Bill Crumpler | Rooted Faith Farm

Bill Crumpler

Rooted Faith Farm

Beehives in 9 growing spaces across metro Atlanta

Pollinators, especially bees, are essential to growing food. Without them, we wouldn’t be able to have most of the food we eat today. Beekeeper Bill Crumpler has made it his mission to teach people the importance of caring for bees and their natural habitats. When Bill started growing food, he came across an article about how honey bees were in trouble, which sparked his interest in seeing what he could do to help. Shortly after learning more about bees, he purchased equipment and a hive. While he waited for his hive to arrive, Bill spent a lot of time on YouTube and Google researching as much as he could about bees. “In a lot of the videos, the beekeepers don’t have suits on,” said Bill. “In my mind, I thought it was going to be the same way. So I only bought a veil. When I installed the hive, everything was good, but when I checked on them the second time, I got stung.” After that, he bought a full beekeeper suit!

His hobby quickly turned into a passion and he now has an apiary of 13 hives in his parent’s backyard in Fayetteville. “My goal is to educate people on pollinators so we won’t fear bees and realize that we actually need them,” said Bill. 

This year, Bill received a Resource Provider Organization Grant from Food Well to spread his knowledge of beekeeping to growers in the metro Atlanta area.  Through the grant, he was able to purchase and install hives at eight locations around metro Atlanta, including Baby Katie’s Farm, HABESHA, Cedar Seeder Farm, PolyCulture Productions at Gaia Gardens, Metro Atlanta Urban Farm, Golightly St. Community Garden, Firdous Community Garden at Mohammed Schools, Seal’s Family Farm, and he installed a ninth hive at Agrowkulture. 

For growers who already have to juggle a million things, learning how to care for a beehive can be a lot, plus there’s plenty of misinformation online. “There are so many discrepancies when you do research. Often you don’t know what you can and can’t do or what’s true or false,” said Bill. He visits the sites twice a month to check on the beehives and teach the farmers how to care for them. “With the grant from Food Well, I could focus on educating farmers in Atlanta about bees and how they can incorporate them into their operation,” said Bill. “I’m always trying to make the process better because I just want more people to have bees.”