Our Story

I found solace and joy in their quiet purposeful lives...

Green Toe Gardens is a community based Michigan apiary founded by Rich Wieske and Joan Mandell. Today we have over 60 hives in the city of Detroit and in its northern suburbs, producing honey, pollen, propolis and queens. And this is how it all began…

Rich comes from a rather large family: seven siblings, their children and a whole lot of friends. When holiday gift-giving began to get out of hand, his family started making their own gifts. Being an experimental sort of guy, Rich created amazing chocolate truffles with his own liquors like ginger and raspberry rosewater. From there it wasn’t much of a leap to making wine… all kinds of wine, like dandelion and organic cranberry and elderberry blossom. He found that non-grape wine had a relatively short shelf life, so he started brewing mead, wine from fermented honey. Like the best grape wine, mead only gets better with age.

Making mead was pretty expensive, as it required a lot of honey. So Rich thought about keeping bees to have his own source. He talked over the idea with his daughter Oona, an avid gardener, and they decided to build some hives the following summer. Two months later, Oona died in a car crash… When spring brought the first blossoms, and the blossoms brought the bees, Rich signed up for a beekeeping course with the Southeast Michigan Beekeeper’s Association (SEMBA). It was something that he would have done together with his daughter. He found solace and joy in their quiet purposeful lives; it helped him deal with his sadness.

Though Rich started as a solitary beekeeper just five years ago, working with bees has led to a whole new sense of community. His newfound passion has spread to his rather large family, their children and a whole lot of friends. They help build the hives, place them in their backyards, design the packaging and bring the honey to market. And now they’re learning queen rearing, candle-making and web design. We wonder what’s next…