LEAVENWORTH COUNTY, Kan. — A trip to a Kansas farm will help you get back to nature.
The “Next to Nature Farm,” owned by Chad and Megan Gilliland, sits in Leavenworth County, about 45 minutes west of downtown Kansas City. They’ve owned the farm for about 13 years and now and their ideas for property evolved over that time.
“We wanted to pollinate the fruit trees to get better crops. So we put in a couple of bee hives.,” Chad Gilliland said. “Over the next 3-4 years, we kept growing the number of beehives we had. We found that with the products we were making and selling at local farmers markets, we thought we could make a business out of this.”
Now the Gillilands have a store where they sell their products and educate visitors about their busy bees.
“One would be in the lifespan of a honeybee, which averages about 4-6 weeks, they collect 1/12th of a teaspoon of honey. So when you think about a jar of honey being 38 or 46 ounces, that took tens of thousands of honeybees 4-6 weeks to produce that,” Gilliland said.
The Gilliland’s also own goats, chickens, roosters, peacocks and have a new butterfly house.
“It’s just an opportunity to kind of get away from the city, come out to our slice of heaven here in the country and enjoy what mother nature has gifted us with,” Gilliland said.
