Sugary hopes for 10-y-o Amari

WESTERN BUREAU:

AT 10 years old, Amari McGibbon of Duncans, Trelawny, has a future in bee farming through his family’s honey production company Amari’s Honey.

Since early childhood, Amari has been participating in the business his father named after him.

A grade five student of the Glen Preparatory School in Discovery Bay, St Ann, Amari spoke candidly with The Gleaner about his assistance with the family’s small business, which was launched in 2020.

“The business started when I was really young, about age six or seven, but I have always been involved in it from it started, always going to help them reap, take care of the bees, and feed the bees with sugar water. From that time my dad put my name on the brand sticker and got small, medium and large bottles, and labelled it with my name as Amari’s Honey,” said Amari, who is an active member of his school’s 4-H Club.

“Now we’re not doing bad, we are doing good in sales. We are not a big business, we’re still a small business, but we’re still doing good as we are staying on a regular pace as we’re having sales,” Amari added. “Currently, we’ve got enough honey to make a lot of big bottles.”

Amari’s Honey, which currently has 30 bee colonies from which the honey is harvested, is operated alongside the McGibbon family’s meat shop, with that location being used as the distribution point for the honey.

INCOME-EARNER

Prices for the honey range from $1,000 for small bottles, to $2,500 for medium-sized bottles, to $3,000 for large bottles.

Nicholas McGibbon, Amari’s father and the proprietor of the business, explained that he started his bee farming initiative on the advice of a friend, as a way of earning income alongside his rearing of pigs at the time.

Since then, he has gathered a customer base consisting of local buyers and visitors from the United States, England, and even as far away as Switzerland.

“I was searching for something to invest in other than the pigs because the feed for the pigs was expensive and there was a shortage of feed because of COVID-19. I spoke to a friend, and he said ‘You should try the bees because it doesn’t take a lot of maintenance, and you don’t have to buy a lot of feed’. That’s how I went into it,” the senior McGibbon told The Gleaner.

“We have the Silver Sands resort in this area, and we supply meat for the resort area. When the customers for the meat come and they see the honey, normally they try it, and if it is a good buy, most of the time they will buy a few bottles, if they are people that actually use honey,” McGibbon added. “People buy it and travel abroad and locally. I always have people that pre-order online, as we have an Instagram page, and we get a lot of orders, and my customers stick with me, so when the honey is finished, they don’t go anywhere else.”

LOVER OF ANIMALS

Concerning his son’s involvement in Amari’s Honey, McGibbon noted that Amari’s enthusiasm will likely be strengthened following his recent presentation of the company’s honey to Franklin Witter, state minister in the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, during the 41st annual National Farmers’ Month church service at the Kettering Baptist Church in Duncans on Sunday.

“My son is just a lover of animals overall, so one day when he was about four years old he said, ‘Just dress me up and I’ll go with you’. After that he got a few bee bites, but he continued, and he comes in with me when we reap and sometimes when we feed the bees, and I try my best to carry him as much as possible. The naming of the company, it just happened, and I said that for marketing it would have been good, knowing that he is young and that if I get him involved, I think people would gravitate toward him knowing he is a child,” McGibbon remarked.

“I was actually happy that he got to do the presentation of the honey to Mr Witter because he was head over heels about it. That kind of gives him more of the urge to say that this initiative is something good, because he came back and said he had met the mayor [Falmouth Mayor Collen Gager], and he met other persons who were saying it was awesome that he has his own little company, and it gave him further drive,” McGibbon added proudly.

Amari has indicated a willingness to continue with the family business, bolstered by the feedback he has personally received concerning his current involvement.

“My friends think it’s cool, including my teachers; they think it’s fun, and sometimes they buy two bottles. It’s not really hard to do, it’s fun, and I would consider continuing it when I get older,” said Amari.

christopher.thomas@gleanerjm.com