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COVID-19 may have halted people’s social outings this year, but at the Ozarka Spring Water factory in Hawkins, thousands of bees are buzzing along in the wooden hives created and maintained by four queen bees, the Hawkins FFA 4G Honey Team.
The team, made up of seniors Brook Goddard and Rachel Parish, junior Emma Williams and sophomore Chloe Marcile, donned their bee suits and often spent six or seven days a week this summer at the fields of Ozarka managing each of their wooden hive boxes.
Last December, the team of innovators was featured on the “Today” show with its original line-up of Goddard and Parish, along with now-graduates Mackenzie Rutherford and Jessica Henneous, for their large honey-making operation, which began from a bee infestation at Ozarka in Hawkins.
Since then, they’ve adjusted to a whole new world of COVID-19, built 24 new hive boxes and more than tripled their honey production.
Their rise to fame started in early 2019 when Cheryl Conaway, quality assurance manager at Ozarka, noticed swarms of bees at the factory’s dock doors where truck drivers come to the facility. Conaway, along with Daniel Lennon, of Flint Apiary and Farms, reached out to the Hawkins FFA team.
Ozarka funded the project for the team by providing access to its land, bee suits, wood and other needed equipment.
The girls later earned overall reserve champion in showmanship (second place) at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo last year. During spring 2019, they harvested their first honey and began bottling and selling as 4G Honey.
Since the fame and success, they’ve been sharing knowledge with local farms, ranches and other FFA programs as well as maintaining a buzzing business.
Goddard said she and Parish brought Williams and Marcile up to speed since March and through the summer. Despite adjustments due to COVID-19, the team is going strong and continuing the partnership with Ozarka.
“Before the pandemic, it was a lot easier because we weren’t having to go through a lot of regulations and guidelines, and since the pandemic we’ve just had to follow a lot more safety procedures,” Goddard said. “We still get out in the field and work. We just have to run it through our school a little bit more and take more precautions.”
Even when the team faced cancellations of typical FFA events like the Houston Livestock Show, they utilized the time to keep working with the hives.
“Now, we’re back in business again, which is great,” Parish said. “It (the pandemic) actually allowed us more time to get it done because of course we didn’t have school.”
Matt Byrd, Hawkins High School agriculture teacher and FFA adviser, said during the early days of COVID-19 he and the team were unsure of how the beekeeping could continue, as students weren’t allowed on campus for some time.
So, the girls got creative and found ways to work and communicate virtually or out in the field.
“The main thing that I commend the girls on is that they wanted to see it through,” Byrd said. “They worked just about every day. During the time that we weren’t allowed on campus, they worked here at Ozarka. They worked from their homes and they wanted to make sure that they saw it through and be able to check the hives and produce honey.”
He added that the experience made them a better team.
“We’ve just kind of regrouped and just kind of deal with the cards we’ve been dealt and make the best of it,” he said. “And so, they knew that and without having to have any direction from me, they knew what they had to do. They were willing to put in the time.”
If supplies were needed, they communicated through Zoom and other digital methods, while practicing social distancing and wearing masks to stay safe, Byrd said.
“We manage to make it through,” Byrd said. “ ... That was something they wanted to take on.”
“That has been one of our biggest challenges is supporting our local community, because we’d go to the local farmers market with honey and we would sell out of it in an hour,” Parish said. “And then we’d have our local support come in saying, ‘When are y’all going to get more honey?’ It wouldn’t be till like two months later when we could actually provide them with that.”
Spreading the Buzz
The next phase is to get other area FFA programs involved and train them using hives at Hawkins High.
“It feels good to know other schools are wanting to be involved and wanting to do what we’re doing, which is really great to teach others about the importance of bees,” Parish said.
Lennon, who continues to work with the team, said he’s been in contact with the FFA program at Tyler Legacy High School and working with the city of Tyler to find land where the potential hives could be housed.
He’s also continuing to help the team with his expertise in beekeeping in East Texas and collaborating with neighboring farms.
“It’s been nonstop,” Lennon said. “They actually help me now more than I help them.”
Production Increase
While live on the Today show, the original team received a $10,000 grant from Ozarka for the program and $5,000 in scholarships for each of the girls.
Using the grant, the team purchased a computer-automated CNC wood router table that allows the girls to design and build custom hives quicker than what was once done completely by hand.
“What was taking us a week to build one box, we could build 10 to 15 or however many we really wanted to in one day,” Goddard said. “So it’s making our production go 10 times faster and letting us produce more to get it out in the field to produce more honey for our community.”
The machine will help greatly as they plan to have 50 more boxes by March 2021, Parish said. Those boxes will be rented out to local and out-of-state farms to raise money for the program.
Parish said one of the biggest challenges is being able to provide enough honey for their fellow area residents.
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