About Upper Oz Honey
My Story
At Upper Oz Honey, we strive to bring you the best raw honey the Missouri Ozarks has to offer. I've been tending bees since 2017 with the help of good mentors including my brother-in-law Fred Villeme and neighbor Bruce Palmberg. My husband Abi (pictured here) also helps me out when he's at the farm, and goodness knows I can always use another pair of hands and a strong back. When I'm not in the bee yard, I'm writing fiction, gardening, mowing, or messing around in the honey barn.
About the Name
The "Oz" in Upper Oz Honey refers mainly to the Ozarks, the rugged hills of southern Missouri and northern Arkansas. It's generally hot and humid in the summer with too little rain, and cold and snowy some winters, but more recently cool with deceptively warm days that confuse the bees. And the wind, Jiminy Christmas, the wind! We grow nothing so well as rocks, but our tough native plants and trees, along with the hay crops we plant for our cattle, allow the bees to make wonderful honey. It's also true that our immediate area is full of farm girls, smart and good-hearted scarecrows and tin men, the occasional cowardly lion, and more than our share of flying monkeys.
About the Farm
Our family farm has been in operation since the end of the Civil War, producing many different kinds of agricultural products over the years. Our current business includes beef cattle and sustainably harvested timber as well as honey. We take our roles as stewards seriously and do our best for the health of the land, the wildlife and our domesticated animals, including the honey bees (who may resent being called domesticated). The age of climate change is not going to be any kinder to us than anywhere else, but we're pretty resilient and the bees are, too.My brother and sisters and I make up the fifth generation on this land, with the sixth generation already stepping up.