This California Citrus Grower Melds High-Tech Farming and Family Values

Marcus Marderosian looks forward to Cara Cara orange season every year. This sweet, low-acid citrus is a type of navel orange, and it typically pops up around Christmas and lingers through spring. You have to hunt for Cara Caras in the grocery store, but Marcus was born into a family of citrus growers in California—so he has easy access to his favorite treat. 

“Growing up, every time they came in season, I was always going out there [into the fruit packing house] to try to grab one off the line,” he told The FruitGuys. 

When we spoke to Marcus in mid-February, his family’s business, Bee Sweet Citrus, was at the height of its busy season. Bee Sweet grows, packs, and ships all kinds of citrus fruits from its facility in Fowler, including juicy oranges, mandarins, lemons, grapefruits, and pummelos. It also offers fun branded items, like Royal Red® oranges (deep crimson blood oranges with berry flavor notes) and Golden Gem® grapefruits (sweet, white-fleshed grapefruits). 

February Fruit Highlights at Bee Sweet Citrus

Bee Sweet has partnered with The FruitGuys since 2017, providing farm-fresh citrus for our fruit delivery boxes. When we checked in with Marcus and Bee Sweet Citrus Director of Farm Operations Matt Watkins, they reported that the weather was perfect for harvesting navel oranges, Central Valley lemons, and Matt’s favorite fruit: Murcott mandarins. 

“They’re naturally seedless and it’s a fun crop to grow. They like to produce, so we get a pretty good yield, and the taste is great,” Matt said. “They hold on the tree very well, and they’re easy to peel. I’ve got three daughters, so they love eating those mandarins and peeling them and popping them in their mouths after their soccer games, all that fun stuff.”

Matt oversees Bee Sweet’s many orchards, including land in California’s Central Valley, central coast, and southern desert. It’s a big operation—but it’s also a family business. 

Bee Sweet’s ‘80s Beginnings

Marcus’s father, Jim Marderosian, cofounded Bee Sweet Citrus almost forty years ago. He had family in the grape-growing business but shifted his focus to packing and selling citrus in the 1980s along with his friend Alan Derderian. 

“At one point, he was working out of a shed on just a single ranch, putting oranges in the bag himself and then selling them on the corners around here in the Central Valley,” Marcus said. 

In 1987, Jim and Alan partnered up with two local citrus growers in California, Richard and Michael Berberian, to form Bee Sweet Citrus.

The growers provided the fruit, and Jim and Alan handled washing, packing, and shipping. Today, Bee Sweet has its own orchards, and Jim is the CEO of the company. His four kids—Marcus, Chelsey, Steven, and Thomas—all grew up in the business. 

Life in a Citrus Family 

“I started coming around the packing house when I was maybe 10 or 12 years old,” Marcus said. “When my mom was busy, I tagged along with my dad, and he let me work. That’s how I earned my cash for school—if I wanted to go get something at the snack bar, I would sweep the floors for some money.” 

At the time, Marcus didn’t understand why Jim spent so many hours in his office talking about fruit. But the older he got, the more his respect and admiration for the business grew. 

“My dad told me if I wanted to go [and work] somewhere else I could, but at some point in my teen years, I’d already decided I wanted to work here and continue my dad’s legacy alongside my siblings,” he said.

All four of the Marderosian kids work at Bee Sweet today, and so does Chelsey’s husband, Anders Skooglund. Marcus said they had to “start at the bottom” and earn their place. After sweeping floors, he graduated to making boxes and stacking fruit onto pallets. From there, he went on to earn a degree in agricultural systems management from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, so that he could understand the company from the ground up. 

High-Tech Fixes to Climate Problems

Like other citrus growers in California, Bee Sweet relies on a mix of old-school farming knowledge and cutting-edge technology to keep its trees healthy and producing tasty fruit. 

Director of Farm Operations Matt Watkins oversees both. He grew up farming row crops and studied agriculture at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, with an emphasis on water management. He’s been in the citrus industry for twenty-five years, including nearly twenty with Bee Sweet. 

Matt told The FruitGuys that successful citrus farming starts with choosing the right location for each orchard. Once you plant a tree, it’s not going anywhere—so you need to find a spot with the right climate. Citrus trees prefer hot summers, which increase the sugar content in the fruit, and winters that are cool but not too cold. 

Climate change is keeping winters warm and reducing the need for wind machines to circulate air through the orchards, but it’s also bringing other challenges. Water is in short supply for citrus growers in California, so Bee Sweet has turned to high-tech solutions to keep its usage down. 

Matt and his team use micro-drip irrigation or micro-sprinklers for targeted watering, moisture monitoring devices in the orchard soil, and root zone sensors that track how much water each tree is using. The last is a brand-new technology that Bee Sweet first trialed in 2024, and Matt is excited to use it again in 2025. 

Farming in Three Words

Farmers have to innovate constantly to stay ahead. Matt said that if he had to pick just three words to describe life on the farm, they’d be “never the same.” 

“One thing that’s great about farming—and sometimes negative—is that every day is different. I’ve been doing this for twenty years and it’s like, the weather has never been the same, the trees are never acting the same, the markets are never the same,” he said. “There’s always something to do; we’re always making changes and adjusting to what we’re seeing out there in the groves. It really keeps you going. It keeps it exciting because it’s always changing.” 

Support Bee Sweet in Your Office or School

Here at The FruitGuys, we’re proud to support Bee Sweet and other family farms through those changes. This winter, you can find Bee Sweet’s oranges, mandarins, and more in our fruit mixes for offices or purchase its fruit by the case through our Farm-to-School Program.