It’s A Business With Buzz, Once You Get Used To ‘50,000 Bees Looking Back At You’
FREDERICTON – Tavis Marr owns Marr’s Sweet Syrup, a company driven by his love for bees. Marr sells raw, unpasteurized honey as well as a hydrating body balm, a beeswax lip balm, and an all-natural soap.
“I gave a couple to my daughter, she brought them to school, then teachers started calling asking if they could buy them, and then parents,” Marr said.
“So, we sort of went from selling a couple to selling hundreds and thousands within a couple of years.”
Marr operates 52 hives with 50,000 per hive.
Bottled honey was Marr’s first project. Then, with the leftover beeswax, he started making lip balms. After that, he had someone call about their kid’s diaper rash. She had spread the lip balm on the rash, and it went away. So, Marr introduced an easier solution with his body balms.
“Everything just sort of pops up and we try to figure out a solution,” Marr said.
“Like right now, we’re working on a new tattoo cream for after tattoos. All the ones out there that are claiming they are beeswax are actually not doing what they’re supposed to.”
Marr had been a prototype machinist by trade his whole life, but when someone dared him to get into bees seven years ago, he went for it.
“In the beginning, it’s a little scary because you’re looking into a hive with 50,000 bees looking back at you,” Marr said.
But seven years later and Marr is working on his next project – the bee condo.
Marr said he’s had some issues with bear attacks on his hives so he’s building a bee high-rise to stop them.
The bee condo will have three platforms attached to 26-foot poles to get the bees off the ground and away from any animal attackers.
At the start of the Covid-19 shutdown, Marr’s sales dropped but quickly regained steam after about a month.
“We lost maybe a month [or] month and a half of really good sales. But we’re comfortable now,” Marr said.
Products from Marr’s Sweet Syrup are carried by 300 businesses.
Back when Marr first started beekeeping, he joined the Central Beekeeper’s Association of New Brunswick (CBA) where he learned a lot from experienced beekeepers. Two years after joining, he became president of the CBA for two years.
Since stepping down from his position, Marr stills attends meetings and mentors other beekeepers.
From mentoring to doing teachings in school, Marr makes sure he’s involved in the community. In 2018, he and his partner started an online store called ShopLocalNB to give small entrepreneurs the opportunity to get their products to stores for consumers to buy them.
“I’m just NB [New Brunswick] proud,” Marr said.
Marr’s Sweet Syrup creates products for New Brunswickers to buy and benefit from. A lot of people have told Marr that his products help their allergies, skin rashes, and other problems. He prides himself on his all-natural alternatives to store-bought, chemically-made products.
“We raise our own bees on our own properties,” Marr said.
“We’re one of the only ones that do pure raw honey.”
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