Small by choice

Ventena lies in the upper Valdarno, inside the municipality of Montevarchi: slopes, olive trees, woods, farmland broken up by settlements. A position like this guarantees nothing about the quality of an oil or a honey. It sets the gradients, the aspects, the access routes and the vegetation anyone has to work with, and when the business is two people those conditions turn into hours straight away. Reaching a plot and moving equipment costs time. An olive grove on terraces or on a slope asks for different timings than one that can be worked by machine, and the hives have to be reachable during visits and at the same time sheltered from disturbance and standing water.

Geography becomes work before it becomes a story. Calling the business La Foresta does not turn every product into the essence of the wood: the name marks a closeness and a chosen relationship, not an automatic quality. The territory enters through the blooms, the drought, the return of the vegetation, the chance to sell nearby. A company voice stays credible as long as it describes these conditions without making them a romantic guarantee.

Abandoned olive groves do not stand still

When an olive grove is left uncared for, the trees do not stop. The canopies rise and thicken, the suckers at the base and the water sprouts along the branches multiply, brambles take the open ground, walls and access routes fall apart. Reclaiming a grove is therefore not a matter of going back to harvesting: first someone has to make the ground passable, judge how stable the trees are, and prune without asking in one year for what takes several seasons. A cut that is too severe pushes new growth and can expose the wood; a canopy left too dense makes light, air and picking difficult. What is done depends on the cultivar, the age and the state of each plant.

The olive fruits on specific parts of its growth and reacts to cutting. Pruning means balancing light, renewal and productive capacity without turning the canopy into a geometric figure that has nothing to do with the tree, and every intervention has to take into account the load of the year and the alternate bearing. In reclaimed groves the temptation is to restore order at once. The craft asks for the opposite: large cuts are wounds, they change the balance, and the plant can answer with a mass of vertical growth. Winning back height and shape takes seasons, not a single pruning campaign.

Fahren Janine Tami and Arianna Balestri begin from this work, in the Covid years. The oil comes first because the olive trees are already there, but their existence is not the same as a production ready to go: abandonment has a material history that has to be read tree by tree. The small scale makes that reading possible and turns every day of reclamation into an investment that comes before the harvest: following a few plots removes neither effort nor risk, it limits the ground over which two people can take each decision themselves.

The soil is part of that decision too. Keeping a grove completely bare of vegetation makes some operations easier and can increase erosion or the loss of structure on the slopes; leaving a cover calls for mowing and for managing competition, but it protects the ground and holds life. There is no tidy appearance that is right for every plot. And in a business that keeps bees, spontaneous vegetation offers blooms and continuity, as long as it stays compatible with safety, access and fire risk: the mowing calendar decides what remains available to the insects.

The quality of the oil is lost before the mill

Ripeness, health, variety and the sensory aim guide the moment of picking. Going early gives different profiles and compositions with a lower yield; waiting raises the yield and other risks with it. Then the outside constraints arrive — the rain, the labour, the availability of the mill — and the window narrows from both sides. For two people the question becomes physical: how many trees can be picked and delivered on the same day, and what help is needed for the sums to work.

The olives have to be picked with as little damage and contamination as possible, kept aired and taken quickly to processing. Closed sacks and long waits encourage heating and fermentation. The mill does not create what the field has already lost.

After extraction the oil stays sensitive to oxygen, light and heat. Filtering or settling has to deal with water and particles, and the containers have to protect the oil and limit the air: a clear bottle standing in the sun contradicts months of care. The profile changes over time in any case — the bitterness and the pungency soften, the aromas oxidise, the defects come out — and the harvest date together with the storage conditions says more about the product than the idea of home-made oil.

La Foresta produces oil in quantities tied to its own groves, and that allows batches close to the harvest. It does not change the chemistry. Being small does not slow oxidation down: storage, batches and the information given remain technical work that no closeness can replace.

The bees come later and move the centre

The honey comes after the oil and becomes the main product. Bringing in hives does not mean adding a line to the price list: it means taking on the care of living colonies, with their cycles, their feeding, their reproduction, their diseases and their relationship with the landscape. Olive trees stay where they are and will grant a few days; a colony asks for frequent visits in precise seasons. This is the step that shifts the measure of the business.

