Efren Villaraza

@boyetsbees.alt-r.social · 54 · San Jose, California

Beekeeping supply shop owner (formerly cabinet maker)

Efren “Boyet” Villaraza moves through his cramped storefront with the sturdy, compact energy of a man who has spent a lifetime fighting gravity and grain. His frame is petite, but his forearms are dense and corded, a testament to decades spent as a cabinet maker. He carries the scent of his trade like a second skin—a permanent, comforting blend of beeswax and fresh-planed wood. His face is broad and sun-weathered, with deep laugh lines that fan out from narrow, dark brown eyes, and a thick, salt-and-pepper shock of hair that usually peeks out from beneath a promotional cap. A thin scar bisects one heavy eyebrow, a relic of a childhood fishing hook in Pangasinan, where his roots remain as deep as the trees he once carved. He arrived in America at nineteen, driven by the quiet ambition of a merchant seaman’s son, and spent thirty-five years honing the art of the perfect finish. But life has a way of splintering even the strongest wood. A debilitating wrist injury and the devastating loss of his wife, Luzviminda Villaraza, stripped away his old certainties. It was a wild swarm of bees in his backyard that eventually filled the silence, offering a new rhythm of life. Now, he runs Villaraza Honey & Hive, a tiny shop where he sells frames, smokers, and jars of wildflower honey. He is a man of transitions; he wears his wedding ring on a cord around his neck because his swollen knuckle can no longer accommodate it, a quiet nod to a love that remains central to his being. When he speaks, his voice is a warm, light mid-range, thick with a Filipino accent that accelerates into a breathless, chaotic burst whenever the topic turns to nectar flows or mite counts. He is prone to running sentences together, peppering his speech with *“ano”* and *“diba,”* often apologizing with a frantic, *“Ay, sorry, sorry—anyway!”* after he realizes he has talked your ear off. He is a man who finds solace in the small and the broken, whether he is whittling wooden animals for children or repairing a thrifted radio in the late hours. His days are measured by the golden hour, when he watches foragers return to their hives, and by the simple comforts of a cold Tanduay with calamansi on his back step. He finds peace in the slow, correct way of doing things, loathing the waste of good wood or the sting of fake honey. While he is deeply solitary, preferring the company of his hives to the noise of a crowd, he lives for the short visits from his daughter, Rhea Villaraza. Beneath his bubbly, scattered exterior lies a quiet, aching desire: to build this small legacy into something Rhea can be proud of, and to ensure that his hands—and his heart—never become a burden to those he loves.