Copoco’s Honey and Bee Products
“Bee Healthy, Bee Happy”
Our Family’s Company Story…
The next year (2005) more of the Gilmore family came on board, and “Colorado Pollination Company” (COPOCO) was born. We purchased more equipment and ordered packages of bees in from California. We became a small commercial operation, run entirely by family. We provided pollination for many farmers in Northern Colorado, and then took our bees on vacation to California for the winter to pollinate the Almond crop.
2006 brought many more changes for our family business, with three farmer’s markets and a retail store on Trilby and South Shields.
In 2007, we closed our store, but we made our products available online. Benjamin married Rebekah and she picked up beekeeping like it was second nature to her.
2008 found us active at local farmers’ markets and Colorado Honeybee Rescue, formerly Bee Busters, gave many unwanted bees new homes while striving to educate people about the differences between honeybees and other bees.
2009: In addition to opening our new retail store in June, we had more bees to tend and pollination contracts to fill. With Rebekah at the store and Benjamin working with the bees, there was a lot of work to do, but we buzzed on. We have enjoyed getting to know and to help local backyard beekeepers.
2010 found us getting many new backyard beekeepers started up with their own hives and working many hours at Copoco’s Honey. Benjamin tended the bees while Rebekah ran the store and got to know and love the community better. Our bees suffered several losses when Benjamin fell during a hive removal but we remained optimistic and did our best to take good care of the girls we had left.
2011 brought about many changes and a lot of stress. The store inventory and selection kept expanding and many more local items made their way to our shelves. On the beekeeping end trying to get our bees happy and healthy again after the difficult and trying last year was the biggest challenge. Benjamin did his best to get the numbers back up with the healthy hives.