Bees do not work for the beekeeper. They gather according to what is available and what the conditions allow. The business can choose the site, monitor health, offer water, head off swarms and manage the harvest; it cannot order a bloom or stop bad weather. This is true at any size, but it weighs differently when the colonies are few and each one counts towards the result of the year.

The hive is the built structure; the colony takes in the bees, the combs, the brood, the stores and the organisation among them. Its population changes across the year and answers to temperature, to resources and to the health of the queen. Opening a hive to check it is useful and disturbing at once: the beekeeper looks at frames, brood, stores, signs of disease and available space, and has to read all of it without drawing the visit out. Smoke, movements and clothing are tools of management and safety, not rituals.

The craft lies above all in deciding whether to act at all. Adding space, uniting colonies, feeding where the rules allow it, replacing frames or simply waiting: every choice has consequences. A small size does not make colonies simple. It makes it possible to spend time on the diagnosis and to know the hives without reducing them to anonymous production units.

An apiary has to work at every visit

An apiary needs sun and shade according to the climate, drainage, shelter from the wind, access to water and distance from paths. The direction the entrance faces and the space in front of the hives affect flight and safety. Putting colonies in a beautiful place that is hard to reach with equipment makes every operation slower and riskier.

Water is not a detail of the landscape. Bees need it and will look for it wherever they find it — swimming pools, drinking troughs, standing puddles — if they have no adequate source; providing safe points with something to land on reduces drownings and conflicts, but it calls for cleaning and continuity.

The beekeepers have to be able to get there even when a super is heavy or the ground is wet. There has to be room to set equipment down without crushing useful vegetation, and there has to be a safe way out. Being close to houses, roads or animals calls for agreements and precautions that have nothing to do with production and everything to do with living alongside others.

For La Foresta a few apiaries followed closely can be worth more than many hives spread out to chase the crops, and a site has to be reassessed when blooms, shade or disturbances change. The territory is not a fact fixed on the map at the start: it is a condition observed at every opening of a hive.

No healthy landscape makes the checks unnecessary

Swarming is a reproductive process of the colony: part of the bees leave the hive with the queen. For the beekeeper it can mean a loss of working strength and the need to recover the swarm, but it belongs to the biology of bees, not to a breakdown. Checking space, queen cells and the state of the colony helps manage the risk, and the techniques have to be applied with competence and at the right moment. Mechanically preventing every movement is no substitute for understanding.

Varroa destructor, on the other hand, is a parasite central to beekeeping: it weakens bees and brood and helps transmit viruses. Managing it takes monitoring and authorised treatments, fitted into the cycle of the colony. Waiting for obvious symptoms can mean arriving late, while counts and observations allow a decision to be taken earlier. Treatments have to respect doses, timing and conditions, because effectiveness and residues depend on them, and the absence of the super during certain phases is part of the protocol too.

The health of bees is not sustained by the idea of a natural environment alone. Even a small apiary, in a rich landscape, faces parasites and disease: responsible care recognises this reality and records what is done.

In the telling, then, bees cannot become obedient employees. A small business lives alongside a form of work it does not entirely own, and the craft is measured by the ability to guide without cancelling the behaviour of the colony.

Moisture decides the stability

The super gives space for the honey destined for harvest, above the brood chamber. It goes on when the colony and the nectar flow allow it: too early it creates a volume the bees struggle to hold, too late it limits space and encourages congestion. The line between what is taken and what stays with the bees is a production decision and an ethical one at the same time. Staying small lets Fahren and Arianna tie the number of jars to the real condition of the hives, instead of treating the crop as an abstract quota.

Frames are taken when many cells are sealed. The capping, though, is only a clue: a refractometer says more about the moisture than the impression of density you get from lifting a comb. Honey naturally contains water in varying amounts and, when the moisture is too high, osmophilic yeasts can start a fermentation. It is a defect that begins before the jar and shows up after it.

