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While millions of people experimented with sourdough starters during the pandemic, Palo Alto resident Dave Rickling accidentally took up beekeeping. Now, he has around 200 hives and his own business: Dave’s Backyard Bees.
His beekeeping and honey production business operates in 40 backyards from Woodside to South San Jose, as well as a newly established bee yard in Half Moon Bay. Rickling jars the raw honey by city of production and sells it at De Anza College Farmers Market and V.A. Palo Alto Farmers Market. It’s also stocked at DeMartini Orchard, Country Sun Natural Foods, Draeger’s Market and The Willows Market.
“Somehow I ended up in beekeeping, and that has opened up this opportunity that I wasn’t looking for, but it found me,” Rickling said.
An IT professional and father of three, Rickling was trying to find a way to keep his elementary school-aged kids occupied during the pandemic. Inspired by the farm on the Ohlone Elementary School campus (his children’s school), he decided to knock some scrap wood together to create a swarm trap and hung it in a tree at Cornelis Bol Park.
“One day my kids came home yelling, ‘Yo, dad, there’s bees in the box!’” Rickling said. “Well that wasn’t part of the plan. I declared victory, just getting you out of the house. Now I got bees.”
Borrowing bee equipment from Ohlone Elementary, he transferred the swarm into a hive in his backyard. The swarm trap caught two more swarms, and Rickling ended up with 12 gallons of honey. So he took to Nextdoor to see if anyone would be interested in buying some.
“I figured I’d get two or three people,” he said. “I was very wrong, and I was getting just inundated with messages and replies and DMs.”
After a year of selling honey, he realized demand far outweighed his supply, so he contacted some regular customers asking if he could set up hives on their properties and share the honey crop with them. When the project grew to 100 hives, Rickling worried that harvesting the honey was going to be a challenge while balancing his full-time job.
“That startup I was working for imploded, laid a bunch of people off, including myself right at the beginning of summer, and I was like, ‘Awesome,’” he said.
Rickling now works full time on Dave’s Backyard Bees, a job he said has allowed him to spend more quality time with his family. His oldest daughter, now a senior in high school, used to love working at the farmers markets; his son has taken an interest in labeling, jarring and testing honey; and his youngest daughter enjoys putting on the bee suit and interacting with the hives.
Rickling estimates that 80% of his honey sales are due to seasonal allergies.
“If you suffer from allergies, eating local raw honey from your region has a high likelihood of helping you become more acclimated to those allergens,” he said.
He’s found that customers appreciate the diverse locations of his hives so that their allergies can be precisely targeted. Dave’s Backyard Bees offers honey from Palo Alto, Woodside, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Saratoga, Sunnyvale and Cupertino.
Not only does the location of each hive help combat allergies, but it also creates flavor variations due to the different flora in each city. He sells 12-ounce jars for $17, 16-ounce jars for $22 and 24-ounce jars for $32.
“At my farmers markets, the Woodside honeys and the Saratoga honeys tend to be the most popular, if they’re not looking for local honey for allergies,” Rickling said.
Honey’s flavor also changes depending on the time of year, he noted. Early spring honeys are lighter in color, more liquidly, sweeter and more floral due to the presence of young wildflowers. In the fall, honey is darker in color, thicker, richer in flavor and less sweet.
In addition to natural raw honey, Rickling also sells creamed honey, which has the texture of creamy peanut butter. Honey naturally crystallizes because of its pollen content, he said, and warming it up will make it runny again. Creamed honey is made by stirring the honey during its crystallization process, creating a smooth, thick honey.
When stored properly, honey does not expire, Rickling explained. Honey bees take nectar with a high water content and transform it into a super-saturated sugar solution. Because of its low water content, bacteria cannot grow in honey.
But if honey is infused with additional water, it becomes an environment favoring bacteria and yeast growth, which is why it’s not recommended for children under 1 to consume. Rickling strongly discourages storing honey in the refrigerator, as condensation can build up inside the lid and introduce moisture into the honey.
In addition to selling honey and beeswax candles, Rickling does swarm removals. One memorable removal allowed Rickling to live out his childhood dream of being on a ladder truck. Palo Alto Animal Control called Rickling, asking if he could remove an open-air hive hanging underneath an underpass on the Palo Alto-Mountain View border. Because the hive was 50 feet in the air, the Mountain View Fire Department offered to let Rickling use their ladder truck.
“I’m sure the firefighters were like, ‘OK, who is this bozo coming?’” Rickling laughed.
Working with bees on a daily basis, Rickling is no stranger to bee stings. Instead of using bee gloves, he prefers wearing thin rubber gloves – which bees can sting through – for more dexterity while maintaining the hives. While he gets stung about two to three times a week, he said it doesn’t hurt more than a needle prick if he lifts the stinger out before the venom gets in.
While Rickling is currently the only full-time employee at Dave’s Backyard Bees, he is considering hiring help soon, although he doesn’t want to lose the hands-on, nature-focused role that he enjoys. He may consider going into pollination services, noting that 80% of all commercial beehives in the nation come to California to pollinate almonds.
“I’ve always had this underlying, very strong connection to nature and outdoors … so I’m still just enjoying the whole spectacle that this thing has become,” Rickling said.
From an unassuming swarm trap to a buzzy business, Rickling is just enjoying the journey.
“My goal is really just to enjoy this whole crazy thing that came out of COVID,” he said. “I mean, I got to climb up a ladder truck. And that’s just one of many things I never would have even thought that would happen. What surprise is around the corner?”
Dave’s Backyard Bees, Instagram: @davesbackyardbees.
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