Richard Bean is a man of few words.

But that’s OK, because his honey speaks volumes.

When you bite into a freshly cut, golden slice of honeycomb from Bean’s Blossom Trail Bee Ranch, west of Baldwin, it’s like no store-bought honey you’ve ever tasted.

Instead, it’s a burst of pure, rich sweetness on your tongue, and it feels as if you were trying honey for the first time.

And your first thought is, “Where can I get some more of that?”

Lots of area residents — repeat customers of Bean’s — know the answer to that question. Bean is a longtime fixture on Saturdays at the Lawrence Farmers Market, located in the 1000 block of Vermont Street. He also sells his honey products at the Community Mercantile Co-op, 901 Iowa, and at Lawrence Hy-Vee Food and Drug Stores.

He’s one of only a handful of people in Douglas County who produce and market honey. Bean, 57, estimates that he has about 70 active beehives at Blossom Trail Bee Ranch, 467 E. 1000 Road, about 10 minutes south of Lawrence on U.S. Highway 59, and in other locations around northeast Kansas.

Two years ago, Bean says, he produced 6,000 pounds of honey. This year, Bean, who’s been keeping bees since 1971, hopes to turn out about 4,000 pounds of the golden, drippy product.

“I love honey — great stuff,” Bean says. “Especially local honey.”

Richard Bean dons protective head gear as he gets ready to check beehives near his home west of Baldwin.

Many of his customers appear to agree. They tell him his honey, produced by bees that sip nectar from sweet clover, wild cucumber, alfalfa and the blooms of other plants, helps reduce their bouts of allergies.

The evidence that eating locally produced honey helps with sniffling and sneezing is largely anecdotal, but many people including Bean swear by it.

Honey’s good for you in other ways, according to Bean.

“There’s not a lot of nutrition in honey other than the sugar, but the local product has pollen in it; that’s a major health benefit. When you eat the honeycomb, too, it’s a whole food,” he says.

And now is a perfect time to enjoy honey, and products made with it, since September is National Honey Month.

Passion for beekeeping

Other folks in the Lawrence area, like Bean, enjoy keeping bees and selling their honey to eager customers.

Anthony Schwager, 17, has been a beekeeper since he was a third-grader. Today, he has 47 active hives in and around Lawrence, Baldwin and Vinland. He calls his business Anthony’s Kansas Honey, and he regularly sells his product at the Lawrence Farmers Market.

Schwager, who has developed quite a following for his honey, has had some of his customers since he was just a child.

“I’ve been doing this for nine years. I saw a video on bees in the second grade, and I asked my parents for some bees,” says Anthony, a senior at Lawrence High School.

Tony Schwager, his dad, remembers being skeptical of his son’s new-found interest in beekeeping.

“It took him about a year to convince us. We had to be sure it wasn’t a fly-by-night thing,” he says. “But Anthony has a passion for it. He’s here at the farmers market three days a week.”

Not only does Anthony produce his own honey, he also offers free delivery of his product in the Lawrence area.

His dad says that even after years of beekeeping, Anthony still has a taste for honey.

“He eats a lot of it. He’ll usually have a drip line of honey on his shirt,” says Tony, who teaches agriculture and science at Free State High School.

Year-round work

Another youthful beekeeper and honey entrepreneur is James Snow, 20, a Kansas University junior who lives in Eudora.

“I’ve done this for eight years, ever since middle school. I picked it up from my grandpa (Ken Snow, of Eudora),” he says. “I was just really interested in bees, and I wanted to be like Grandpa.”

The younger Snow has about 50 active hives north of Lawrence, as well as south and southwest of Eudora. He says his bees collect their nectar from clover, soybeans, wild black cherry and black locust.

James Snow sells his raw honey on Saturdays at the Lawrence Farmers Market, while his grandfather has the honey account for Wheatfields Bakery, 904 Vt.

Richard Bean, rural Baldwin, gets ready to put a honeycomb into an extractor that spins the honey loose. He was working last week in his honey room. Bean hopes to produce 4,000 pounds of honey this year.

Beekeeping requires plenty of effort, with little time for slack.

“It’s pretty much year-round work. I make all my equipment; I spend all winter making boxes, bottoms and frames (for hives) — putting it all together and planning for the spring. It keeps me busy,” says James, a 2002 graduate of Eudora High School.

While he’s studying geology, James Snow also works for KU’s entomology program, managing the university’s 20 to 30 hives that are used for studying purposes.

“This is something that you have to enjoy to do. Bees are fascinating critters; it’s hard to describe,” he says.

Does he ever get stung during his honey-collecting efforts?

“Oh yeah, all the time.”