Burt is a real person, not a made up name (like Ted Baker). And he did keep bees. Back in 1984 he teamed up with Roxanne Quimby to sell beeswax which they made into candles. They made $200 on their first day trading and knew that they had a business with a future!
At the time Burt was living in a chicken coop less than 3m x 3m in size and Roxanne and her children were living in a tent. You can tell from that they didn't have a lot of money. Their first offices were in an old, one room schoolhouse with no heating, no electricity, no water and no windows. But their candles sold well and in 1989 they moved into an old bowling alley and grew to 40 employees. By 1991 they were making half a million candles a year and added lip balm to their range. That's still their bestselling product. In 1998 they added body lotion to the range and a few years later came the first Baby Bee products. And they've never looked back.