Brian Rowaan, our founder and master beekeeper, has been working in the bee industry since he was 12 years old. Growing up, he spent his summers working for a local beekeeper. It was through this opportunity that he developed beekeeping skills and grew a love for bees and working in the outdoors. He had the opportunity to travel to New Zealand after he completed high school to work on a bee farm for a season and it was then that he realized, he wanted to make beekeeping his career.
A couple of years after returning home from New Zealand, Brian married his high school sweetheart, Erin, and Honey Fields was established.
During the early years of beekeeping, life was an adventure! Brian started with 400 hives and began renting them to farmers for pollination throughout the Niagara region. He also trucked his hives out to Quebec where his bees were used to pollinate wild blueberries and cranberries for farmers.
Business slowly grew and so did the number of hives. 400 hives became 800 and have continued to grow to the point that we are looking after 10,000 beehives today.
Our bees are spread throughout Ontario and are moved to various communities during the beekeeping season. Our generous landowners provide space for our hives, and in turn, the bees provide valuable pollination for their crops and wild spaces. They also spend a short time in Eastern Canada in the spring to pollinate wild blueberries.
In addition to pollination, we produce some of Ontario’s best honey! In the past we have sold our honey in barrels to other beekeepers or honey packers who bottle and jar it under their labels. We are really excited to now be retailing our honey ourselves with our new label!
Mark and Kerala Wall have joined Brian and Erin to help with these new endeavors. We have been friends since high school and share a love of community, adventures and good food. Working together, the vision for Honey Fields is to produce top quality honey, that is available to everyone.
Every drop of honey in our jars has been produced by our bees and harvested with our hands. We’re proud of what we produce. We don’t blend our honey with anyone else’s. This allows us to control the purity and quality of our honey to ensure we’re giving you the best product we can. We love that with the help of our bees we can provide honey for you to enjoy in your home – right from the hive to your table. We hope you love our honey as much as we do!
