Laney Honey, located in North Liberty, Indiana, has been beekeeping for almost 30 years. What started as a hobby for the Laney family in the ‘70s has become a full-time business for Dave, Kay, and Linda. The Laney family has grown their beekeeping business from just a few hives to 18 hives over 40 acres of land.


Laney Honey, located in North Liberty, Indiana, has been beekeeping for almost 30 years. What started as a hobby for the Laney family in the ‘70s has become a full-time business for Dave, Kay, and Linda. The Laney family has grown their beekeeping business from just a few hives to 18 hives over 40 acres of land.

Laney Honey is unpasteurized, unfiltered, and minimally processed to preserve the distinctive flavors, trace minerals, vitamins, and pollen grains found in the honey. The Laney family produces, packages, and distributes their honey to over 300 grocery stores across the country. With 12 distinctive flavors including Blueberry Blossom, Clover, Wild Rasspberry, and Orange Blossom, the Laney family needed a fast way to connect with customers and distributors.

To stay connected, Laney Honey turned to HughesNet^®,a service that does not rely on cable or phone wires to deliver affordable broadband service to consumers and small businesses everywhere in the U.S., regardless of geography, at speeds comparable to DSL. The compact antenna needs only to have a clear view of the southern sky.

Sticky Situation
The Internet has changed how all businesses operate, large and small alike. For Laney Honey, processing orders online quickly and efficiently became a key competitive requirement. Linda knew that meant she would need a high-speed Internet connection.

As with many farmers, access to cable or DSL was not an option, since the farm is in a remote location and covers such a large land area. For years, Laney Honey relied on a slow dial-up connection to conduct business on the farm. “If a customer called and wanted tracking information for their order, I would have to put them on hold for several minutes while loading the Web site,” said Linda. “This was just not a productive way to conduct business.” Dial-up slowed down the Laney’s honey business.

To avoid using dial-up, Linda would often update the company web site from home, where high-speed access was readily available. “No one ever likes to bring work home, but we really had no option as it was very difficult to update the Web site through the dial-up connection,” said Linda.

Sweet Satisfaction
“We hadn’t heard of satellite Internet until one of our customers — an orchard, also in rural Indiana — mentioned HughesNet to us,” said Linda. “I can’t believe we spent so long on dial-up.”

Now that the farm has a high-speed Internet connection — using a compact satellite dish antenna on the roof of a barn — Linda and her family can regularly update their web site with new flavors and photos, maintain shipping information for customers, and capitalize on Internet marketing tactics, such as Google Ad words and Yahoo Engine Optimization.

“It’s great to see how modern technology can enhance something as rustic as beekeeping,” said Linda. “The possibilities for expansion are endless now that we don’t have to waste time waiting for the Internet to load.”

The Honey Comb Grows
Laney Honey continues to introduce new flavors of honey every couple of weeks, depending on what’s in bloom. Now that the farm is connected through HughesNet, the Laney family doesn’t need to worry about bringing work home, as they can conduct all of their daily business right there on the farm. “I am excited about being able to provide my customers with top-notch service and provide them with the honey they love,” said Linda. “Doing business was a hassle when dealing with the slower connection. This definitely gives us the opportunity to expand our business into new territories, which was not an option on dial-up.”

HughesNet offers a full suite of services designed to help businesses such as Laney Honey adapt to the ever-changing marketplace and provides broadband satellite networks and services for large enterprises, governments, small businesses, and consumers.