Since relocating to Frontier in 1987 from Bracken, Honey Bee Manufacturing has been a huge part of Frontier’s community.
Providing everything from jobs to financial funding for the things that matter most, this locally owned operation has had an enormous impact on the entire Southwest.
“The presence of Honey Bee in our community has helped keep our town alive,” said Frontier village administrator, Barb Webber. “We have other vital businesses, but without Honey Bee we would be a totally different village.”
“You can’t have more than 200 employees working at a local business without having some kind of impact,” she added.
Honey Bee currently has 269 employees working there, coming from Frontier, Climax, Bracken, Eastend, Shaunavon and Val Marie.
While Honey Bee is easily the largest employer in the Southwest, the local company offers more than just employment opportunities. The business is well known for its generous contributions to a wide variety of projects, organizations, and charitable endeavours at communities throughout the region.
One of the groups acutely aware of Honey Bee’s generosity is the Southline Community Foundation. The organization was created to help maintain health services and programming in the region in the wake of provincial cutbacks.
“I feel that our community has been blessed by the many contributions Honey Bee Manufacturing has made to numerous community initiatives,” said Foundation president Elaine Anderson. “As a corporation, they have committed to seek the will of God and our community has received the benefit of the generosity that flows from that.  Although I know they prefer to keep a low profile in terms of their contributions, I think it is reasonable to say that the support we have received from Honey Bee has been fundamental to the success of Southline Community Foundation.”
For Honey Bee, supporting their employees as well as the communities in which they live is an important part of their business mandate.
“The communities in the southwest are all important to our business, so we made a decision to support those projects and people that help maintain a vibrant community base,” said Honey Bee general manager, Brad Nelson. “Having strong communities is an important element to our business.”
Another group that is well acquainted with Honey Bee’s generous contributions is Frontier Minor Sports.
“Honey Bee has supported the Frontier rink in several ways such as purchasing uniforms, providing some of the funding for the Zamboni, and providing opportunities such as leadership training for some of the hockey teams,” said Denis Keith. “They have provided materials, machinery, and labor for projects throughout the years. Honey Bee has always been there ready and willing to support the rink and other projects.”
Funding community rink projects, donating uniforms to school and minor sports teams, sponsoring rodeos, music festivals, and a variety of other events around the area are only a few ways Honey Bee has made an impact in the southwest.
“Most all of these events bring people together,” said Nelson. “If you look at the big picture, is the rink a good thing? Absolutely! What’s strong and good in our community is good for our people and it’s good for us corporately, as well.”
Honey Bee, however, isn’t looking for recognition or reward for anything they do for the communities. In fact, they would almost prefer to be anonymous about their charitable contributions.
To them, it’s just part of being the big fish in a small pond, and the company goes out of its way to lend a hand where help is needed.
“We don’t do it for the publicity - we do it for the community, we do it for our employees,” explained Nelson.
Often the company supports the things Honey Bee employees are involved in and projects that offer a positive opportunity for the community. After all, some things are more difficult for a town, village, school or organization to fund independently than others.
The support that Honey Bee provides at the corporate level, by the way, does not include the individual volunteer contributions made by the hundreds of employees that work at the facility.
Having a big industry mogul in town certainly has a massive, long-term financial impact on the community.
It is a positive influence that Webber and the Village of Frontier as a whole are thankful for.
“Because there are more than 200 people working at Honey Bee, they have to live in Frontier or fairly close to Frontier, so there is a huge economic impact from that perspective alone,” commented Webber. “But, there are all kinds of other spinoffs as well. There are jobs and services that are required to meet the needs of those workers. Plus, there is a certain amount of business generated by those people coming to Frontier to pick up headers and equipment or delivering goods to the Honey Bee plant.”
Webber added that Honey Bee customers come from all over the world.
Housing, education and commercial institutions also benefit, as the families of Honey Bee workers help boost numbers for everything from local school enrollment to church congregations.
In recent years, a number of Filipino employees working at the Honey Bee plant and their families have also settled in the area.