Charles Robson
Wickenburg - Maricopa County
Inducted in 2010
Charles Robson was a man of many talents. He was a beekeeper, businessman, inventor, innovator, writer, and lover of Arizona history.
His wife, Jeri, remembers that his family came to Arizona in the late 1920s. "When Charles was four, his mother passed away, and he went to live with his grandparents on his father's side. When he was ten or eleven years old, his father married my father's oldest sister, so we were step-cousins. Jeri's Uncle Ray and Aunt Jeanette became Charles' stepmother and father.
Growing up in the shadow of the State Capital, Charles had some great stories about the early days of downtown Phoenix and loved to share them with anyone who would listen. He loved Arizona and its history, a love that would play a prominent role in his life in later years.
When he began keeping bees, Charles followed in his stepmother's footsteps. Her family had been in the business since the early 1900s. When he was growing up, Janette, a beekeeper herself in her younger days, fascinated him with stories of her exploits -- such as the time she and her partner, a lady who was also into beekeeping, backed an old truck up Yarnell Hill to get their hives to the higher elevation. Jeri said, "She taught Charles to be a beekeeper and how to keep bees.”
His first beekeeping endeavor was on 30th Street, but the use of pesticides and pollution from a growing population made it evident that he had to get his hives out of town. He packed up his bee operation and moved it to Aguila, a small agricultural community west of Wickenburg, where he opened Robson Old West Honey's headquarters.
An innovator, Jeri, said, "Charles wasn't satisfied to just raise bees; he began building hives and creating other natural products at his plant on 30th Street in Phoenix. His mind worked constantly." In the 1960s, he developed a pollen collector. "In those days here in the United States, no one was collecting pollen from their bees. They were doing the honey, which was the sole thing beekeepers did."
With the hippie movement of the '60s, people began turning more and more to natural foods. What could be more natural than honey and bee pollen? Charles looked at the existing pollen collectors, or traps as they were called then, and knew he could improve on them. "He was able to devise a very efficient pollen collector and would not let in rodents and all the things that the beekeepers had struggled with previously in trying to collect the pollen." Working out of his plant on South 30th Street, he patented his pollen collector. He started using it on his hives," The collector was so successful he realized that he had something that could benefit the industry and began manufacturing them. "He was always an entrepreneur," Jeri said. As such, he understood that he had to change his business because the people he was selling to were reselling the pollen and benefiting from his creation. At that point, he decided to use the pollen himself to make pollen tablets like they were in England.
He found some equipment to manufacture the tablets and hired a man who had been in the natural food business and knew about making tablets. When he needed more pollen than his bees could produce, he worked out a deal to make pollen collectors that he could give to other beekeepers. The understanding was that they would sell their pollen to him in exchange for the collectors. Charles expanded from pollen into different areas, such as building propolis collectors.
Over the years, he obtained over 20 patents on agricultural products. In the early 1980s, he formed a relationship with Rex Maughan. Rex was developing a business called Aloe Vera of America and became Robson's primary client, consuming 94 percent of his product. By that time, Charles was producing more than 104 natural products. When Maughan wanted to buy the entire business, Charles sold it to him.
"Charles was involved with Maughan's Forever Living Products until his death developing new products for them," Jeri said. "He served on the advisory board, as I have, and worked with Rex over the years. At first, it was a tranquil relationship because Charles had established himself as the bellperson. Rex used Charles' reputation as a beekeeper to enhance the products that he sold, the natural products, and that's why there are many videos with Charlie in them showing him with the bees and everything Forever Living used to sell their products. By 1995, Forever Living had satisfied their contract." Charles went to Rex and asked to buy back the bees." At first, Rex was reluctant to sell, but eventually, an agreement was reached. "Then, we simply became a supplier to Forever Living Manufacturing company, Aloe Vera of America."
Robson's Old West Honey summered their bees in South Dakota to get them out of Arizona's summer heat. Later, as the drought became worse in the desert, they moved the majority of their bees to New Mexico, maintaining a few hundred in the desert to produce the popular Mesquite Honey. The bulk of their operation is south of Albuquerque in an area that runs up and down the Rio Grande for miles.
Drawing on his experience and expertise in the business, Charles wrote Seven Healthy Secrets from the Hive, a book on the healthy properties of honey and bee pollen. The book is available on Amazon.com.
Foreign markets are challenging to break into, especially Japan and Germany. Still, because of the high standards that Robson Old West Honey adhered to, they, like his Uncle Bud before them, have found their niche in those markets. "Japan is tough to get into. Very, very hard, and Germany also," Jeri said. "They test our honey for pesticides and pollutants." Robson's have always passed with flying colors. According to Jeri, some bees are raised in Germany, but they import much of their honey from the United States and other places.
"My Uncle Bud was a very large beekeeper in this Valley and up in Safford. I can remember my Uncle Bud selling boatloads of honey to the Germans. Many of the people in the States like the lighter colored honey, The Clovers, and Mesquites, those things, but they (the people of Germany) like the darker honey."
The 1980s was a busy decade for Charles. "He became acquainted with a man named Harold Mason who had an old mining claim and little house near Aguila." Charles bought the site, and it became the love of his life. "It's called Mining World. It's the middle of nowhere, seven miles from Aguila, about 24 out of Wickenburg. It's the site of an old gold mine. We started working on it actively in 1987 and opened in 1992. Both Charles and I were natives of Arizona, loved Arizona history, and just really wanted to make a stab at preserving some Arizona history." The site has the world's most extensive collection of antique mining equipment with 30 artifact-filled buildings, gold panning, Indian artifacts, B&B accommodations, and a restaurant. It is known as Robson's Ranch and Mining Camp. After Charles died in 2002, Jeri moved to Wickenburg, where she is active in the community.
