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.