Born on Oahu Island in Hawaii, Barbara Thompson spent much of her professional life as an art historian and curator living and traveling throughout the U.S. and abroad. In 2011, she met Said Shandala while working on a cultural and environmental conservation project in northeastern Tanzania, Two and a half years later, they were married in Dar es Salaam and eventually moved to Oahu with plans to buy a property in the islands with enough land to grow their own food and live a creative life. 

 

In 2017, the couple found a 3.5-acre property on Hawaii Island in the off-grid community of Wa'a Wa'a, about 8 miles from the small town of Pahoa, surrounded by ancient rainforests and lava flows on the rugged eastern coastline of the island. Two years later, they began hosting beehives from Hamakua Apiaries (now Raw Hawaiian Honey Company) on their land. In the spring of 2020, they acquired their own beehives thus establishing Pualani Bee Farm as a small, single estate, family-run apiary.

In the Hawaiian language, Pualani means "heavenly flower," a name befitting the floral abundance and divine beauty of Wa'a Wa'a's coastal landscape at the eastern tip of Kilauea volcano, Pualani also means "child of royalty," in reference to the Hawaiian fire goddess, Pele, who made Kilauea her home as well as to the farm's queen bees and their royal descendants, all bred, born, and raised on these lands forged by Pele's eternal presence. 

 

The geological diversity and warm volcanic microclimates of the Big Island's eastern coastline provide local honeybee colonies with year-round blossoms and nectar flows. Throughout the year, these favorable conditions enable the bee colonies at Pualani Bee Farm to produce the highest-quality 100% raw Hawaiian artisanal comb honey, a changing selection of seasonally available honey varietals, bee pollen, propolis, and beeswax,

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