 Aloha, we're in Kailua Kona, on the sunny Kona coast of Hawaii, where we're going to take a tour of Jeanne Cooper's Flourishing Vanilla Bean Farm. These orchids are grown in a spectacular setting on the lowest slopes of Mount Hualai and a 4,000 square foot shade house located on a beautiful 5 acre gated estate. So what are you doing here Jeanne? I'm taking off the little cap and taking out the pollen and then I have to go back in and go up and under the pollen cap where the pollen cap was and I put it in like that, press it together. And there it is, you've just pollinated the flower. Children do this in the tropics. Is that alright? I don't think they use a toothpick either. Wow, I guess once you get the hang of it, it's not too difficult. I'll show you something else about this. There are clumps and what I call subclumps. Here's a clump of flowers. Here's a clump of flowers and more clumps of flowers and I can pollinate until I get 5 to 7 beans on each clump and then I have to stop. But that's okay. Because as you can tell, I have a lot of beans. Yes. And so once you get to that point, that's just... Then I just take off all the flowers. Okay. Wow. Let's take a look at some of these beans that we have over here. There's some just everywhere. I have James here because he gets on the letter and does the tolerance for me. And there's James? That's James. Very important part of this operation. Yes. He keeps going. Come on over here. Look at these beans. Wow, look at these. Look at all these vanilla beans. They must really love this climate. They love my shade house. The shade house is right. This is a 4,000 square foot shade house. It's an irrigation system and two types of irrigation. There's a flower right there. So how long does it usually take between the pollination of the flower to the actual bean harvest? About six months. Six months. But as you can tell, it's not really hard work. It's a little tedious when you're doing it for a long time. But when you sell it for $10 a bean, you keep going. That's right. That will keep you working. That will keep you working. Look at all these beans. So this all started as an idea that you and your late husband, Martin Cooper had. Right. Is that right? Right. And he just started with one plant and went from there, huh? And it became all this. Have you already done this, bro? This is just a beautiful, nice beans. And how often do these plants flower? Is it just a few months? Just a year. Just once a year. Yeah, one crop a year. We'll see a good look at James up here. We'll see good luck at James up here on the ladder. So you're out here pretty much every day when these plants are flowering, huh James? Every day for the past six weeks. Wow. It's slowing down considerably. They start out with the flourish and then once you pollinate everything that can be pollinated, that's it. I can see you've done a lot of pollinating with all these beans here. Oh really lots of geckos, they like these plants. They live in the height of the tubing. Oh do they? It's easy to hide under the leaves and they just... Yeah. Yes. It keeps the bugs off the plants, I'm sure. Yeah. But there are ants in the flower that eat. A sap that naturally produce sap from the flower. It's a good thing. You see the ants and they're doing their job. Oh I see. And so these plants will not pollinate themselves. These can't pollinate them or it's just... You just want to make sure everything gets pollinated. I don't know how we've done in nature here. Maybe in Madagascar it's different. It's different bugs I do it. Here. Here they need their little help. It's my hand, the toothpick method. It's amazing. Oh I know, something else that's nice about the... Besides slugs, there's no insects or bugs that like it. Is that right? They don't like to eat the plant. Right? We've never seen anything on it. Slugs, not all the plants and slugs on them. Yeah. Right. Hmm. That's amazing. With the beetle boar and all the problems that we're having here in Kona. It's nice to have a crop that you don't have to battle. All the insects. Oh right here. Yeah. Just to reduce the weight off the... Yeah, there's so many beans. Plants are just so... Yeah. You want to hear that? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's so many beans. The plants are just so... Yeah, you want to hear it? Yeah. This is a big stung. The bamboo stakes help support the weight of these massive vanilla plants. You want to see the bouquet? Yes. Yes, and look. You've got two bouquet. Okay, let's have a look. We call these the bouquet. Oh, I see. Look at all those flowers. Yeah. It's just... Look at the length of this bean. Obviously, it's one of the first ones. Whoa. Yeah, that's the way they're all going to be. That's how long they all grow too. Yeah. So they have a lot of weight to go. Probably go. So this is the bouquet. Well, Jeannie and James, thank you very much for this beautiful tour. You have vanilla farm. Came to a lot of knowledge. Our pleasure. You