Honey is also hygroscopic, so ripening and storage have to protect it from the damp air around it. Open containers or unsuitable rooms change it after the harvest. For a micro-production the arithmetic is severe: every ripener, the settling tank in which the honey rests before jarring, holds an important share of the crop, and measuring, recording and keeping batches apart reduces the risk of one problem spreading across the whole year. Small scale does not justify approximate procedures; it makes every mistake heavier in percentage terms.

The extraction room has to keep clean and dirty apart. The supers arrive from the field with propolis, wax and possible outside residues; uncapping, extraction, filtering, ripening and jarring all produce drips and sticky surfaces that attract insects. For two people that room can be compact, but it has to support clear flows: saving metres does not mean piling everything on top of everything else, and every batch has to stay identifiable. Honey looks simple in the jar because the extraction room stopped the complexity of the field from coming in uncontrolled.

The label cannot invent the bloom

Nectar depends on the species, the soil, the humidity, the temperature and the wind. A bloom that looks abundant can offer little nectar, rain can interrupt the gathering, drought can change both quantity and concentration. The bees, meanwhile, move well beyond the boundaries of the farm. This makes honey a product of its territory and not entirely controllable, and it obliges the beekeeper to assign a botanical origin with caution, through observation and, when it is needed, analysis.

The sales name has to respect origin and characteristics. Declaring a floral source requires the product to come wholly or mainly from that source and to show qualities consistent with it: colour and smell alone may not be enough in doubtful cases. The label carries the quantity, the date of minimum durability, the batch, the operator and the origin according to the applicable rules, and expressions such as “pure”, “natural” or “mountain” cannot be used freely to suggest differences that are not documented. Decreto legislativo 179/2004, the Italian decree on honey, defines the product, sets the sales names and the requirements, and allows nothing to be added to what is sold under that name.

The craft therefore consists in extracting and keeping what the bees have made, not in correcting it with flavourings or ingredients.

If the crop is millefiori, honey from many flowers, the name is not a concession: it acknowledges a real plurality and records a specific combination of resources. La Foresta can describe Ventena, the season and the apiaries in precise words, and direct selling allows the spoken account to be added without altering the legal identity of the product. The buyer receives two consistent levels, a verifiable sales name and the story of the year.

Crystallisation is best explained at the stall

Many honeys crystallise naturally. The speed and the structure depend mainly on the ratio between the sugars, on the temperature and on the presence of nuclei: a liquid honey is not automatically fresher or purer, and a crystallised one is not spoiled. The beekeeper can govern the texture through controlled conditions, avoiding aggressive heat treatments, but the change remains a physical fact. Telling the buyer reduces the tendency to treat a jar that has changed as a faulty one.

On Wednesdays, from eight to one, the products arrive in piazza Varchi in Montevarchi. The square is the point where work scattered between olive groves and apiaries gathers onto one table, and bringing small quantities makes every jar identifiable: the year, the availability and the reason that honey has set can all be explained. The craft continues in words after the extraction, because a buyer who understands the product treats it better and reads correctly what they see.

The limit is reach. Five hours in one square reach a local public and require someone to be there in person: if one of the two stays on the farm, the other has to carry the selling alone.

Direct selling does not remove marketing and packing. It takes them on. Prices, labels, payments, transport and unsold stock all enter the same day, and the face-to-face relationship adds information only when it rests on an organisation the public does not see.

Without intermediaries the selling does not disappear

Without intermediaries a larger share of the price stays with the business. In exchange Fahren and Arianna take on transport, the stall, payments, communication, after-sales help and time taken away from the field. A short supply chain is not the absence of selling: it is selling carried out by the producer.

The price has to cover the poor years, the jars, the labels, the treatments, the mill, the fuel, the market and the hours of care. Comparing it only with a supermarket product cancels differences of scale and of service, and limited availability is part of the economics too, because not all of the cost can be spread over large volumes. A sustainable price is one that does not make production worthwhile only on condition that nobody counts their own time.

Today the business has no online shop and works mainly through direct contact and Instagram. That absence should not automatically be read as being behind: an online shop requires stock, photographs, product pages, packaging, payments and shipping. For products in limited quantity, selling locally can preserve margin and relationship, but it reduces geographical reach and makes the business dependent on physical presence.

