee population will lose about 60% by 2025, largely due to viral infections caused by mites. He’s not alone: 62% of commercial honeybee colonies in the U.S. died between June 2024 and February 2025. questionnaire from the nonprofit bee research organization Project Apis m. Beekeepers reported that the main causes of death were parasites, pathogens, exposure to pesticides, and malnutrition.
“Our challenge now is to make sure the bees make it to next year,” says Bradshaw.
We fight for the farm’s legacy
Bradshaw says he is concerned about the future of Bradshaw Honey Farms and the future of the American beekeeping industry as a whole. He says many independent beekeepers have given up and sold their operations to larger companies. “They just say, ‘Forget it, it’s too hard.'”
According to Bradshaw, there is an important prerequisite to becoming a beekeeper: “You must care about bees.” He says people who go into beekeeping just to make money often don’t last long in the business: “They eventually give up.”
But Bradshaw says he can’t imagine doing the same: “I’m a beekeeper through and through,” he says. “I’ll probably do this until I die.”
Despite the challenges of the past few years, Bradshaw says he still feels like the bee business is “really good for me.” The best part of his job, he says, is “the feeling of accomplishment you feel when your bees are successful, when you get a nice crop of honey.” “There’s nothing like it.”
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