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Mikaila and the Bees — 13 Years Strong!
Today I grocery-shopped while thirsty at HEB.
I bought a bottle of Me and the Bees Classic Lemonade, and I’m so glad I did!
Bees and Lemonade
Me and the Bees was started in Austin, Texas in 2009 by a young girl named Mikaila Ulmer, who became curious about honeybees at age four after being stung by them twice in one week. Now, 13 years later, she is in high school.
Her family had to talk Mikaila out of being afraid of bees, and she began reading about them. Her curiosity led to further reading. Then her parents encouraged Mikaila to participate in local children’s entrepreneurial events, such as Austin’s Lemonade Day.
This and her great-grandmother’s recipe for flaxseed lemonade encouraged Mikaila to eventually start her own lemonade business. She altered the family recipe to include honey, and a delicious, new beverage was born, which uses all-natural ingredients.
How Lemonade Aids Bee Preservation
Mikaila donates a percentage of the profits from her lemonade to benefit the Healthy Hive Foundation, a group she founded to preserve honeybees, fund research on them, support beekeepers, and promote social entrepreneurship. Healthy Hive partners with non-profits such as the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center, the Texas Beekepers’ Association, and Heifer International to preserve honeybees.
The Heifer International partnership is particularly interesting because it works with farmers internationally to teach them how to use all products from bees — not just honey, but the wax and pollen, as well. This allows them to stimulate their crops and to introduce new income streams to their businesses.
Why We Must Preserve Bees
Bees are the primary and best known cross-pollinators of flowering plants. Any plant that cannot spread its own pollen relies on bees to do it instead. Without bees, plants start to die off. Without plants, food becomes scarce. Without the food from plants, animals start to die off. So we need bees, and anything that harms them is a threat to everything’s survival.
