Our Journey

From Fruit Trees to Bees

In 1994, Kenny and Wendy Reed planted fruit trees and noticed a need for more honeybees for pollination. After attending a local bee association meeting, Kenny purchased a hive of honeybees from an elderly member of a local bee club. Kenny and Wendy worked regular full-time jobs and had side jobs to make ends meet. After work every day, Kenny would inspect and admire his new beehive and quickly realized he needed more of them! He was inspired by the bees, and it became a spiritual connection.

He eventually left a full-time courier position at Federal Express and went to work for a nearby commercial beekeeping family. One Saturday, Kenny met a commercial beekeeper who was relocating to Texas from Canada. Unable to transport hives across the border, the commercial beekeeper purchased package bees from Kenny’s employer. Kenny stayed late that afternoon to help the beekeeper load 3000 packages onto his truck—it was that moment that changed the trajectory of Kenny and Wendy Reed. Don Thomas became his mentor and friend, imparting wisdom and experience in managing a commercial bee operation, while offering suggestions for long-term success. Kenny took this opportunity and ran with it.

For many years, Kenny poured everything he had learned and experienced into commercial beekeeping and migratory honey production. The challenges were many, the failures were abundant, and the valuable lessons came from making mistakes along the way. All of this experience was valuable and helped Kenny develop his own wisdom, which he began to share with others.

Kenny kept putting everything he had back into the business; it was not easy, and times were lean for many years. Along the way, things came together.

He continued growing the bee business, moving bees to other states to produce different types of honey, pollinating crops for farmers, and discovering what worked best for him. If you know Kenny, you know he works harder than anyone you’ll ever meet. He is very entrepreneurial, a natural networker, very decisive, and a champion multi-task master! He talks to everyone. If he wants to know something, he goes right to the source and unpacks the essential information he is looking for. All these traits have been instrumental in creating this business.

While Kenny continued to work and grow the bees, he had side jobs here and there to make ends meet. Wendy maintained her full-time job and began selling local honey directly to customers at festivals, farmers markets, and craft shows each weekend. Wendy spent evenings bottling raw honey, making lip balms, and pouring beeswax candles. Making deliveries on her way home from work the following evening, only to start the same routine after work each day.

Reed Family Honey’s Popularity Growth

The more honey the Reed’s made, the bigger they grew by increasing the number of hives each year and the amount of honey they produced and sold. Wendy sold honey at one of the first farmers markets to open in Houston. Not only did it benefit the business financially, but Reed Family Honey became well-known and a very popular local honey brand in and around Houston. When the Reeds reached the 2500 hive mark, Kenny could no longer do it alone or grow their company without additional labor.

Honey Business Outgrows Kenny

In 2014, Kenny’s daughter Kayla met an amazing man who she married. Kenny and Wendy were blessed with a fabulous son-in-law, Dax Simons. Dax decided to jump into the family business and learn beekeeping and honey production, quickly becoming a business partner.

Dax grew up in Texas, lived on a ranch, and graduated with a bachelor of science in animal science with a minor in agricultural engineering.

While attending college, Dax was hired by an offshore oil company as the ranch foreman of a 4400-acre cattle ranch in East Texas—filling this huge position while still attending college. As Ranch Foreman, Dax managed the ranch’s hay production, pond management, game hunts, and offshore fishing guide service; he oversaw oil field client activities at the ranch, along with managing the ranch personnel and hunting lodge employees.

Dax was the exact person that Reed Family Honey needed at just the right time. Having him join the family and dive into commercial honey production has been huge! He has helped take Reed Family Honey to new levels that were unachievable before. The magnitude of growth for the business since adding Dax has tripled; Dax is invaluable and keeps everything and everyone going.

More Business = More Employees

In 2019, the company was still growing and needed employees. Dax and Kenny were maxed out. The right workers were challenging to find. We needed employees who were flexible to work “the beekeepers’ schedule,” especially during honey season. This meant working in the bees during the day and moving bees some nights. So, they began participating in the H2A agricultural work visa program using foreign workers. They obtained men from Mexico and have built on this critical staffing needed to continue to be successful. Blessed with several great employees, Kenny and Dax have built on the early foundation by adding additional family members of the original H2A employees and have formed a great team.

It’s All About Family

Currently staffed with 6 H2A’s, these employees are family. The feeling one gets from knowing you directly impact, strengthen, support, and change one’s family’s lives for the better is extremely rewarding. This gratitude creates a strong sense of family, respect, trust, and empowerment to help everyone make the impossible, possible. These men are bettering their families, building homes, buying land, and making life a little easier for their children. Very rewarding to watch them grow.

Jorge, Carlos, Omar, and Jesus, all from Jalisco, Mexico, are considered family and bring much more than labor to this honey business!

Fast Forward to Today…

There has been nothing that could stop this family. Still growing and spreading their wings. Reed Family Honey needed a fresh new face representing who they have become and as the next generation steps in. They decided to re-brand, rename, and reinvent who they are. Kenny’s recent statement, “Over the last 30 years, we have really evolved, and we are much better now at what we do and how we do things, older, wiser, and equipped with a fresh and younger generation on board. It is time to share the story, the journey, of what we stand for and what we stand against and make available the exceptional wild honey that is a product of this passion we all love and enjoy.”

This new brand and new name is now Wild Honey Box.

An evolution of a family and a business focusing on making and sharing only wild honey. At the honey farm, they know that the best honey comes from the wilds of nature. Purposely place bees and hives amidst the best, untainted flowers and crops to create some of the most amazing raw honey in the world. Those busy beehives are the sweet little honey boxes.

Visit the Wild Honey Box honey store to experience some of the world’s best and healthiest wild honey.