An Afternoon at R & R Acres

Written by Lauren Vega, photographed by Taylor Czerwinski

Rebecca giving her pigs a bath

Nestled next to the Francis Marion National Forest, R & R Acres is a family owned and operated apiary and homestead. Known predominantly for their bees and honey, R & R also offers fresh eggs, homestead raised pork, pastured poultry, all natural body products, and even some goats and goat yoga! The family was transferred to South Carolina through the military and mother, beekeeper and artisan of the soaps and honey Rebecca Bills couldn’t part with her horses. They chose to live on a farm in Jamestown, South Carolina and continue the farming lifestyle Rebecca had always known. “I used to farm a lot of protein back home in Connecticut. I grew up watching my grandmother process chickens and being on the land was what I had always known.” Now her husband and two children all play a role in the ecosystem of the farm, tending to the goats, feeding the bees, and monitoring the harvests every day. Their story, like their farm, just keeps getting better and better each year.

Q: Share an overview of how R & R operates: How big is your team? Do you operate year round? What do planting and harvesting seasons consist of for you?

“The family is the team. It’s pretty much my daughter and I, my son helps a bit with the goats and pigs, and my husband will help when I need a heavy lift or a special project completed. I was looking into beekeeping as a fun project to get into when we first moved down here. A friend of a friend of a friend got in touch with me because their female-owned beekeeping business needed a place to winter their bees. The next week they showed up with a tractor trailer load of bees, and they left me a hive of bees when they migrated back north.”

“My bees live on a handful of farms around the area because we have close to 300 hives. The farms love it because they get free pollination and it helps the growth of their plants. And we love it because it diversifies the diet of the bees so they can get all of their amino acids, proteins and vitamins. We harvest two, maybe three times a year. Last year, we harvested about 9,200 pounds.”

Q: Many people think the Organic label means a product was grown without any pesticides or herbicides at all. They view Organic certification as an ideal reached by small, forward-thinking, maybe even 'hip', farms that are trying to do right for the environment. What does "Organic" mean on this farm?

“I like a lot of the elements that ‘organic’ embodies. As in, don’t just think about what’s going to fix the ecosystem for today, think about what’s going to fix it for the next three weeks, three years, three decades. What I don’t like is when people get so caught up in it, that they forget the reason behind it. With the way that the USDA works, sometimes getting that ‘organic’ certification is not feasible for someone who is trying to make their farm work. Some of it is just kind of silly because there’s just so many hoops to jump through that’s not designed for the small farmer to be able to accomplish. You’d almost need someone on the farm just to do all of the paperwork for you. There’s just not enough time in the day to take care of the farm and complete and verify all of the certification requirements.”

Q:What are the major differences between store-bought organic and local?

“The word ‘local’ can mean anywhere on the East Coast. So you don’t really know where it’s from. The stores buy it in bulk, and in order to keep the honey from crystalizing it has to be heated up. In order to keep their honey from crystalizing, they’ll add stabilizers or mix it with corn syrups or sugar water. Some ‘honey’ on the market doesn’t even have to come from bees, so who knows what it is. Raw honey crystalizes.”

Q: Through your experience what weather patterns are changing and playing a part of how you operate?

“We’ve been here for seven years and the weather is always different. It’s always not what it's supposed to be. We’re supposed to have a little more wet right now and it’s bone dry. Our first year here was that 1000 Year Flood and we literally took a boat down our road. It was insane. So I haven’t even figured out what’s normal yet. I just thrown my hands up and wonder what’s going to happen next. To mitigate any negative effects, we don’t overcrowd. We set up systems that are flexible enough to handle extreme dry of extreme wet. Enough shade, water, space, and food keep us safe.”

Q: How does it make you feel knowing what you grow with your bare hands touches the lives of other families and neighbors?

“I love that part. I think as a neighborhood we need to support each other. And I think that comes down to trust. You don’t know where the food that you’re getting from the grocery store it actually coming from, you don’t know how it was treated. Here, you can come make friends with your animals before they hit the freezer. You know what’s going into your food, you can have a hand in it. Healthy food is healthy people. I love the fact that my kids, in their entire life, haven’t seen antibiotics more than three times. They haven’t needed it.”

Q: How has COVID impacted your success as a farm?

“It helped people realize how much they need their local farms. We had an event during COVID that was completely open air with sanitization stations, we took all of the precautionary measures, and that was extremely well received. People came out and sat in the sun, played with chickens, played with pigs. They needed to get out of the house for their mental health, but they also got to know us, their farmers.

Q: How do you feel supported by community in the Charleston area?

“There are so many farmer’s markets where we can share and I love that culture here. People want to eat locally and the markets make it reasonable for us to get those goods to them. We also make it possible for people who want to come see the farm to get out here. We open up the land once a year for our Honey Hooplah, which is an event for all. You can visit the farm animals, tour the honey house, bounce in the bounce houses and visit the local crafters, artisans, farmers and more at the farm. It’s a great, free way for families to connect and for our community to see where their food is coming from.”

Q: Where can people find you and your products?

Find R & R Aces products at the Charleston Farmers Market, Sea Island Farmers Market, Sunday Brunch Farmers market, Mount Pleasant Farmers Market, and West Ashely Farmers Market. Or search online at www.RandRAcres.com or at the Farm store open for hours during the week.

You can also follow them on social media: Facebook @RandRAcresSC and Instagram @randrhoney.