Small by choice also means deciding which infrastructure not to add until it really improves the work. Digital tools stay useful for communicating; the transaction can go on happening in the square. What is consistent today does not rule out a change tomorrow.

A trial is not yet a product

Honey is a food with compositional and sensory characteristics. Giving it unauthorised therapeutic properties confuses food use with treatment, and health claims are regulated and require specific grounds. A small business can bring out origin, taste and process without promising cures: that restraint protects the buyer and the credibility of the producer at the same time. Personal experience is no substitute for evidence and authorisations.

The wax recovered from cappings and combs can be melted, filtered and used again. It holds smells, pigments and possible residues, and its destination calls for attention: wax meant for new foundation sheets, for candles or for a preparation does not necessarily follow the same criteria. Mixing it with olive oil for an ointment looks consistent with the two activities of the business, but narrative consistency and legal compliance are different things: if the product is placed on the market as a cosmetic, safety assessment, dossier, notifications and labelling all come into play.

Olive leaves, too, are a material and not a guarantee. Pruning and harvesting produce them in quantity and they can be selected and studied for infusions or other uses, but origin, cleaning, drying and storage decide their quality. Not everything that comes from an olive tree is fit to consume, and a leaf moves from agricultural residue to ingredient only once identification, process and rules have been settled.

La Foresta lists this work among its experiments, and presenting it as research keeps the possibility open without claiming effects. The wish to use every resource does not create a zone outside the rules. Small scale allows exploration without having to turn every trial into a new line, and part of the value of the project lies in stopping short of an unverified promise.

Two people have to build redundancy

In a micro-business every illness, accident or seasonal peak weighs. Bees and olives do not wait for the diary to clear. Fahren and Arianna therefore have to spread skills and information so that no stage depends entirely on the memory of one of them: the apiary records, the batches, the harvests, the treatments, the stock and the contacts are not bureaucracy outside the craft, they are what allows the business to carry on when one person is not there.

The working pair can specialise, but each has to know enough of the other’s work to recognise an emergency. Tool maintenance and the suppliers’ calendar build resilience too. Staying a team of two takes more organisation, not less, and personal closeness becomes a resource only when it is translated into clear procedures.

The olive harvest, moving supers and certain maintenance jobs ask for more than four hands. Asking for help or handing a specialised stage to someone else does not make the business less authentic: the point is knowing who steps in, with what competence and by what criteria. Occasional labour, though, has to be organised and made safe — whoever picks has to know the slopes, the tools and the containers, whoever enters the apiary has to be protected and guided — because improvising among friends increases the risks. The two founders keep control without physically performing every gesture: they prepare the work, choose the moment, check it and keep the traceability.

Then there is the body of the person working. Supers, crates of olives, slopes, postures and heat produce fatigue and risk, and a business of two people cannot spread injuries and wear across a large team. Equipment, weights, breaks and seasonal help become conditions of continuity. Doing everything in person is not a value if it consumes the possibility of carrying on: a lifting device, an outside service or a collaboration do not betray closeness to the product, and technology stays consistent as long as it reduces risk without moving the decisions that define quality.

The territory continues beyond the farm boundary

Bees forage over an area far wider than the farm, and water, plant protection products, fires and changes in the landscape do not respect cadastral boundaries. The grove itself depends on roads, on the mill, on seasonal collaboration. La Foresta is not self-sufficient, and naming these dependencies is sounder than declaring independence from everything: the quality of a honey is not the beekeepers’ merit alone, because it involves blooms on other people’s land.

The short supply chain supported by Regione Toscana (the regional government of Tuscany) builds local relationships between production and consumption, but proximity solves neither the environment nor the income by itself. It offers conditions for transparency and collaboration, and the Montevarchi market makes part of that network visible.

Mature olive trees are adapted to dry conditions and still suffer in extreme periods, above all in groves just reclaimed or after major work. Water is needed for cleaning too, for the extraction, for the people and for the equipment, and the amount used along with the handling of waste water is part of the footprint of the business. The word natural does not make a resource infinite. In the Valdarno hot summers and droughts compress blooms and harvests.

