The sweet life of small family owned businesses.

That's our topic today.

There's nothing quite as sweet as an Arkansas strawberry in peak season.

I'm Lauren McCullough in this next episode of Good Roots.

We traveled alone out County and pick berries with an Arkansas farming legend.

Mr Bob Barnhill, the customer with us is always right.

Will discuss family, community and what keeps him so motivated.

Then the sweetness continues as we head to a honeybee farm where a couple has made it their mission to educate the public about bees.

Let's go see if I can find Mr. Barnhill.

How are you?

I'm good.

What can I get you today?

I am Tori Barnhill and I'm at the corner market today.

Selling some strawberries.

Would you like this in the back up here with you here at Barnhill Orchards we are family owned and operated.

My dad Rex.

He is the farmer here at Barnhill Orchards and my echo she is in charge of all the communications and sales.

My Gran father people ask about him all the time.

He sets up the table he sells to customers and everyone just looks for the old man with the Blue Hat $16.00.

Well, back in February, Dad turned 90 an he still got the desire and they want to.

I can't keep him out of town, he just loves to go to town but he's still boss.

This all started back in 1980.

He retired out of the Air Force and we've been farming ever since.

The popularity of the strawberry here in Arkansas has risen quite a bit an to me.

It's the quality of the Berry that we're producing in this area.

It's much better than something you're going to buy in a grocery store.

It's dead right ready to eat.

Best you ever put in your mouth.

Plus the local communities support us.

They're realizing the value of it.

An of course, I'm here to support them.

All right, Mr. Barnhill is that.

Is that about right?

Yes, it looks good morning.

Be sure to heat them up because they customers like to have a real full basket.

So what makes the perfect strawberry perfect draw?

Berry wants to be picked when it's deep colored red.

We pick the strawberries every other day.

If like half the field one day and the other half the next day, now it has very little shelf life.

You've got to pick it, sell it.

They've gotta take it home and eat it in about in a matter of three days.

Why strawberries?

Strawberries sell well.

People like to heaven and they will come to the farm to get them it.

It really feels good to have a product that somebody wants.

Do you want to know my favorite way to eat strawberries?

With chocolate no.

I literally like to stand over the kitchen sink and just got this.

Oh OK. You know, eating over the sink or the stove.

They say it's very fattening.

But of course, that doesn't bother you.

But it does make well to each their own.

These are so delicious.

Now we can talk about Arkansas strawberries without mentioning their ideal pollinator.

Perhaps their number one pollinator, which you could say are community minded.

I'm Emily Bemis here with my husband, Jeremy, be Mesabi Miss Honey Bee Farm in southeast Little Rock.

Well gotta send honey bases.

We bought the property and there was actually an airport on it and obviously we did not want to own an airport so this building actually used to be an airplane hangar.

We decided we're going to Christmas trees and if you do Christmas trees you need to have a pumpkin Patch so the number one reason why pumpkins don't grow is not enough pollinators.

The easiest thing to do is to get some bees and have some bees to pollinate the pumpkins, which I was not on board with.

So she's actually allergic to honey bees.

He decided we probably need to start selling supplies.

We have the space to do it and then we quickly realized we need education as well.

So we started with some beginner classes.

Education is most important thing with these.

After you get your bees and you Start learning and reading some more, you realize how little you really know.

So better educated beekeeper, the better the bees.

You notice that these aren't all ANSI and everything.

We also have a wood shop where we build a lot of our own supplies.

So we try to do as much as we came here and offer.

All things beekeeping to anybody looking to get started.

So Jeremy were out in the workshop at the farm.

What are we going to do today?

Today?

We're going to build boxes, so this is your standard langstroth box.

But this is the frame, so this is what we're actually building.

Is the box that these frames will fit into OK?

Yep, go ahead, don't give up.

What good are bees doing for nature?

They are responsible for pollinating a large percentage of our food source for a lot of vegetables.

Things like that are pollinated by bees, so if we don't have them then we're really not going to have all that the honey bees are not native to the US, So the native bees actually do a much better job of pollinating our crops than the honeybee does.

What's happened is with our crop structure that we have we have.

Miles and miles of different crops, soybeans, cotton, whatever it may be.

The honey bee is the only insect that will travel as far as it will to pollinate those crops.

So a native bee, if it goes 100 yards away from the nest, that's a long ways away.

Whereas the honeybee could go up to three miles away from its have.

So when you get a crop that needs to be pollinated, you can put a bunch of honey bees in there and they'll just keep going and going and going, and we get food from them so the honey bee is the only insect that we get food from, and it needs a frame, right?

Well, it's like 10 of these, so this actually holds 10 frames.

So this is this.

Is it as long as that fits in there, then you've done it right?

And the next time you pull this out, it's full of beautiful Golden honey and honeycomb, right?

Yes.

I'm at the Bernice Garden Farmers market in the South on Main district of Little Rock.

For the first of a series that we would like to call the Farmers Market Roundup.

Farmers markets like this are a place where farmers and artisans can come together and sell their goods directly to the consumers.

I'm Amanda is spell I'm the events coordinator and manager of the Bernice Garden.

This beautiful Botanical Garden and sculpture gardens surrounding our farmers market.

You can find local produce handcrafted goods.

You can find body products all from local artisans, local vendors, local growers and producers.

It's important to the farmers to have their community support.

And we also feel like it's great for the community to have the farmer support connecting people, connecting local produce the freshest products, and the best experience 15 varieties of heirloom tomatoes.

Yes, ma'am.

How long have you been coming here?

This is actually my first year, but it's been like a small family and I really appreciate them here.

I love the farmers markets.

Being that I work for myself and I only have one employee, I don't get to interact, especially during.

You know the pandemic?

I like getting out and socializing a little bit.

I'm also really proud of what I'm doing, and it feels really good when people come and tell me what they've made and they really enjoy him.

I've been coming here for a couple years now.

We have a really vibrant farmers market seen this year.

I mean, we've got you know we've got a lot of produce.

We have a lot of producers.

Farmers markets facilitate a personal bond and connection between the farmers, the shoppers and the community.

The atmosphere at Bernice Garden just makes it that much more special until next time.

I'm Lauren McCullough and this is good routes.