Beeing there: Steve and Sandy Forrest built a business out of bugs and turned their mountaintop hideaway into a hive of activity.

• Author: Gray, Tim
• Position: Feature

Though reared city kids, Steve and Sandy Forrest plunged into country life when they got to rural Alexander County in 1973. By their second year, Steve, who was teaching business at West Iredell County High School, was helping a colleague tend his beehives: "He recognized a strong back and a weak mind." By their fourth, the Forrests had invested $8,000 in 80 hives of their own. That same year, they moved to neighboring Wilkes County and bought 54 acres atop the Brushy Mountain range.

They devoted five hours a week to working with their hives -- checking the bees' health, treating the hives with medication, repairing equipment. And even that first year, they expected to make a little money. A hive can produce 75 pounds of honey a year, and they figured they could sell their haul for $10,000. Plus, they were enjoying themselves -- beekeeping was as much a hobby as a sideline. "When you start messing with bees, it enthralls you," Steve says. "You go into this mass of insects that you think are just dumb, yet they keep the inside of their hive constantly at 98 degrees, 50% humidity."

But just days before they planned to start their harvest of sourwood honey, thieves carted off all of the hives. "They even stole the crossties we used as a base," he says. "You'd think it'd be hard to hide 80 hives but we don't know what in the world happened to them. I looked around but I never did see them again."

The Forrests had been casting about for an idea for a full-time business, and the theft got him thinking. He'd had trouble finding equipment for their beekeeping. Maybe they could make and sell the stuff. An amateur woodworker, he'd build the hive bodies, lids and bases in the basement. His wife would handle sales. Their first catalog, published in 1978, was a mimeographed flier. They tacked it on bulletin boards at feed and hardware stores.

From that, the Forrests have built Moravian Falls-based Brushy Mountain Bee Farm Inc. into a mail-order company with 50,000 customers, 80% of them outside North Carolina. With 2001 sales of $3 million, theirs is the biggest beekeeping-equipment company on the East Coast and the second-largest in the country. "We're UPS' second-biggest customer in Wilkes County, behind Lowe's," says Steve, 54. He's president and CEO; Sandy, 52, is secretary and treasurer. Their staff has grown to 30 full-timers -- woodworkers and apparel makers as well as shipping, sales and support personnel. And their company makes about a third of the items in its 88-page catalog.

Perhaps more important, they've built a sturdy business far from the fertile commercial crescent along 1-85. They show that with ingenuity, a company can thrive in the sort of rural community that the Information Age often leaves behind.

Even so, the business isn't without its obstacles -- not the least of which is that its growth depends on persuading people to keep stinging instincts in their backyards. What's more, the Forrests are trying to expand as beekeeping is waning. "We're a less...