Our honey adventure buzzed to life at The Lady May Restaurant, where our from-scratch kitchen uses nearly 200 pounds of raw honey a month for baking bread, pickling vegetables, and creating our signature dishes. When we discovered our honey was being sourced from Argentina and local supply couldn't meet our demand, we made a bold decision: we'd establish our own bee farm.

Three summers ago, armed with newfound knowledge from a beekeeping class, we set up our first 10 hives in Brookhaven, MS. We stumbled through hilarious mishaps (like the time I wore shorts, dropped a hive, and got stung 12 times while Will filmed the whole ordeal), faced challenges like hive beetles and wax moths, and spent sweltering days in bee suits tending our hives. Our first summer yielded no honey. Last summer, just 8 small jars.