Why Bruce Jenne is proud to ‘bee’ a farmer

HOUSTON COUNTY, Ala. (WTVY) - I get that this is a story about bees, but what is all the buzz about?

Bruce Jenne is a physical therapist at his day job. He was working with a patient a decade ago when a conversation spurred his interest in a new passion.

“One of my patients had bees out there and he started talking about them,” said Jenne. “I was absolutely fascinated by the bees and started thinking about it a little bit and it just intrigued me and it kind of was, you know, formulating in my mind that I might be interested in trying to get some bees. I didn’t really know anything about them.”

Jenne didn’t let his lack of knowledge on bees keep him from getting involved. He did some research on getting started, but things took an unexpected turn.

“I had everything set up,” said Jenne. “I was going to make some bee boxes. I had a table saw accident and I lost a finger.”

Though, the doctors saved his finger at first, Jenne continued to do beekeeping with one hand until his finger was gone completely.

Jenne watched YouTube videos on how others kept their bees, trying to learn ways to get started. After gathering information and coming up with his own methods, he started making content himself. His page has surpassed 21,000 subscribers and 3.5 million views.

“Some of those old videos have done quite well. I didn’t know what I was doing back then, but some of them had done okay,” said Jenne. “There weren’t nearly as many people doing YouTube in the beekeeping realm back then either. I think the competition wasn’t as great, but when I look back on them now, I’m like, wow, you know, now I will do things way differently.”

In addition to sharing his story, the comradery of the bee community and the products that can be made with it wrap up with Jenne is proud to be a farmer.

“I’m proud to be a bee farmer because I just really enjoy interacting with people. I enjoy people in the farming community. I would put that kind of at the top,” said Jenne. “Whether it be if I share bees or to share the experience with other people like we’re doing today is what I really enjoy about it, so I think it’s the relationships and being able to produce products that people really enjoy.”

If you are interested in following Bruce’s journey with bees, you can visit his YouTube channel by clicking here.

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