Today we’d like to introduce you to Nathalie B.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
When I was 8 years old, living in France, I wrote a report about bees and how they communicate through dance. The fascination stayed with me as I traveled to Africa and from France to the US, through business school, an MBA, corporate work, and the creation of a French conversation school. After finally receiving a beehive and bees as a present, I started learning more about bees by going to beekeeping meetings. All the clubs in town were promoting treatments (the application of pesticides in the hives against various pests) and that made no sense to me whatsoever, especially since I could see my bees thriving without them. I could not imagine subjecting them to the trauma and did not want the residues in their honey. So, I created the Hays County Beekeepers Association, a natural beekeeping club, to promote treatment-free beekeeping.
While growing the club to over 100 members and close to 1000 Facebook followers, I got addicted to bees, became a Texas A&M Master Beekeeper, and a full-time beekeeping professional, complete with hundreds of colonies and professional beekeeping services, a teaching apiary, and a beekeeping apprenticeship program for new beekeepers to learn how to become competent beekeepers.
My friend and mentor Les Crowder decided to join me in promoting natural beekeeping practices and the use of horizontal top-bar hives for hobbyist beekeepers, and together we are growing the business, providing lessons and Ag Exemption consulting and leasing services, and focusing on community outreach programs and the organization of the World Bee Day Natural Beekeeping International Webinar in the process.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Starting in beekeeping can be complicated without a clear, well-organized road map. Colony losses average 40-50% each year without solid knowledge and sustainable beekeeping practices, and the learning curve is steep. Unfortunately, a lot of intermediate beekeepers with limited knowledge like to teach new beekeepers and lead them down the road of the same repeated myths, personal agendas for income making, and unsustainable practices.
It was hard to find quality educational materials and programs, and the few that existed in town all pushed for commercial-style beehives that can be hard on the bees, and heavy and cumbersome for the beekeepers. A majority of beekeeping teachers and mentors pushed for treatments, and it was hard to find good sources of education on non-commercial, sustainable, natural beekeeping.
Finally, building a beekeeping business from scratch is an enormous amount of work, especially when larger, more established beekeeping companies attract most of the market, sometimes taking unethical shortcuts in the process, which makes it hard to compete with.
As you know, we’re big fans of Bee Mindful, LLC. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
Bee Mindful, LLC is a professional beekeeping services organization with a focus on natural beekeeping and community outreach.
We specialize in and are known for our horizontal top-bar hives, which are ideal for healthier bees and happier beekeepers, as an alternative to the ubiquitous commercial beehive boxes. Because they are the cheapest, easiest to make and manage, and can adapt to most physical abilities and budgets, we call them “The People’s Hive Of The Future”.
Unlike others that just want to make profits on hive, equipment, and bee sales, our focus is on promoting natural beekeeping practices, making beekeeping accessible to all, and replacing Langstroth hives with top-bar hives as the most used hives for backyard beekeeping. So, we are making our plans and instructions free for all to build, use or sell as a way to remove friction and make them available to all across the globe.
Another differentiating factor we are immensely proud of is our community efforts: I spent over 6 months in the Republic of the Congo in 2019 designing and leading a countrywide beekeeping training program for Congolese trade schools, and am the co-creator of the Shamba Ya Amani (farm of peace) beekeeping training program, which teaches Congolese women and youth how to use beekeeping as a source of dignified income.
To finance and facilitate the promotion of our message and our community efforts, we have built an array of professional beekeeping services for the local community: a comprehensive Teaching Apiary and School, a Beekeeping Apprenticeship to help beginning beekeepers achieve competency and intermediate beekeepers learn how they can turn their passion into a business, and a trademarked set of consulting services grouped under the BaaS (TM) label – Bees-as-a-Service. Some of our most popular services include onboarding and apiary setups, onsite consultations and lessons, Maintenance, and Turn-Key Leases for Ag Exemptions using honey bees as a qualifying activity on Texas properties 5-20 acres in and around the Austin/San Antonio/Houston corridors.
Accessorily, we produce and sell the best completely raw, unfiltered local honey and comb honey in the area!
Our name and logo, Bee Mindful, and the meditating bee represent our mindful mission.
In terms of your work and the industry, what are some of the changes you are expecting to see over the next five to ten years?
In the US, there are over 200,000 backyard/hobby/small-scale beekeepers who, compared to about only 2,000 commercial beekeepers, account for the vast majority of them in the US – over 98% of them. Yet \, most of the beekeeping practices and regulations are dictated by commercial beekeepers. As backyard and small-scale beekeepers are realizing they do not need to keep their bees the same way commercial beekeepers do, and thanks to a rise in consciousness of the importance honey bees and their health have in our survival and food supplies, I believe treatment-free beekeeping and horizontal top-bar hive beekeeping, once both a fringe concept, will rapidly be gaining mainstream status, and Bee Mindful fully intends to lead the charge as an innovator in this growing field.
In addition, with the skyrocketing real estate values in Texas and the corresponding surge of landowners wanting to achieve 1-d-1 Open Space (sometimes called “Ag Exemption”) status through the use of beekeeping as a qualifying activity, we predict that the market for professional beekeeping services will grow exponentially over the next 5-10 years.
Contact Info:
- Email: BeeMindfulHoneyFarms@gmail.com
- Website: www.Bee-Mindful.com
- Instagram: BeeMindfulHoneyFarms
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/BeeMindfulHoneyFarms
- Youtube: www.youtube.com/channel/UCwWIwPS3pP2zOYFdMCTYLag
Image Credits
AlGawlik
