Today we’d like to introduce you to Meagan Elzner.
Hi Meagan, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Hey there! I’m Meagan Elzner. My husband and I own Elzner Farms, which is a honeybee farm in Jacksonville, Texas. Our farm began as a weekend hobby. My husband and I wanted to keep bees at his family’s ranch, with this vision of enjoying honey made from the wildflowers that grew around the property. We would visit the ranch on weekends to check on our bees, enjoying the quiet pace of life the country brings. Learning about these tiny flying creatures fascinated us, and as we dove into our hobby, we realized it was calling us to do something greater. So we began to study and learn all we could about honeybees and eventually left our full-time jobs in Houston to pursue our dream of having a bee farm in quiet East Texas. Packing up two tiny babies and starting a new career was both exciting and exhausting, but we slowly began to grow and had wonderful support from other local businesses. We went from owning two hives to having hundreds and now pride ourselves on providing high-quality honey and bees for the local community. I love getting others involved in this as a hobby, with the state of pollinators these days the world sure could use more beekeepers!
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Owning a small business is never without challenges, and we’ve certainly had our fair share of bumps along the road! You name it and we’ve failed at it, always reminding ourselves that you learn more from mistakes than you do successes. 2020 in particular, brought new struggles, from honey bottle shortages to retailers closing for months due to local restrictions. But the beauty of a strong local community is that we all got through it together, partnering with creative ideas on how to continue to interact with customers in a safe, socially distanced way. Since we are a family-owned business, we are able to quickly adjust and pivot to changes. My husband and I are lucky to be able to lean on one another during those times that aren’t easy, and we know things will smooth out eventually because we can work through struggles together. When we first decided to begin the farm, our goal was to be able to spend as much time with our children as possible because they’re only little for so long! So we balanced lunchtime picnics in the pasture by working at night after they went to bed. Those long hours were worth it, as they head off to school next year, we know we’ve gotten to really soak up these days with them.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
At Elzner Farms, we pride ourselves on being a small East Texas farm where people know they can find sustainably raised local bees to begin their beekeeping journey and local raw honey full of excellent health benefits. Hobby beekeepers struggle to find locally adapted genetics, and we set ourselves apart with the fact that we are able to provide that for those in our area. We raise all our own queens and are very selective in our breeder queen process, choosing only the gentlest and most productive bees for our apiaries. When it comes to honey, we are very aware of the current crisis around honey labeling standards, with most honey that’s on the grocery store shelves being ultra-filtered or adultered and then sold as raw or organic. So we made the promise to our customers to keep our honey pure, so it can maintain all the qualities it has in the beehive. As consumers put more focus on the quality and authenticity of items they purchase, we are confident in the fact that they will be able to continually rely on us for that delicious spoonful of honey or to heal their skin with beeswax products made with wax from our hives.
How can people work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
We would love for anyone who would like to partner with us or learn more about us to visit www.elznerfarms.com or to send an email to ElznerFarms@gmail.com. We also love connecting via social media, we have accounts on both Instagram and Facebook. Building community is what keeps small businesses moving forward!
Contact Info:
- Email: ElznerFarms@gmail.com
- Website: www.elznerfarms.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elznerfarms
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/elznerfarms
Image Credits
Carly Elzner
