Duluth Bee Business Destroyed By Fire, Inventory Wiped Out

DULUTH, Minn. — Fire destroyed parts of a family owned Duluth bee business over the weekend, burning years of inventory.   And now, the slow rebuilding process begins to keep the bee business alive.

“I think we are still kind of in shock. I mean, we’re just barely recovering from the loss of my mom. And then you get another whammy, and it’s like why, ya know?” said Vanessa Roer, co-owner of Miel.

Miel’s inventory and production room

Miel has been operating in Duluth since 2010. What started as a honey business, has grown into a production of beeswax-based products.  But after fire destroyed the company’s production space, it’s back to where they began — making honey.

Roer told FOX 21 the fire broke out during the early morning hours Saturday in her father Mark’s basement, which is where production takes place and inventory is stored.

Mark, who FOX 21 interviewed in May about the bee season, suffered burns to his hand from a hot doorknob while getting out of the house with his cat. But the real loss is years of hard work for a business that’s gone from honey to making lip balms, soaps, candles and other products.

“Maybe $20,000 worth of product down there – retail value — plus all the raw materials, all the ingredients to make all the things, all the equipment to make all the things that’s essential toast,” Roer said.

And while the clean-up process and rebuilding will take time to get Miel back up to full speed, Roer said her family is following their father’s lead that something good will eventually come out of all of this.

“My dad is forever quoting Romans 828. His version of it from the bible, God can take any lousy situation and make good out of it. We don’t know what the good is, but it going to be there. So we just keep saying, hey man, 828, and we move on and kind of go on about the day,” Roer said.

The bee yards and the honey hut were untouched, thankfully.

Meanwhile, a GoFundMe has been set up to help the family rebuild the company. They’re also looking for donations to help in the clean-up like dumpsters, trash bags, plastic storage bins, face masks, gloves, & goggles.