Whole Foods Market

Turning Passion Into Profits: Creating Buzz With Beeswax

Dedicated to producing sustainable all-natural bath and body products, Amy and David Rzepka bank on bees to build their expanding home-based business.

It all began with a favor. Back in 2004, a colleague of David Rzepka, whose family owns a commercial real estate business near Cleveland, Ohio, asked if he could keep a couple of beehives on David and his wife Amy's farm. They said sure.A month later, the co-worker explained that his wife was having a difficult pregnancy and he was unable to tend the hives. The Rzepkas were on their own."We didn't know a thing about bees," says Amy, 47, who met husband David, 48, when they were students at Ohio State University. "All I knew was that they sting."The couple began reading books, talking to local beekeepers and taking classes at the nearby university. They quickly got hooked on beekeeping. Especially David.In 2005, after collecting the debut season's honey and beeswax, David began tinkering in the basement to create a lip balm. It took many a...

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