The 2018 Innovation Fund, our annual crowdfunding competition, has officially launched! You can find all of the Innovation Fund participants here. Read on for the story of HiveLend, a digital platform to connect beekeepers and farmers that also encourages entrepreneurship through apiculture, created by 2017 Fellows Dawn Musil and Nick Zajciw.
On the first day of Training Camp each fellow went on stage to say a few words about themselves. When Dawn got on stage, she said, “Hi! My name is Dawn, and I love bees!” At that moment Nick knew he needed to tell Dawn about HiveLend.
I’m Dawn, co-founder of HiveLend. I was thirteen years old when I started saving to get my first beehives. We had a field full of apple trees and I was thrilled about the idea of my very own apple-honey, yum! At 14 years old, I was the youngest person (by 40 years) in my local Bee School (yep, it’s real and it’s where you go to learn beekeeping 101). Ever since, I have been enamored with both the ecological impact of bees and the incredible opportunities that beekeeping can offer.
Nick started beekeeping in college when he joined UMBees, the University of Michigan beekeeping organization. The group was an eclectic mix of artists, ecologists, and all around interesting people who were excited in helping each other learn and grow as beekeepers. In college Nick kept his own hives, and helped manage the club hives. Without UMBees, Nick would never have gotten the experiences of driving bees across the country in a rented minivan, or hosting a symposium on urban apiculture.
While keeping bees with a friend back home, Nick wanted to make some extra money providing pollination in a local orchard. It was here where the idea for HiveLend was born. Nick saw an opportunity to create an online resource that allowed beekeepers and farmers to connect across the country.
What Do We Do?
We’re Uber for Bees! So, how does it work?
HiveLend is an online platform to connect sideline beekeepers and mid-sized level farmers to offer both of them an opportunity to get the pollination that they need.
We start with sideline beekeepers- beekeepers who aren’t full-time commercial beekeepers and whose hives often are in one location throughout the season, and they input their information about how many hives they have and how far they’re willing to travel.
And farmers put in the crops they need pollinated and how many acres they have, and we then use our system to match them by location and needs.
This allows more beekeepers to have sustainable income which encourages healthy practices as the beekeepers scale.
Bee the Change in Your Community!
Guided by the opportunity to offer sideline beekeepers additional income, we see application for building a community apiary in Baltimore- to offer educational opportunities to local community members.
This apiary will offer community members a chance to gain supplemental income and entrepreneurial skills through pollination practices and sales of hive by-products. Beekeeping is an incredible opportunity to connect with a community and offer entrepreneurial opportunities and lesson with the valuable education about our need for bees.
Why Is This Important?
That cup of coffee you had this morning or berries in your cereal, that almond milk smoothie or delicious apple tart–bees are responsible for each of those! In fact, bees are responsible for the production of 1 out of every 3 bites of food. And supporting sustainable pollination and a healthy ecosystem of beekeeping- by supporting sideliner and small-scale farmers alike- ensures that we will continue to have healthy food production and crop yields.
And pollination extends beyond just maintaining healthy crop yield. If bees continue to decline at the current rate, we will have an annual 8% drop in food production. If we can flip that statistic and encourage sustainable practices for beekeepers while having healthier hives, we can increase crop yields!
We are participating in the VFA Innovation Fund to ensure sustainable pollination and increase opportunities to educate and connect members of our community through beekeeping. We all can play a part in the future of our food, and bee-lieve that each of us has a part to play in creating change for a sustainable future. Help us Bee that change!