A Lovell Story: Running miles, raising bees and chasing dreams

Sometimes it’s hard for me to sit down with adults I coached or taught years ago and not see them the way I remember them -- as teenagers still figuring out who they were. Then you blink, and suddenly they’re running businesses, raising families, building careers and carrying the kind of calm confidence that only comes from time and hard-earned experience.

I had that exact feeling when I sat down recently with my friend Ben Zeller. Years ago, I coached several of the Zeller kids when Lovell and Rocky combined for cross country. Between the siblings, they racked up several all-state honors and state championship moments.  Back then, I knew the Zellers as runners, competitors, and as that big family with a work ethic that didn’t quit.

This time, I wasn’t looking at a runner. I was looking at the latest steward of something that has been quietly building for more than half a century and is now entering its fifth generation. What started as a small family honey business has grown into an impressive operation that includes honey, candies, chocolates and a lineup of products that keeps expanding. And the more Ben talked, the more I realized: This isn’t just a business story. It’s a family story, and a Lovell, Wyoming, story.

The Zeller family story begins right here where Clarence and Bessie Zeller raised their family of three sons and three daughters. Like many Wyoming families, they built a life the way you often have to build one here, with work that’s steady, stubborn and tied to the land.

To support the family, they produced honey. Not ordinary honey, either, at least not if you listen to the family lore. The Zellers talk about bees they call the “Little Johnnies,” wild-tempered bees originally started from swarms Clarence’s father collected from trees along the Shoshone River bottoms. According to the story, these bees were mean. They attacked for fun. They loved to sting. But they also gathered nectar that produced honey so good the family gave it a nickname worthy of mythology: “The Nectar of the Gods.”

When the Zeller kids grew up, they did what young people do. They left. They went out to see the world, try other jobs and spread their wings. But the family tells it this way: the sting of the Little Johnnies was like the Pied Piper calling them back. No matter where they went, something pulled them home. The bees. The farm. The roots.

Ben credits his grandmother Bessie for recipes and creativity. He credits his grandfather Clarence for the mechanical and engineering side, figuring out how to cook honey without scorching it, because honey burns easily, and once it’s burnt, the flavor doesn’t lie. Ben said you can taste the difference. Other places might sell honey caramel that tastes like burnt sugar. The Zellers built their reputation on avoiding that.

In 1976, the family dusted off an old recipe traced to Bessie’s Scottish roots and tried something new, selling honey candy. They had the honey and the determination. The only question was whether it would work. It did.

By 1979, they added honey pecan pralines, now known as Pecan Pearls, and the product line began to grow. Honeymoons, truffles, English toffee and other confections soon followed, filling more than a candy case and starting to shape a brand. What began with honey and tradition slowly became something that could travel well beyond home.

A modern business with small-town roots

Ben does not talk like a CEO. He downplays it, calling himself the office manager who runs the numbers when someone suggests a new product. His brother Jason oversees manufacturing, and their cousin April Christensen handles HR, payroll and hiring.

What surprised me was how far the business has reached. With stores from Montana to Colorado, a steady mail-order operation and sales to hundreds of stores that carry the product from coast to coast, they juggle the seasonal swings of tourism and highway traffic.

This is not just about candy. It is about a Wyoming business that stays rooted at home while reaching outward, the kind small towns need.

Bees, bad years and hard math

The sweetest stories always have a bitter section, and in the Zellers’ case, it’s the bees themselves.

Ben is the beekeeper. He talked openly about how unpredictable beekeeping can be, and how fast a bad year can turn into a crisis. Disease, mites and viruses can wipe out colonies, and rebuilding isn’t just a matter of patience. It’s a matter of money.

He described a devastating setback last winter when he lost 90 percent of the colonies he had sent to California. Each year, the hives are trucked to almond orchards in central California where they can soak up the sun, pollinate the trees and avoid the worst of Wyoming’s winter while bringing in a little extra income.

That wasn’t a small setback. It was a gut punch. Hive after hive was filled with dead bees, part of a wider global problem that should give all of us pause, the kind of moment that reveals whether a business is sturdy or fragile.

And it’s not just the bees. The cost pressures are coming from every direction. Ben talked about the price of chocolate climbing sharply in a short time, driven by global cacao shortages and drought in the regions where it’s grown. Tariffs get announced, pulled back and threatened again, adding another layer of uncertainty. That’s the hidden story behind a box of truffles: a global supply chain, weather patterns thousands of miles away and a small business in Lovell working hard to keep prices steady so customers can still feel like they’re getting something special.

A dream at the end of the earth

After all the talk about store logistics, colony loss, chocolate costs and old family recipes, Ben shifted gears and told me about something that had nothing to do with profit margins. He fulfilled a lifelong dream.

Last fall, Ben traveled to Patagonia, going as far south into Argentina as most people ever go without stepping onto Antarctica itself. He talked about wide-open landscapes that look untouched, mountains that feel like they cut the sky and that strange feeling you get in places like that, where the world seems bigger than your calendar and your problems.

And then came the highlight: penguins.

Ben had always assumed you had to go to Antarctica to see penguins in the wild, but in Argentina he found exactly what he was looking for. He visited a place where penguins nest by the thousands, digging holes into the ground, waddling under boardwalks and marching back and forth from the ocean like they own the place, because honestly, they do.

He described walking near them, close enough to feel like you’re inside a documentary. He timed his trip specifically so he could see baby penguins, watch the nesting cycle and experience it at the exact moment it was happening.

I’ll admit, this was one of those interview moments that made me stop thinking about the article and start thinking about my own life. About how easy it is to postpone dreams and how rare it is to see someone rebuilding a family business, juggling stores, staff and bees and still chasing something meaningful.

As a kid, Ben was one of the team’s best runners. Reliable and quietly tough. Sitting with him now, I still see that athlete, but I also see the endurance it takes to carry a legacy forward when costs rise, winters drag on and the bees don’t cooperate.

The Zeller story is not just about honey or candy. It is about a family that built something real, kept it alive through change and grew it without losing what made it special.

And if you want the shortest version of all this, it’s probably this: I sat down with an old student-athlete and ended up talking to a business builder who still has dreams big enough to take him to the end of the earth.