If there’s something buzzin’
In your neighborhood
Who’re you gonna call?
Gatten’s Honey Farm!

What started as a need to pollinate his vegetable garden turned into a job for Eugene Gatten of Gatten’s Honey Farm. He has been around bees a long time, having had them around his Tennessee home in the ‘60s.

“I’ve been wanting to do this for years,” Gatten said. “People started asking me for honey and then more and more people started asking for some.

“Now I’ve got about 30 hives, and that grows as we grab more.”

If someone sees bees in their yards or in public places, Gatten said, he will come and assess the hive to determine if he’s able to capture them. If he can, Gatten takes them back to his other hives in Thunderbird Farms and puts them into wooden boxes filled with wooden slats engineered to allow bees to create their own hive.

To date, Gatten has taken more than 10 calls this year.

As the hives grow, Gatten stacks more crates with more wooden slats to give bees more room. After a short period, the bees will have produced more than enough honey to feed themselves, and Gatten collects the honey left over.

Each crate produces about 30 pounds, which in turn fills roughly 30 bottles of honey to be sold.

“Beekeeping can be hard work. Sometimes these crates can get really heavy and cause some back pain,” Gatten said.

“There is a shortage of honey bees in the United States,” Gatten said. “It’s not a good idea to put them down because they’re really important for the world.”

 

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