Vallejo amateur beekeeper raises awareness about bee decline with free honey

VALLEJO — In the residential neighborhood of Vallejo Heights, Haroon Rasheed and his wife Chris tend to a thriving backyard filled with fruit trees, flowers, and beehives, the heart of a grassroots effort called Bee Happy Raw Honey.

The project, now over a decade old, began unexpectedly in 2010 when a swarm of bees landed on one of the trees in Rasheed’s backyard. At the time, Rasheed was caring for his wife, who was undergoing chemotherapy, and had never considered beekeeping; in fact, he was afraid of bees due to childhood experiences. But something shifted that day.

“I called a beekeeper, and he came to help me get the swarm down,” Rasheed recalled. “He asked me to hold the ladder. I told him I was scared of bees, but he said, ‘If you don’t help, I can’t get them.’ So I ran into the house, put on a ski suit, gloves, and a mask, and helped him.”

That moment marked the beginning of what would become a deeply personal and community-driven journey. Rasheed connected with the Sonoma County Beekeepers Association and began to learn about natural beekeeping. He now manages five hives, two on his property and three on properties owned by neighbors, and has inspired others to take up the practice.

His commitment to growing food and creating green spaces is rooted in his childhood in Lahore, Pakistan. “I grew up in a very urban part of the city, concrete everywhere,” he said. “But my father came from a farming background. Even though we only had a tiny patch of dirt, he always grew spinach, tomatoes, something. I remember helping him as a child, and now I realize that stuck with me. That connection to the soil, it planted a seed.”

Today, Rasheed and his wife have cultivated that seed into an abundant backyard ecosystem: 36 fruit trees, a greenhouse and vegetables. Their home has become a hub for neighbors interested in sustainability and beekeeping. Several have since started their own gardens or hives after receiving mentorship or inspiration from Rasheed.

What makes Rasheed’s approach different is that he doesn’t sell his honey. Instead, he gives it all away. “Last year we gifted over 300 pounds of honey,” he said. “We knock on doors in our neighborhood, give jars to the postal workers, the trash collectors, anyone who asks. Even people we’ve never met. A woman came recently asking to buy a jar, and my wife said, ‘We don’t sell it, but you can have one.’ She was so happy.”

Rasheed traces the roots of this tradition back to his father. “Fifteen years ago, when I had just a few jars, my father told me to give them to neighbors and friends,” he said. “Even until he passed away, he would check in to make sure I was still giving honey away.”

Among the varieties of honey Rasheed has encountered, one stands out for its rarity and surprising flavor: a white honey made from a flower called meadowfoam, which blooms only along the northern California and southern Oregon coasts. “It’s completely white in color and tastes just like marshmallow,” he said. “It only appears between late February and mid-March.” Rasheed often references it to illustrate the natural range of honey flavors that depend entirely on local plants and climate.

He believes that this spirit of giving is what sets Vallejo’s community apart. “Vallejo has this kindness that you don’t find everywhere,” he said. 

Rasheed said the city is also one of the best places in California to keep bees. “We don’t have commercial farms here, so there's less pesticide use, which is one of the biggest threats to bee health,” he explained. “And we have the weather, the wildflowers, especially on Mare Island, and a community that really cares.”

He credits the local community for making Bee Happy Raw Honey more than just a backyard operation. “A lot of our neighbors are planting bee-friendly flowers like lavender and salvia,” he said. “Some have even become beekeepers. One of our neighbors named her hive after her grandson, we call it the Luca Hive. She calls us anytime she has a question."

Others have taken inspiration from the Rasheed’s fruit trees and started gardening themselves. “We planted five fruit trees with our next-door neighbor, and they’re thriving,” Rasheed said. “Even at our rental property, we planted trees for the tenants, set up automatic watering, and told them, ‘These are your trees now.’”

Despite its hyperlocal focus, Bee Happy Raw Honey is part of a broader global concern. Honeybee populations are declining rapidly. According to the Bee Informed Partnership, U.S. beekeepers reported a 48.2% loss in colonies between April 2022 and April 2023 — one of the highest losses on record. Rasheed says recent figures are even more alarming.

“In the last six months, there’s been a 62% decline,” he said. “That’s what we call Colony Collapse Disorder. Bees just vanish. These aren’t just hobbyist reports,  these are commercial beekeepers.”

Rasheed and his wife hope to continue raising awareness through education. They’ve hosted small workshops at their home, inviting guest speakers such as a master beekeeper trained at UC Davis. But their long-term vision includes something more ambitious: a bee museum.

Despite the time and energy the work requires, beekeeping and urban farming are not Rasheed’s profession, they’re passions he pursues outside of his full-time job. “It’s a part-time job that doesn’t pay,” he joked. “But it feeds the soul. My wife and I do this because we believe it matters.”

“We’re working on building a bee museum in Pakistan,” Rasheed said, “but we’d love to open one here in Solano County too. It would be a place for kids and families to learn, see live observation hives, and understand how pollination works. It would also promote urban gardening and healthy food habits.”

Until then, Rasheed encourages Vallejo residents to take simple steps to support pollinators. “Even if you’re not a beekeeper, you can plant bee-friendly flowers, avoid chemical pesticides, and talk to your neighbors,” he said. “We use 45% vinegar to kill weeds, it’s safer for the bees.”

When asked what bees have taught him, Rasheed reflected on their short but purposeful lives.

“Peace,” he said. “Discipline. They give everything they have in their short lives without asking for anything in return. That’s a lesson we can all learn from.”

For more information about Bee Happy Raw Honey or to get involved, visit www.beehappyrawhoney.org or email beehappyrh@gmail.com.