Photos by Kelli S. Hewett.
Adam Hickman of Foxhound Bee Co.
Adam Hickman began beekeeping in his home near Star Lake in Hoover in 2012, but now it has turned it into Foxhound Bee Co., a storefront and teaching facility in Irondale.
In 2012, Adam Hickman wasn’t thinking about storefronts or shipping orders worldwide. He was in his Star Lake neighborhood garage, tending a single beehive.
What began as a quiet hobby — and later a side hustle to pay off student loans — has grown into Foxhound Bee Co., an Irondale-based storefront serving bee enthusiasts across the globe.
From beginner beekeepers to seasoned apiarists, the Irondale storefront and online operation supply equipment, guidance and a passion-driven approach that reflects Hickman’s hands-on path from hobbyist to exacting entrepreneur. It’s a small business rooted in education, craftsmanship and community.
“It’s still shocking to see people I don’t know walk in and give us money,” said Hickman, a culinary school graduate who created test kitchen recipes for magazines such as “Food & Wine” and “Cooking Light” before making Foxhound his full-time pursuit in early 2020. “We actually have a reputation around the world.”
As his hobby developed, Hickman noticed a gap: area beekeepers struggled to find high-quality supplies and helpful education. Armed with inspiration and determination for quality, he began crafting hives and tools in his garage, first selling to friends and neighbors.
Kelli S. Hewett
Adam Hickman holds a bee colony
Hickman holds a bee colony in the teaching apiary of his new Foxhound Bee Co. storefront in Irondale.
“I had a lot of difficulty finding equipment then,” Hickman said. “Beekeeping is confusing. If you’re a beginner, you don’t know exactly what you’re asking for, so it’s intimidating trying to call somebody you don’t know and order stuff. You don’t know what you’re ordering, and you don’t know what you need, so often you don’t get the right things. I just found that process challenging, and I thought, ‘Maybe I could do this a little bit better.’”
Early sales were modest — mostly neighbors and local hobbyists, but the attention to detail and quality craftsmanship made his products stand out. His garage, cluttered with tools and wooden frames — his loyal foxhound Finn always close by — became a tiny workshop where ideas took shape and every mistake was a lesson.
Word of mouth spread. Within a few years, Hickman had outgrown his garage workspace. He added a storage unit near U.S. 31, not far from his Star Lake home. That became two storage units. He then moved into the Hardware Park innovation incubator in downtown Birmingham. That eventually led to the new storefront, warehouse and education facility in Irondale, which opened in November.
“It was a no-brainer,” Hickman said.
He has also been building a practical, high‑quality line of beekeeping supplies focused on real‑world performance over bargain pricing.
He designed a Foxhound Bee Co. smoker inspired by his great‑grandfather’s old U.S.-made model, prioritizing stronger bellows and better airflow and materials so it’s a tool beekeepers actually want to use. In the same spirit, he develops and curates protective gear like suits with durability and usability in mind, favoring better materials and construction over the cheapest option. He aims for dependable, long‑lasting equipment that delivers value in the yard rather than just a low sticker price.
“If I’m going to have a smoker, I’m going to have a really good one,” Hickman said. “It’s not the cheapest, but it’s going to be the type of smoker beekeepers want to use.”
Now his staff assembles online orders for customers around the world — from Hawaii to Sweden.
So what is the appeal of all those bees?
“I ship every day, but it’s always something different — there is something new to learn every day,” said Foxhound employee Tristan Carlee of Hoover, who is new to the bee world. “Bees are really interesting creatures — how they work, learning about drones and the queens. It can be therapeutic — something people can fall into as a hobby or make it something where they’re making money.”
Hickman says he likes bees and beekeeping because it’s a unique, challenging hobby that “checks a lot of boxes” for him. It’s slow and difficult. It involves hands‑on skills like animal husbandry and woodworking. It rewards problem solving and ingenuity.
Kelli S. Hewett
Foxhound Bee Co. offers three types of honey.
Foxhound Bee Co. offers three types of honey, available through their honey jar refill program, where customers can save by filling their own jars.
He appreciates the beekeeping culture in which individuals tinker and invent tools to solve their own problems.
“Usually, when you’re a beekeeper, you go out and you work for the bees by yourself, and people leave you alone,” Hickman said with a laugh. “There’s not any book in beekeeping that says, ‘If you do XYZ, you will be successful,’ because it is as much a science as it is an art.”
Beekeeping isn’t just a hobby; it’s essential for the environment. Foxhound Bee Co. helps both local and international beekeepers maintain healthy hives, supporting pollination and agriculture around the world. By providing reliable, quality supplies and expertise, Foxhound strengthens a global network of passionate beekeepers.
Beekeeping draws an unusually broad community of people who might never cross paths otherwise — but who come together with equal curiosity and care.
At local beekeeper meetings in Jefferson and Shelby counties, Ph.D. holders and surgeons chat alongside farmers and pipe fitters.
“Priuses sit beside diesel rigs,” Hickman said. “You find very diverse people from a variety of backgrounds and ages and political viewpoints. In a society that is pretty divisive about a lot of things, beekeeping is something that brings all these groups together. They just get together and talk about bugs. It’s refreshing.”
