We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Lacey Ingrao. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Lacey below.

Lacey, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today How did you come up with the idea for your business?

It was 2009 or so, Adam and I had been married for a couple of years. Adam, was going back to school after many years away, and working as a Mercedes Benz mechanic. I was working at a wellness center and had just finished my undergraduate work. We were both in our mid twenties, living in California. Southern California to be exact. This made life more chaotic with an increasing population, a lack of infrastructure but more traffic and cost of living increases. We didn’t know where we wanted to end up but what we wanted felt like a deep calling.

Steeped in the middle of a transition, we decided to move in with Adam parents for about 6 months as we navigated our next steps. We were extremely grateful for this opportunity. With that though, we were in our mid 20’s, married, and living with parents. This temporary lifestyle required that Adam and I create connection practices for our mental wellness and our marriage. We would go out to eat or go for a walk or bike ride. On a beautiful California day we rode our bikes to a near by park. This park was a favorite of ours to visit for so many reasons. It was expansive, with green grass and perfectly spaced oaks trees that kids dreams about climbing. It was never too crowded and always provided an open picnic table, to sit and talk. While we would return to the talking table many times after, it was that first conversation sitting on top of a picnic table, surrounded by oak trees, that our ideas began to flow. Our life’s trajectory changed with that conversation of deciding what we wanted in our future together.

And what we wanted, was simplicity. We wanted to be stewards of the land and work with our hands. We wanted all of the seasons, with downtime during the winter. We wanted flowers, herbs, and veggies. We wanted to make our own schedules, products and food. We wanted community opportunities and to experience this one temporary life with presence and intention. We knew with absolutely certainty that we didn’t want to work to live.

In the years following, I went onto received a M.A. in Transpersonal Psychology (specializing in nature-based therapy) and Adam continued onto to receive a PhD in Entomology (specializing in honeybees). It was Adam’s PhD opportunity that brought us from California to Michigan. Here we are, nearly 15 years later, living out this dream as farmers in Michigan’s, Upper Peninsula. Although Bee Wise Farms came to fruition in 2015, it has been alive in our minds since that first conversation at Wildwood Canyon Park.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Bee Wise Farms, owned and operated by Lacey and Adam Ingrao, is a diversified farm located in Newberry MI that produces lavender, herbs, cut flowers, honeybee products, and recycled art focused on healthy lives and healthy land. Bee Wise Farms is verified as environmentally sustainable through the Michigan Agriculture and Environmental Assurance Program (MAEAP).

Our mission is to support the health and wellbeing of the land and community (human and nature) through Connection, Food, Movement & Purpose. Bee Wise Farms achieves this by offering personal and professional support through on-farm education and nature-based therapies.

We are the proud founders of the Heroes to Hives program, dedicated to supporting the live of those returning from war. It was 2016 that Heroes to Hives began accepting students and after registration closed for 2024, the student count (veteran + dependent) was over 15,000 people. While this program began in the infancy of our business, it continues to grow beyond our wildest dreams.

Although we are California grown, Michigan has truly become home. The ever changing seasons continues to excite us, even after more than a decade. Here on the farm, I (Lacey) share a variety of services which include nature-based therapies, and somatic and transitional wellness. Off the farm, I’ve worked as an event planner for the last 10 years. Adam has been a key figure in advocating for agricultural training programs for veterans at local, state and national levels and continues as the National Director for Heroes to Hives, through Michigan Food and Farming Systems. To learn more about Bee Wise Farms you can find us on Facebook or visit our website, beewisefarms.com.

Have you ever had to pivot?

Bear with me here. It’s been a very long and critical two years for Adam and I. While I’ll get to how we choose to pivot in 2023, we are here only because of how we have endured over this time. Before 2021, I would have told you a story about how the global pandemic required us to pivot our entire business model in 2020. Surely we did pivot in 2020 but that pivot was like eating cake compared to what was to come. In September of 2021, Adam was involved in a severe car accident, leaving him partially deaf in one ear, with a traumatic brain injury. This required him to relearn certain daily life activities and he will feel the effect of the accident for the remainder of his life.

