The Buzz of Bees and Blades

Pennington, NJ

Steve and Joyce George of Titus Mill Farm in Pennington, New Jersey, believe business plans should allow for — even encourage — a healthy dose of serendipity. By keeping open to opportunities and taking advantage of niche markets, the Georges’ business blends timber products and bee-keeping with produce sales on ten acres.

The timber business evolved from building material needs for their new home. When Steve and Joyce moved to the land in 1998, their first step involved clearing overgrown trees to make room to build their home, provide three acres of growing fields, and yield wood products to build their house. Originally in cropland, the acreage had been unmanaged for decades and overgrown with various trees.

“Clearing the land led us into the wood business. We started by selling firewood. Strong demand made us realize a local market for wood processing and products,” explains Steve, who oversees the sawmill responsibilities. “Our original plan focused on growing seasonal produce, which we still do; however, we’ve found a much greater demand for the wood and kept focusing our efforts there.” Experienced in woodworking, Steve built the family’s wood chickenframe house inand is currently working on a 60 foot post and beam long shed for equipment and wood storage addition to working part-time as an information technology professional, a job he can often do from a home office.

Cutting larger trees into firewood would have been a great waste of resource which led Steve and Joyce to invest in a portable sawmill in 2001, filling a business niche as one of the few sawmills in New Jersey capable of producing 40ي beams. The sawmill enabled Titus Mill Farm to produce hardwood and softwood lumber and to specialize in custom wood cutting. “Timberframe Builders come to us with wood they need cut to specification for timber frame homes and specialty building projects. Additionally, wearea work with arborists hired to take down sick trees and remove the fallen wood which we saw into brought these trees to us to be worked up into beams, boards, and firewood,” Steve adds.

Fueled by rising oil prices and an increase of home woodstove use for heat, firewood remains an area in high-demand and itsitيs an area Steve would like to further expand, given that this season’s firewood supply sold out in a month. Offering a “free delivery radius” of forty miles, he’ll also delivers throughout the state and Eastern Pennsylvania for an additional delivery charge. “Processing time is a cost variable in selling firewood,” explains Steve. “It can take an hours to split a cord of wood, so next year we’re investing in a firewood processor that can cut and split up to to twenty-foot treesseveral cords an hour from whole logs.” Cut firewood cures in stacks in a large solar-dried hoop enclosure Steve built on the property, a slower, but more cost-effective process than investing in a kiln.

Tree replanting remains an important part of the farm’s plan. “The A state certified forester helped us develop a management plan for our land. We look at the land holistically, keeping some standing deadwood on the ground for wildlife habitat,” says Steve. Realistically, with an average tree such as an oak or ash taking about twenty forty years to mature for harvesting, ten acres doesn’t provide enough trees to sustain a wood processing business. Therefore, Steve and Joyce are looking to purchase more local wooded land.

Motivated by personal interests in beekeeping, Steve and Joyce started keeping hives on their land soon after they moved there, starting with a few hives and doubling each year to about thirty hives, or “apiary,” they currently manage. “Bees remain weather dependent like any other crop as the honey production depends on nectar flow in flowers, which relies on rain and good growing weather,” Steve explains. In good weather, bees can be quite prolific: a single hive can produce one hundred gallons pounds of honey; ten hives producing a half ton or more of honey. Steve harvests the honey in the spring and fall, packaging the honey on-site and selling both direct retail and wholesale to area farmstands wanting to add honey to their product mix.

“About half of my our honey sales come from people wanting locally-made honey,” adds Steve. This interest stems from people with allergies who credit eating local honey from using local pollination flowers to ease their seasonal allergy symptoms. These allergy-sensitive customers specifically seek either the spring or fall — or both — honey harvest. Depending on the time of year, the honey incorporates different nectar and pollens and customers seek honey made at the time of year of their allergy issues. “Another selling point of our honey, given our customers interest in pure honey, is we don’t feed the bees sugar water during the cold months when they need extra feed but rather we supplement with actual honey so the organic nature of the honey is not undermined,” explains Steve.

Beekeeping provides additional income diversification areas: swarm removal and pollination. If a hive gets overgrown, a group of bees may “swarm” and start a new colony somewhere else, often on an unsuspecting individual’s property who is not interested in beekeeping and wants it removed. Rather than toxic sprays that are typically used by exterminators, Steve offers a “humane removal” using his beekeeping background and equipment, both removing the hive for a fee and gaining a new hive for the apiary. Steve also has several area fruit producer clients interested in using bees to increase fruit blossom pollination, placing and managing his hives in the orchards for a fee.

The firewood and apiary provide an interesting business balance to each other, something Steve admits happened serendipitously as things evolved. The spring and fall harvest bring a busy beekeeping workload, and about a third of the farm income, while the sawmill work is year-round, providing the remaining two thirds income. Additionally, Steve and Joyce raise fruits and vegetables on about two acres, selling direct from the farm and meeting their own food needs. Steve and Joyce also aim to integrate their two-year-old daughter into Titus Mill Farm. “Bringing my daughter, Daphne, with me when I deliver firewood proved to have marketing benefits since my customers think she’s the cutest thing. They rush to get their camera to take pictures when she climbs into the pick-up truck and helps unload the wood,” Steve adds with a smile.