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A Family Tradition that has changed with the times.
"Mother, Mother," said Earl, running into the house after school, "there's a huge bee swarm on the fence post down the road." According to family legend, the year was 1891, and Earl was 12 years old. "Well, get a box and go get them. We could use the honey," replied Earl's mother. Earl and his brother, Will, went off to get the swarm. Two years later, in 1893, Earl's notebook, which has been preserved, documents that he had 13 hives and was regularly selling honey. Earl went on to found Sunnyside Apiaries, later called Rulison Honey Farm, which has now been run by Rulisons for three generations.
Two of Earl's sons. John and Howard, entered the business in their youth and continued it after Earl's death in 1959. As with Earl, beekeeping was not a sideline to John and Howard, but supported their families. Of John's and Howard's children, one son from each family stayed in the business, and for the best part of the past 20 years, Gary and Mark Rulison, cousins, have continued to operate Rulison Honey Farms.
Although I have lived only a few miles from Rulison Honey Farm for the past 30 years, and have known of them for most of that time, I did not meet Mark and Gary until preparing this article. To me, it is clear that it is a combination of their extraordinary management skill and willingness to work hard that lets them support two extended families with approximately 1,600 hives in upstate New York. Not surprisingly, these skills involve primarily production and sales, and Gary and Mark have freely shared their knowledge in the hope that others will benefit.
"A lot has changed," Gary told me on a late June day. "We used to have eight to 10 people working fulltime during the Summer. While all the family still helps out in some way, most of the work is now done by just Mark, Matthew (Mark's son), myself and a hired hand for three to four months. We have fewer hives, but collect and process more honey than ever."
Today the Rulisons' 1,600 colonies (down from over 2,000) are in approximately 60 locations, some of which...