A few months after Adam’s accident, in the middle of winter, we found out that my dad was in the hospital, where he lived in California. While we had great hope that his diabetes would get under control, he died three months later, in March 2022. This sent me down a spiral of depression before the season started in May of that year. I often refer to this time as “the season I can’t remember”. Everything was out of place. I was tired all of the time and would spend days in bed. I remember our farm store being open but I wasn’t present with what was happening. I don’t remember ever feel like this before. With Adam still recovering from his accident, our connection was central to one another’s healing process. Spring, Fall, and another winter would pass.

Late spring 2023 arrives and the fog of loss had began lifting from my brain but my body was worse than ever. For my entire life I’ve struggled with chronic pain and fatigue. The list of diagnosis on my medical record would raise anyones eyebrows. Chronic pain is the reason why movement, strength, and sleep has been a priority throughout my life. At 42 years of age, for the first time in my life, a doctor recommended doing a MRI and my life changed forever. In May of 2023, I was diagnosed with Chiari Malformation 1 and tethered cord syndrome.

Thanks for staying with me this long as this is where we pivot. It was very soon after my diagnosis that we decided to not open our farm store for the entire year. We would still have honey and other products available for customers that didn’t see our closed sign or for those who opted for the pick up option on our online store. We decided that preparing for what was to come was far more important than our store being open. We chose rest, wellness and health over production. It was September of 2023 that I would have brain and spinal surgery. Adam, after several procedures over the last two years, would follow with spinal surgery in November 2023.

It is now late winter of 2024 and we are preparing for the season to begin. We strategize with gentleness for our bodies as we both heal. Adam gears up for the conference season to begin and plans an international trip to Slovenia to learn about their vast beekeeping culture. I eagerly plan and create new farm and value-added products. We are thrilled to be here, as able bodied as possible. For us, living intentionally is a practice of grace, goals, determination, and stepping back from time to time to take a look at the whole picture. Regardless of what this year brings we will rest harder, love one another deeper, communicate more authentically, be more reciprocal in nature and continue our practice of stepping through life with intentions… every day we are given.

Do you sell on your site, or do you use a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc?

As we began our business journey slowly and intentionally, one thing was very clear. We didn’t want to bury ourselves in debt as we built our future. We started our first farm by renting 2 acres on an urban lot, 8 blocks away from our house. It was the span of 5 city lots where homes previously lived. The soil was full of concrete and required significant amending. Several farmers before us tried. But renting land saved us from going into debt during the initial years of our business. This practice of taking small steps is something that flows through our entire business and life. Our online journey is no different as we went from simply having an online educational presence to creating an e-commerce site that handles the majority of our business tasks.

In the beginning, when all we required was an online presence, things were simple. It was basic tasks like adding a photo or video and boom, I was done. But as the business grew, so did the need to explore E-commerce opportunities. I’m not too interested in social media and so my partner handles that exposure. Website development and strategy though, that’s my jam. Developing our own website has saved us thousands of dollars over the years. Hiring people to support your systems can very be helpful. Yet the creation, design, or the ability to make quick changes, these are tasks I won’t personally outsource. And I’m not talking about being able to write code. I’m takin about a creating highly functional, even eye catching, site through programs that make it simple.

We started our journey with Yola, just out of convenience. I was using Yola for a college course at the time and was familiar with the program. Yola is a wonderful platform for those who know absolutely nothing about web design and really don’t want to learn. It is one of the most easiest drop and go sites, that also provides basic e-commerce services. We tried WordPress, ETSY, and Square, but none really captured all that I needed. Due to all the work we do, we need an easy to build, fully functioning e-commerce site. These needs brought us to Shopify almost four years ago. It provides easy website design, wonderful e-commerce support and comes with marketing capabilities. It is through these powerful e-commerce programs that we are able to not only sell products but to effectively communicate nationally and internationally, connect with our community, provide onsite education and run one of the largest beekeeping programs in the country. We truly would not be able to do the work we do without these types programs and we are grateful.

Contact Info:

• Website: beewisefarms.com
• Instagram: beewisefarms
• Facebook: bee wise farms
• Youtube: @beewisefarms

Image Credits
All photo credits belong to Bee Wise Farms owners, Lacey and Adam Ingrao