My journey into beekeeping began with a beekeeping course at North Georgia Technical College.  This hobby began with four hives.  My hobby began to grow, almost immediately, as neighbors and friends, wanted local honey for medicinal purposes.  Almost immediately, I started to receive phone calls from Metro Atlanta seeking bee packages and nucs.  We grew 50 nucs our first season.  

Before I knew it, I had 8 hives and then 16 hives to keep up with the demand for local honey.  This eventually grew to over 500 hives.  The next challenge was to meet the demand for beekeeping supplies and honey bees.   

My home was quickly over come with the garage being my warehouse/store and several rooms in the house used for storage for the first three years.  The next step was to purchase a 5,000 sq. ft. building to grow our small business.  I never thought I would utilize the entire building and thought I would only use half of the building.  As this hobby grew into a full-time business, it was time for me to leave a 25 year career in commercial banking and take the business to the step.  Within a year the entire building was being fully utilized.

In 2017, we became the #1 shipper on honey bees on the east coast and mid-west.  We could not have grown without repeat orders from our loyal customer base.  We could not have grown without very dedicated employees.  During peak season we employ 19 people within our community.  Our shipping crew also does an excellent job.  From crating all shipping order to labeling to sorting the shipment to loading the shipment it takes dedicated employee’s.  Our employees work in the rain and late in the early morning hours to ensure your bees are at their peak freshness when shipped.

In 2019, we added warehouse space to allow us to purchase beekeeping supplies in full truck loads.  I quickly found that our growth would out grow our newest warehouse.  We also increased our main frame to better serve our customer base.

Through the years, we mastered the logistics of shipping honey bees to 31 states.  In 2020, we will also expand our honey bee offerings to include Carniolan and Russian bees.  Today, we carry over 500 beekeeping items and adding new items each month!

In 2021, we added a new warehouse that will house over 400 pallets of merchandise so that we can ensure timely shipments to our customer.  We have grown so much over the last 5 years and it has been a result of superior customer service and quality beekeeping supplies.  We could not have grown to where we are today without the continued loyal support of our customers.

In 2022, we started a live-streaming broadcast called BUZZ TV.  BUZZ TV is produced to assist beekeepers in education and trends within the beekeeping world.  BUZZ TV also creates educational videos that are viewed by beekeepers around the world. 

In 2023, Nikki joined our company to assist Ray in the daily operations of the company and to grow the business.  

2024 was a year of significant growth in our honey bee sales and beekeeping supplies.  We are now a very active buyer in the international markets.  USPS insurance claims for the 3rd year in a row were under .06%.  We shipped over 20,000 hives of bees this season!  

2025 is expansion for shipping honey bees to 3 more states due to better logistics.  These new states are Minnesota, Nebraska, and Kansas.

We may not be as big as the big box beekeeping suppliers but we make that up with shipping products within 1 business day.  We also work very diligently on keeping our inventory well stocked and try to never run out of any item.  

Thanks again for your beekeeping business!

Ray Civitts