Duane Combs

Owner

In 1969, at the University of Arizona, I met my wife Pat. We were married in 1971 and have three sons and 11 grandchildren. For the first half of my work life, I was a mortgage banker, and in the second half I was a United Methodist Minister making up for the sins I committed as a banker. Having a problem-solving background, I took up beekeeping in retirement.

Arizona Beekeepers llc is a family-owned beekeeping operation based in Litchfield Park, Arizona. We started our company with three key goals: 1) We want to save and increase bee populations and help manage the threat of African “killer” bees in our dry desert environment; 2) We want to produce the best pure, raw local honey possible; 3) We want to use sensors and other tools to develop effective management techniques to help all kinds of beekeepers who are facing an increasingly harder environment and business.

One of these management problems we have spent a lot of time on is excessive heat in our desert. In 2022 our certified master beekeeper project was on dealing with high temperatures. For 2023 we tried a hive design that we though would solve the problem and lost 20% of our hives. In 2024 we made changes in the hive design and reduced our losses to 10% and we’re already working on our 2025 changes.

Serving our community is an important goal for us. In 2022 and 2023 I was the president of the Beekeepers Association of Central Arizona. In 2024 I became Treasurer for Beekeepers of Arizona, our new state organization and also serve as the Regional Directors Coordinator for the Western Apiculture Society.

At our core, our mission will always be to grow bees and help people become successful beekeepers. That is why we started and this is why I became a master beekeeper, and serve my state beekeepers and the Western Apiculture Society.