The middle aged man at the Puyallup Fair never expected that his six words would transform an 8th graders life: “You can keep bees in Seattle.” Peter looked wistfully at his parents, but he already had backyard chickens and homework, so his parents told him, “Not now.”

After college a grandmother-figure in his life offered to buy Peter his first hive, and a Facebook friend in Phinney responded to his plea of “who is stupid enough to let me have my first beehive in your backyard”. One hive turned into a few more, this time on the roof at his work, and beekeeping started to become a bigger and bigger part of Peter's life.

Peter’s new love of beekeeping came around the same time he married Amy Beth, so she was quickly conscripted into helping. As they tended hives in Phinney and Fremont they tasted the honey and were surprised at its delicious complexity and the difference between each neighborhood. They were hooked.

Both Peter and Amy Beth grew up in Seattle, and after much discussion finally agreed upon the name, "Rainy Day Bees." A small company was born and they started selling their honey at the Shoreline Farmers Market, and kept getting requests for hive hosts.

Peter quit his "day job" to become a full-time beekeeper. Evenings and weekends filled up with honey bottling and farmers markets. They quickly expanded to five neighborhoods in North Seattle and Shoreline, started raising bees in Monroe and at Jubilee Farm in Carnation, and began making homemade candles.

Rainy Day Bees adds two new beekeepers, which gives the ability to open up hosting throughout the Seattle area. They move their home and business to North City to make room for more bees.

We open a 900 sq ft WSDA certified food processing facility for extraction, bottling and candle making. We begin making honey hot cocoa and infused cream honey.