Client Spotlight: Joy Wesley, Bee Focused Beekeeping Services

We’re focusing on the good to come in 2023 – by building a healthy soil foundation, and, through joy! ...both the joyous kind, and Joy Wesley!?

Meet Joy, the founder and Beekeeper of Bee Focused, a company that offers Beekeeping Services for Businesses and Individuals. Bee Focused is dedicated to providing your business, property, and honeybees with care, honesty, and collaboration so that all involved can flourish.

We were very lucky to have met Joy at our November Soil Workshop, where we learned a bit more about her soil health goals. We’re *bee-yond* excited to say that she’ll be using our Field Lab Kit in her work! Are you interested in beekeeping, managing native species, or are considering crop consulting for 2023? Read our full interview below!

When did you start Bee Focused?

August 2019

How did you get into the BeeKeeping/Consulting business? What originally drew you to it?

I have been fascinated by bees for as long as I can remember. In the summer of 2013, my husband saw a book about beekeeping and bought it for me. Over the years he had listened to me talk about my desire to keep bees and he wanted to support my passion. When I found myself ready to put down roots, I chose beekeeping in Sonoma County. The bees have shaped my life in this amazing region of California. I am always grateful for the privilege to observe, learn, and love what they are able to provide me and this planet of ours.

What kinds of products/services do you sell?

My business model is based on providing my clients with the knowledge of how to contribute to the restoration or addition and maintenance of pollinator habitat with native and drought tolerant plants so that all pollinators, not just the honeybee, have healthy forage and ample safe places to live and raise their future generations. I also assess properties for the possibility of tending honeybee colonies if the property has enough forage and space to accommodate them and not be detrimental to the native pollinators of the area. This colony or colonies will be maintained with no chemical treatments or supplemental feeding of sugar syrup or pollen patties.?

Tell us something about beekeeping that most people don’t know.

Drones (male bees)? have grandfathers but no fathers!

What role does biological soil testing have in your work??

In order to give the plants and pollinators the best possible opportunity to thrive it is helpful to know what quality of soil the plants are going to be living in. This information allows me to make knowledgeable decisions about which plants may do best at a location, as well as, the next steps to bring the soil to a more healthy and balanced state.?

How is regenerative agriculture – or holistic soil keeping – related to the world of bees and crop consulting?

Agriculture and insects (including the honey bee), have been intertwined in a dance that allows both to thrive if in balance, and both to fail if pushed too hard to work in an extractive system instead of a regenerative system. Bees are a keystone species and my vision for how best to tend to the pollinators in agricultural settings has been to benefit the planet by reintroducing a varied living landscape that can promote a resurgence of insect and animal life, giving regenerative cycles of life and death the opportunity to provide a multitude of living beings with nourishment.

Now that sounds a bit poetic, but essentially the honey bees (and other insects) contribute to the biodiversity above ground, so that cycle can contribute to the biodiversity below ground in the soil, so the soil can contribute to the biodiversity above ground. This is the dance.

Share a bit more about your business with us: What have you been working on recently? Or, where do you want this business to go in the future?

My clients have been a great resource of inspiration to what more I can offer them through my business. I am currently working on more drought efficient irrigation options.?

What are some limitations that you experience??

The most common limitation that I come across, when talking with my clients about their options, is fear.

The fear of letting go of long held ideas about how to farm. The fear of being rejected by their peers for doing something different. The fear of changing, which is linked to the fear of not changing and losing their business/livelihood.?

What would you say you’re most proud of??

I’m most proud of being in a position to support and promote other local small businesses that are directly or indirectly related to pollinator habitat. We are all interconnected in one way or another to pollinators, and folks really feel good when they know they are contributing to the well being of our ecosystems.?

What tips do you have for someone just entering into the biological soil world?

Ask lots of questions and be gentle with yourself….there’s so much information out there and we’re all continuously learning.?

Learn more about Bee Focused, and get in contact with Joy Wesley!

Email: [email protected]?

Instagram: @bee_focused

Website: www.https://bee-focused.com/?