Lee Knight has always loved the idea of generational business, jobs that link a family's past to a family's future. But for the seven years the Lehi resident was selling garage doors, he never dreamed he would one day be in the field he's in now. 

Knight is a beekeeper, and he spends much of his time in freshly plowed fields that host his hives, stacked like LEGOs and nestled back in a far corner.

"It all started with a photo of my great-grandmother," said Knight, who discovered his great-grandmother was a beekeeper when he found a photograph of her with her hives. "Seeing that photo sparked the idea."

Also, he said, "I was bored."

In 2001, Knight and his family bought their first two hives and placed them in a friend's pumpkin patch to see how they would fare. Seven years later, they have about 400 colonies from one end of Utah County to the other and beyond, and are living completely off the revived family business, called Knight Family Honey.

The Knights have a small honey extractor in their garage with which they make around 10,000 to 15,000 pounds of a honey a year. They sell the product at local farmers' markets and ship all over the country per people's requests. They rent out a professional kitchen to make their now-famous honey butter, which is quickly becoming their most popular item.

The family also generates income from pollination, in which farmers pay to use their bees to pollinate fields. The annual almond crops in California are the biggest payouts, Knight said.

They're even selling bees now. This year alone, they've sold about 1,500 packages, which hold about 7,000 to 12,000 bees.

Most rewarding, Knight said, is seeing the way people's faces light up with they first taste his products.

"I'll get people coming back a week later after they've got some honey and say, 'That stuff is the freshest I've ever tasted.' "

To Knight, that's further proof of his living mantra: "Honey tastes better when you know where it comes from." When people buy their products, Knight said, especially customers from other parts of the country, they "take a little part of Utah home and a little part of our family as well."

Family is one of the biggest perks of the job for Knight. He is hopeful that his four children will remain interested in their dad's work as they grow older.

"The kids are proud of the product themselves," Knight said, recalling how his oldest daughter recently took a bee magazine for her show-and-tell at school. "They have an opportunity to feel that feeling of being a part of something. ... They get a sense of self-worth, and that's something that we need in our kids nowadays."

Knight also enjoys the extra time he gets to spend with his family, saying he can't imagine having anyone else but his wife, April, as a business partner. He also said he looks forward to many more years of conversations and bonding time during truck rides from bee yard to bee yard with his kids, who sometimes accompany him now during their summer vacations.

"I'm more involved in their lives than a lot of men would be with their families," Knight said.

Knight has goals to grow, like everyone. He hopes to expand his business, improve his facilities and maybe even have a store with a honey-processing display. But though the work is never-ending, it's a labor of love.