How to profit from hives and hive nots.

• Position: Personal care products manufacturer Burt's Bees

Burt Shavitz has the government to thank for Burt's Bees, his Carrboro personal-care-products company.

In 1983, he was a beekeeper in Garland, Maine, scraping by on honey sales when the local water utility decided a sewer plant would look nice where his 8-by-8-foot cabin was. If he wanted fair compensation, the utility said, he would have to rebuild elsewhere and put in electricity and running water to meet building codes. Oh, yes, and his property taxes would rise from $90 to $1,000 a year. "I needed money," says the New York City native and former photojournalist.

A year later, he met Roxanne Quimby, who was busy getting fired from waitressing jobs (for telling people how to run their restaurants, she says). She had two growing children and growing financial needs. Shavitz suggested making candles from the beeswax he'd accumulated over a dozen years. They sold them at craft fairs and flea markets, expanding into boot polish and table ornaments.

Though Quimby, 46, had studied painting at San Francisco Art Institute, her family is full of MBAs. She found she had a knack for business. "You have to take something and sell it for more than you bought it for." Shavitz, 62, earned a bachelor's in political science and government but won't say where. He likes to says he's a graduate of the School...