A full-time beekeeper since 2022 in Aube, Stessy Marquet was not really destined for this profession which had become his passion. Before his professional retraining, he worked for 11 years in the Michelin group, as a technical manager. At the head of a department of 15 people, and despite the pressure, he loved his daily life: “I loved what I did, I loved my team. But I was working 60 hours a week. » So many hours that he cannot spend near his daughter, Jeanne, who health problems force to have a series of medical appointments and hospitalizations.
It was in 2020 that the door opened to his new profession. “I saw an ad from a beekeeper who was selling a colony. I didn’t know anything about it, really nothing. But I have always been intrigued by bees. I said to myself why not,” remembers Stessy Marquet.
Since the colony is only available 15 days later, he absorbs all possible information in the meantime. Then, when the hive arrives, you fall in love immediately. “During my first visits, I could stay on the hives for an hour, I never had enough. I needed more,” smiles the self-taught beekeeper. Piqued by passion, he quickly moved to 5 hives in 2020, then to 11 the following year.
His professional situation becomes unblocked in 2022, when he benefits from a collective contractual termination. He then decided to concentrate full time on this project which now bears his daughter’s name, Le Rucher de Jeanne: “I wanted to put my daughter at the center of my business. Our whole life revolves around it. Its treatments, hospitalizations, fatigue… You have to be strong and courageous to move forward. This is the sentence she says to me regularly: When I’m in the hospital I’m strong and brave. For my business to survive, I have to be too. » The company thus becomes a family symbol, a way of moving forward despite challenges.
“If bees don’t want to work, they won’t”
Today, Stessy Marquet manages nearly 100 colonies in the Othe region and wants to increase to 250 or even 300 next year. However, he refuses any form of intensive exploitation: “I don’t want to start doing cavalry either. I have much more respect for bees than wanting to make honey all the time. I want everything to be respected. They showed me another rhythm, another richness and opened a new path for me, softer, more alive, closer to nature. »
He makes visits every 7 to 10 days, especially from spring to mid-June, to avoid swarming. But if he carefully observes the behavior of the colonies, he lets nature decide. “If bees don’t want to work, they won’t. That’s how it is,” he says.
Among its most notable productions, yellow sweet clover, “an exceptional honey with a natural hint of vanilla due to its flower. The taste is incredible. Few beekeepers manage to have sweet clover, it is very rare,” underlines Stessy Marquet, who has a particular affection for linden honey.
Despite these successes, his journey has not been a long, quiet river. While his goal was to double production each year, nature decided otherwise. “Everything was working fine, but I encountered an Asian hornet’s nest. Out of 64 colonies, I lost around forty in two weeks on one apiary,” he regrets.
An ordeal that could have discouraged Stessy Marquet, but he held on. In order to fight against this scourge, he even embarked on a parallel activity, disinfestation. After obtaining his certification, he created Antid’othe against pests, a service with which he operates throughout the department.
Honey, cakes… and interventions at school
Even as part of its main activity, Stessy Marquet does not just produce honey. He added to his catalog a series of local creations made entirely by himself. “I mainly make honey but I have developed different things on the side: my honey-hazelnut paste which took me a year and a half to develop, a nougat cream, gingerbread and honey cakes,” lists the beekeeper.
It also offers educational and creative candle kits for making your own candles, including wax sheets, wick, stickers, as well as an educational booklet entirely created by you. A kit that will be available from Cultura very soon. He also entered into a partnership with Catherine Manoël, master jam maker at Comptoir des confitures, to create a product combining honey and apricots.
Stessy has just received its scientific culture agreement with National Education, which thus validates the interventions in schools that it has been carrying out for some time. “I bring miniatures of bees, larvae, wax, pollen, candles, beekeeping equipment, videos that I have made. I want them to see, to touch, to understand,” he explains.
He also adapts his interventions to needs: “I pay attention to vocabulary, to the way of speaking to them. Some children are blind: I therefore favor touch. Some have difficulty mixing, have disabilities, go to school. It’s a great discovery. It’s a sharing, so the goal is to leave no one behind. »
For him, transmitting has become essential. “The children love this exchange. They can see, touch what theory does not show,” he explains. “I’m happy to share what I’m experiencing. This has real meaning, children are the greatest life lesson you can have. I feel like I’m serving a purpose. » A sentence which perfectly concludes the spirit of Le Rucher de Jeanne: meaning, sharing, passion, and a lot of humanity.