Beekeeping leads veteran to a new life as an entrepreneur
Darrell Thompson can measure the difference between his first career in the U.S. Marines and a burgeoning second as a master beekeeper and honey entrepreneur with a simple step: When he stands on his right leg, he’s 6 feet tall. But when he stands on his left, he drops down three quarters of an inch.
That difference launched an unexpected journey that started with some knee pain, led Thompson out of the military after 10-plus years, and to a new life in which he manages 51 beehives at nine different spots, harvests nearly 800 pounds of honey a year, and has him partnering with a local brewery and distillery on specialty products as part of a growing business.
“It’s one of those things where I can see myself going out and doing this as a full-time job,” Thompson said. “It’s not just a hobby.”
Getting started
In 2014, Thompson was a tactical network data analyst in the Marines when he began feeling pain in his right knee that made it difficult for him to keep up with the physical demands of the Corps. He had broken a piece of bone off his femur. Three surgeries later, his right leg was longer than his left and too delicate for the rigors of the military. The decades-long career he expected to have in the Marines was over.
“The Marine Corps said, all right, we put too much time and money trying to fix you,” Thompson, then a staff sergeant, said. “Thanks for your service. Now get out.”
At home in southern Fauquier County with his wife, Adison, a doctor of holistic health, and two young daughters, Thompson was trying make ends meet.
“We were looking at our bills trying to figure out where to cut money here or there and I was like, you’re buying a lot of local honey,” said Thompson, now 37. “That's like 10 bucks a month or more. You know what? I should just become a beekeeper. I'll buy a hive. And then we never have to worry about buying honey again.”
Who wants bees?
As her husband set up those first hives in 2016, Adison Thompson said her husband was searching for a way forward in life.
“He was just lost,” she said. “But watching him with those bees, he looked like the dad of a newborn all over again, just sitting out there in a little camping chair watching them.”
Slowly, she said she saw Darrell Thompson find himself. After harvesting a small amount of honey the first year, he decided to add more bees. By year three he had 15 hives.
Then Thompson had an idea: maybe he could get other people to allow him to put hives on their properties. His pitch was that he’d place and manage the hives and harvest the honey. The landowners would benefit from the pollinators and keep 5% of honey Thompson pulled. Finding willing landowners turned out to be the easy part. Thompson now has remote sites spread in Fauquier, Orange, Culpeper and Spotsylvania counties and beyond.
Rob Strevell, the owner of Shady Grove farm in Orange County is one of those landowners.
“I had no idea what to expect,” said Strevell, who hosts five hives. “My only exposure [to bees] is anything I had watched on a documentary. The only thing I really knew is that they sting.”
But Strevell quickly discovered is the bees vastly improved his crop yields.
“My pepper plants, for example, might have had three peppers on them,” he said, “but within two weeks of the bees arriving, they had probably 10.”
For Jon Hensen, co-owner with his mother, Joann, of Hensen Family Farm in Spotsylvania, boosting crop yields was also a goal and he liked the idea of someone else managing the bees. The farm has four of Thompson’s hives.
“Books talk about how bees can really have an impact, but until you see it with your own two eyes, it’s kind of unbelievable how much of a difference it makes,” he said.
Honey was just the start
As the business grew, Thompson had another big idea: making bourbon-barrel-aged honey.
He bought a used barrel from A. Smith Bowman distillery in Fredericksburg and poured in 200 pounds of honey. After working for about three months to pull the flavors from the bourbon-soaked wood into the honey, Thompson gave friends samples.
“They loved it,” Thompson said.
He bottled 300 jars, all of which the distillery bought and now sells in its store under Thompson’s brand name, “Thompson’s Trading Post.” That left Thompson with an empty bourbon barrel coated inside with honey.
“It seemed sacrilegious to just discard that barrel,” Thompson said.
So he reached out to Six Beers and a Goat, a brewery in Fredericksburg, and proposed an experiment. The brewery decided to age an imperial blond ale in the honey barrel and named the beer “Voluptuous.”
“You get a lot of bourbon notes at first,” said Chuck Arnold, the brewmaster. “Then you’re going to get the wood notes, almost like a vanilla and coconut flavor.”
Thompson and Arnold then aged a German sour beer they called Honey Bear Whiskey Sour. And now a third is aging an Irish red ale, yet to be named.
“Any time that you can, as a brewery, you can stand out above the crowd and come up with something new and unique, that's what you try to do,” Arnold said.
A decade after his knee forced him out of his tight-knit Marine family, Thompson’s business collaborations have built a community that bears some resemblance to the hives he manages, with individuals working together for mutual benefit.
His bees pollinate farms as they make honey, which is then shared and sold. Reused barrels make infused honey and beer. Wine might be next.
Still, Thompson’s beekeeping life is just a side gig. He still works with the Marines as a civilian contractor. For now.
“When I get to 500 hives,” Thompson says, “I can retire from my job.”
