If the bees are happy,” says Marek Koziol with a smile, “the honey comes itself.” And on this sunny summer’s morning in the foothills of the Knockmealdown Mountains near Lismore, Co Waterford, it’s hard to imagine where a bee would rather, eh, be.

Irish Country Living is visiting the home of Knockmealdown Honey and Tilly’s Natural Cosmetics, an enterprise set up by Marek and his wife, Michelle Delaney, when the recession hit home, starting with just three hives on their single acre. And now with 60 hives and about 3,600,000 bees – not to mention children Aoibhe (five), Jennifer (four) and Stanley (two) – there is a buzz in every way about this family business, producing raw wildflower and heather honeys, as well as 100% natural beeswax based creams and balms.

While Michelle grew up in Tipperary, her mother came from the Knockmealdowns, where her uncle and brother still farm sheep and dry cattle. With a master’s in Spanish and archaeology, she works for the Central Statistics Office in Cork, but always wanted to live near Lismore.

Marek, meanwhile, grew up in Wroclaw in Poland, but spent every summer on his grandparents’ farm and worked in construction before coming to Ireland.

The couple moved into their home in the Knockmealdowns just two weeks before Jennifer was born in 2011; but with the recession in full swing and no work locally for Marek, it became clear that they needed to look at making a living from their home place.

“We only had our garden here and Lismore had no work, so we were surviving off my wages,” says Michelle, whose idea it was initially to try to produce their own honey, though Marek admits he was not so enthusiastic. “I hated the idea!” he laughs.

However, with some gentle encouragement, Marek began attending meetings of the Waterford Beekeepers Association and was soon devouring books and YouTube videos on the subject, as well as learning the ropes from an established beekeeper for a year.

“You can read every book, but these are wild insects: you can’t forget the bees did not read the book.”

As a thank you for his work, the beekeeper gifted Marek three small colonies to start his own hives, with the first honey produced in 2013. To test the market, Marek took a few jars to local shops in Lismore.

“They took four jars, six jars: ‘Oh we have a try’,” he recalls. “But after one week, I started to have orders for 20 jars, 50 jars. The second year, the fruit and veg shop sold about 500 jars. From four to 500!”

And little wonder: with the bees free to gather nectar from hawthorn, blackthorn, mountain ash, dandelion, blackberries, clover and heather in the Knockmealdowns, the couple now produce raw soft set honey, wildflower honey, cut comb honey and heather honey, having reinvested the money from their initial sales into expanding their apiaries on their own acre as well as on nearby family farms.

From honey to skincare

Off-season meanwhile, they melt the beeswax from the combs to produce 100% natural cosmetics and skincare products suitable for even the most sensitive skin types, including a lip balm with coconut oil, sweet almond oil and peppermint, a clinically tested dry skin salve with soothing chamomile and calendula and a luxurious hand cream scented with mandarin and lemongrass for hard-working hands.

The skincare range is called Tilly’s Natural Cosmetics, and is named after a baby the couple sadly lost during pregnancy in 2013.

“We thought Tilly was a nice name and it was just something personal to us,” says Michelle. “Calling the range after her was just important – she’s still in the family.”

Having two aspects to the business gives a certain sense of security. When honey stocks were low last year due to inclement weather, sales from the skincare products funded the expansion of their apiaries, though fortunately they have not suffered the devastating bee losses experienced by other beekeepers in recent years.

The couple sell most of their honey in local shops in Lismore, Dungarvan, Cappoquin and Mount Mellary on a seasonal basis, but hope to be able to supply them year round and expand stockist numbers as their apiaries grow. Meanwhile, the skincare products are available in almost 30 pharmacies and health food shops in Waterford, Cork and Tipperary, with plans to expand into Limerick and west Cork, as well as start online sales.

“Everything has started from nothing really, so it’s been very organic,” says Michelle.

“I enjoy that we’re making something from our own place, that taste of home. It’s just something that we’re making ourselves and it’s to have a future for the kids – maybe one of them would like to take it up, maybe not – but to have an interest for them.”

As for Marek, his initial reluctance has been replaced by a passion as pure as the honey he produces.

“Some days, I’m doing 16 hours a day to inspect all the hives and go through the hives ... and I have not enough,” he smiles broadly.

“Each hive is different ... it’s like your own children!”

All 3, 600,000 of them.

Visit Knockmealdown Honey's website, find them on Facebook or call 058-75949 or 087-925 6790.