About Us
Owners are Lance and Maria and Noah Alexander
Four Leaf Honey Farm is operated by the third Alexander generation of beekeepers. We sell honey, beekeeping supplies, pollination services, and we provide educational opportunities and hands on learning for new beekeepers.
Some history….
Earl M. Alexander, a 5th generation farmer in Preble County, Ohio and Wayne County, Indiana, was the founder of Four Leaf Farms Honey. He always explained that at a young age he was “bitten by the bug,” and became interested in honeybee culture, entering his products in the Ohio State Fair competition.
After taking a degree from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and becoming an Industrial Arts teacher, his summers were free to expand his hobby into a business. He taught for 20 years in Middletown, Ohio before moving his wife and three children to Middleboro, Indiana, just one mile from his birthplace. The year was 1946.
To serve as a home for Four Leaf Farms, two schoolhouses were purchased, one for storage and one for honey processing. Nearly all the beehives were constructed in the basement workshop of the Middleboro school house, with saws, jointers, and planers all powered by a Model A Ford engine attached to pulleys and belts. Some of the lumber was purchased in Kentucky and Tennessee and air dried outside the school, but most of the wood was cut and milled from a woods southwest of Centerville, Indiana, that had been purchased in the 1930’s.
As the business grew, the beehives were located in a 30-mile radius of the Middleboro processing plant. To the north the bee yards, 20 to 30 colonies, went as far as Winchester. To the south and the west, Connersville and Cambridge City. To the east, Lewisburg, Ohio. Each hive was visited three times a year, spring summer and fall. During the visit, two 2 - ton trucks were used to remove the full honey supers and replace empty supers back on the hive.
In the 1950’s and the 1960’s, much of the honey was sold to retail stores including large department stores like Rike’s in Dayton, Ohio; Pogue’s in Cincinnati: and L.S.Aryes in Indianapolis. Several large grocery stores in Cincinnati carried Four Leaf Honey, including White Villa and Gold Coast brands.
To obtain more comb honey and to raise bees to create new hives, colonies were moved to Egypt, Georgia to take advantage of an earlier honey season. It was during one of the trips to Greorgia that Four Leaf Farms Honey was sold to Col. Sanders for this retail store in Corbin, Kentucky.
In the 1970’s and 80’s, most of the honey was sold wholesale and was distributed under many different labels. But two Richmond corporations continued to be favorite patrons: The Richmond Baking Company and Cox’s Supermarkets.
The tradition of Four Leaf Honey Farms continues today with Earl Alexander’s son Mark, grandson Lance, and great grandson Noah producing local pure honey, beekeeping supplies, nucleus colonies, and pollination services. Four Leaf Brand Honey can be purchased at our retail store at 3251 SR 227 N, as well as Radford’s Meat Market in Richmond, Hub City Meat Market in Union City, and Cedar Coffee in New Paris, Ohio.