Fire, in turn, changes the landscape before it ever reaches the farm. Dry vegetation, difficult access and heatwaves raise the risk; managing firebreaks, mowing and flammable material around apiaries and groves is part of prevention, and the use of the smoker itself calls for caution, proper extinguishing and respect for the rules in critical periods. A fire does not damage only hives and trees: it wipes out blooms, alters the soil and interrupts years of reclamation. The response cannot be individual, because roads, reporting and land management depend on a community and on institutions.

The name of the business calls up a vulnerable resource: using it responsibly means recognising the risk without turning it into alarm. Staying small allows close maintenance of a few areas, not control of the landscape around them.

The right quantity changes every year

Averages describe a past and help with comparison; bees and olive trees face the real sequence of events. A mild winter brings development forward, a late frost hits the blooms, a wet spring keeps the foragers from flying, a drought reduces nectar and fruit size. The effects add up, and a micro-business has no easy way to offset one area with many others: it can diversify between oil and honey, hold reserves, adapt the calendar and explain availability, but it stays exposed. Small scale allows quick observation; it gives no protection from the climate. Planning means building margins, not predicting exactly.

Promising constant availability would force the business to buy in outside material or to change the identity of its products. It can instead accept running out and explain the variability. It still has to order containers, labels and cash before the final crop is known: too much creates stock, too little stops the packing. The right amount is a calculation exposed to uncertainty.

When the stall offers fewer products and the bees reduce their activity outside, the work does not disappear. Stores are checked, hives and tools are maintained, pruning is planned, materials are ordered, labels and accounts are updated, and the colonies are disturbed as little as possible and watched from outside. Winter shows the difference between seasonality and inactivity: the income has to cross months in which visible production slows while costs and care continue. Selling honey and oil that have been well stored spreads the revenue, but it means knowing the stock levels and the shelf life.

Time for planning risks being swallowed by emergencies, and protecting it is a productive choice. The following season starts with the frames ready, the access routes cleared, the containers ordered and an honest reading of the year before. Reclaiming the groves and managing the bees turn the business into a local observatory: noting blooms, harvests and anomalies builds a memory useful for deciding, and sharing those observations with technicians and other producers stops them from remaining isolated impressions.

Preparation also includes deciding what to tell. A poor season is not hidden behind last year’s photographs, a trial with wax or leaves is not presented as an available product, a crystallised honey is explained before it becomes a complaint. The voice of a business becomes reliable when it accepts the same variability that governs the fields.

Small by choice is a verifiable measure

The phrase takes on meaning when it turns into numbers and behaviour: two people, limited harvests, direct selling, a weekly presence in the square, no online shop at the date of this account, experiments not yet turned into product lines. It is not an adjective to be applied to any goods at all. Honey and oil ask for measurements, records and checks even on the smallest scale.

Staying small does not mean refusing all growth. It means asking of every increase what work it adds — more hives, more ground, more markets, a processing room — and whether it still leaves the possibility of knowing what is happening. If the new volume forces that control to be lost, the price is a matter of identity before it is a matter of money. Size is not an absolute value: it is the instrument with which Fahren and Arianna keep material, responsibility and story close together.

The number of markets is judged the same way. One more square would raise sales and take a day away from apiary visits or from maintaining the olive trees, and the reckoning is not only economic. Small by choice means looking at income, time, health and care together, and accepting that the most important limit may be human before it is productive.

The chosen size then becomes a pact with the buyer. It does not promise continuous abundance; it promises batches that can be told apart, presence and an explanation when the year changes. It is a value harder to photograph than an apiary at sunset, but more useful for really understanding a business. La Foresta stays small as long as this closeness guides the decisions, not as long as the number of hives stays still.

The same holds for the range. Every new jar size, every label and every experimental product adds purchases, stock and explanations; a short list of lines frees attention for the field and makes what really changes from one year to the next easier to follow. Variety is not refused, it is weighed against the capacity of the two founders to sustain it without turning farm work into continuous administration.

This selective refusal is production too: it protects time, quality and the possibility of answering in person for what reaches the market.