Bruce and Stacy Wilmer have been beekeepers and the owners of Wilmer Honey for decades. The couple purchased the business in 1986 from a beekeeper Bruce had worked with during his college years. Since then, they have provided pollination services to farms in California and Minnesota.

Bees are highly valued in agriculture. As essential pollinators, they play a critical role in the development of many crops, contributing significantly to the production of fruits, vegetables, and nuts, worth an estimated $11.7 billion annually in California alone.

When we met, the Wilmers’ bees were getting ready to work on avocado and lemon trees at the Cam Lam farm in California.

"Right now, we're shipping the bees from California to Minnesota to pollinate the crops for the farmers," Stacy Wilmer, co-owner of Wilmer Honey, said. "They're pollinating canola, sunflower, sweet clover, we do that for the farmers in northwestern Minnesota, and that's also where our honey is produced." 

She explained that some Minnesota beekeepers head to Florida or Mississippi, but California is especially popular due to the almond pollination season, which requires more than 2 million bee colonies.

"That's a source of income for many beekeepers when the honey prices are lower," she adds. 

Transporting bees - often around 20,000 hives - is no small feat. Wilmer emphasized the importance of reliable truckers, especially when dealing with heat.

"The beehives get loaded at night, and the truckers know that they have to keep moving during the day and keep the air circulating through that net and the beehives," Wilmer explains. "They can't stop in the middle of the day and get fuel when it's 80° because the bees will just come boiling out of those boxes. So, you have to have a good trucker."

She noted that the three-day trip to northern Minnesota ends with the crew unloading the bees on the third night and moving them to different yard locations.

The couple works with nearly 400 farms - just over 200 in Minnesota and about 100 in California.

Varroa Mite

Beekeeping can be a rewarding but difficult business, especially because bees are vulnerable to disease, changing weather and pesticides. Right now, the top challenge for beekeepers nationwide is the varroa mite.

This parasitic mite poses a major threat to honeybee colonies because it feeds on both developing and adult bees. Found throughout the U.S., there is currently no cure - only treatments.

A survey by Project Apis m., which tracks U.S. colony losses, included data from 842 beekeepers and showed that 1.6 million colonies were lost over the past winter. A major cause? The varroa mite.

"A lot of people had bees lost across the nation as we did too, and that's because of the varroa mite, which we're having a hard time getting a handle on," Wilmer said. "They're wondering now if this mite hasn't started to carry different viruses."

She said their business was among those hit hard, losing half of their colonies. Since then, the couple and their business partners have worked to rebuild their hive numbers and purchase more bees. The last time they had to buy bees was in 2017—also due to varroa mites.

In January 2025, the USDA confirmed that beekeepers across the country were reporting large-scale honeybee losses.

She says the beekeeping community is staying on top of the issue, but it's a process. They're trying to "genetically make queens who keep their hives cleaner and hygienic." They called them hygienic queens.

"All these things are for the small hobbyists that can do things for their hives," Wilmer explained. "But when you have 20,000 hives to take care of, it's a lot of manpower, and I can tell you that it has become so much manpower to take care of these hives versus what it was back in 1986 when we started." 

She added that the increase in labor is due to the need for more medication, hive manipulation, and supplemental feeding. While mites are the top concern, other environmental factors also affect bee health.

"You know, insecticides and pesticides have increased in the world, and the worker bee will bring back the pollen that has chemicals in it," Wilmer explained. "And there's curiosity if that's part of that colony collapse disorder that is going on, if that pollen with chemicals is fed to the baby bees and they make their wax out of pollen that has chemicals in it." 

The married couple's dynamic work relationship shows how much they complement each other. Their love for their bees shines through while they chat about the creaminess and crystallization of their honey. Their favorite is the canola honey, "because it stays that creamy consistency," Wilmer said. 

Stacy adds that there are definitely a lot of moving parts to being a beekeeper, but she, her husband, and all the workers who work to keep the bees thriving love the process.