Corporate Beekeeping at Scale with Best Bees’ Delaney Dameron (352)

352 - Corporate Beekeeping at Scale with Best Bees’ Delaney Dameron

Bartek: [Polish language] Welcome to Beekeeping Today Podcast.

Jeff Ott: Welcome to Beekeeping Today Podcast presented by Betterbee, your source for beekeeping news, information, and entertainment. I'm Jeff Ott.

Becky Masterman: I'm Becky Masterman.

Global Patties: Today's episode is brought to you by the bee nutrition superheroes at Global Patties, family-operated and buzzing with passion. Global Patties crafts protein-packed patties that will turn your hives into powerhouse production. Picture this, strong colonies, booming brood, and honey flowing like a sweet river. It's super protein for your bees, and they love it. Check out their buffet of patties, tailor-made for your bees in your specific area. Head over to www.globalpatties.com and give your bees the nutrition they deserve.

Jeff: Hey, a quick shout-out to Betterbee and all of our sponsors whose support allows us to bring you this podcast each week without resorting to a fee-based subscription. We don't want that, and we know you don't either. Be sure to check out all of our content on the website. There, you can read up on all of our guests, read our blog on the various aspects and observations about beekeeping, search for, download, and listen to over 300 past episodes, read episode transcripts, leave comments and feedback on each episode, and check on podcast specials from our sponsors. You can find it all at www.beekeepingtoday.com.

Welcome, Bartek from Poland, for that wonderful opening. Becky, when I first got that in the email or on our online submission, I wasn't sure what he was saying. I'm glad he provided translation for us.

Becky: I love it. We've been asking for our listeners from other countries to send in those openers, and so he delivered.

Jeff: Thank you. We can color in Poland on our country maps, and so thank you, Bartek, for that wonderful, wonderful greeting. Becky, how are your bees doing?

Becky: I don't know. I'm busy packing my bags because I'm headed to Arkansas this weekend. I'm going to be giving three talks to the Arkansas Beekeepers Association at the Ozark Folk Center. I am very excited, but my bees are going to have to miss me for a couple of days because I'm going to be on the road.

Jeff: What are your presentations?

Becky: I love that they gave me this opportunity. I'm talking about habitat history and looking at what the honey production looks like in the area, what it's looked like historically. Then lots of tips for increasing honey production, and some for helping with habitat. I'm also talking a lot about management, so a couple of talks that are tips and tricks as far as how do we keep our bees better. Although my titles are a little bit better than that. [laughter]

Jeff: Well, our key sponsor, Betterbee, would be happy with that title. Better bees for you.

Becky: Yes, you're right. How do we keep our bees better? One is minding your bees in queues. That's based on our bee culture, the bee culture article that I do with Bridget. It's just one of those topics that I can continuously add to trying to bring the actual, I guess, the science along with the management. A lot of times we hear the science, and we don't know what to do with it when it comes to management. I'm also talking about dividing and prospering, so I love talking about building up bee numbers. Yes, it'll be a really fun weekend. I'm looking forward to meeting a new group of beekeepers.

Jeff: Oh, it will be fun. The Arkansas Beekeepers Association is in for a big treat this weekend.

Becky: Okay, you said it. No, I'm kidding. Fingers crossed. You heard it from Jeff.

Jeff: It'll be good.

Becky: How are your bees, Jeff? Did they--

Jeff: We'll talk next week about them. I'll have more next week's [unintelligible 00:04:04].

Becky: It's not time yet.

Jeff: Yes, I'm not ready to talk about my bees yet. Becky, earlier this month, we kicked off a promotion with HiveIQ where we asked for listeners to send in their questions. In receipt of the question, we will be sending out a HiveIQ tool that's been co-branded with Beekeeping Today Podcast logo. It's a really beautiful tool, and we've received our first question.

Becky: That is so exciting. Is that logo going to help beekeepers keep their bees better?

Jeff: Guaranteed.

Becky: Are there data on this?

Jeff: Double their money back.

Becky: [laughs] Well, I'm excited. We have a question to answer. Is it a yes, no question?

Jeff: No. It's going to require some discussion, so let's play it now. It's from Will Decker in Pleasant View, Tennessee, and let's listen to his question, and we'll be right back.

Becky: Hello, my name is Will Decker, and I'm a third-year beekeeper in Pleasant View, Tennessee. I have a question about winter hive configuration. I'm looking at the condensing hive model as a way to improve my overwintering success from the last two years. However, most of the information I can find seems to be about keeping bees farther north, where the temperatures are more consistently below freezing. Do you think the condensing hive without ventilation is still a useful model in the south, or are there other configurations that are better suited to our climate? Thanks.

Jeff: Condensing hives in the South. What do you think, Becky?

Becky: I think Will's asking the wrong question. I think that if you are looking for a way to get your bees to survive, you might be missing out on the key issue with keeping bees alive, which honestly is it's varroa, and then making sure that they have enough food to make it through the winter. In Tennessee, I've heard people talk about how the amount of insulation isn't as important. Although I 100% encourage people trying different hive systems, I really would point Will to local information about what is the way historically that beekeepers are getting their bees to survive.

What is the very best way to manage that Varroa population so that when their winter bees develop, those bees that need to live for an extended period of time because of the dearth period, and because the bees stop raising a lot of brood to replace their population, those bees need to be raised without pressure from Varroa. Those bees don't care about insulation. They really just care that there's enough food so they've got great nutrition, and they are being raised in the absence of pressure from parasites or the pathogens they vector. What do you think, Jeff? [laughter]

Jeff: Oh, well, I agree with you 100% in that healthy bees in, healthy bees out. I learned from beekeepers who for years and years and years never considered a condensing hive. I know that's the current philosophy and the current approach, and I don't really find anything wrong with it. I think that as long as you're consistent and you keep your bees healthy, as you mentioned, from Varroa pressures and from other pest and disease, they're going to survive just about anything. My bees are proving that.

Becky: You don't want your bees to survive because of the fact you gave them a little bit more insulation, because that means that they weren't super hardy, especially in a location like Tennessee. If Will is having trouble getting his bees through the winter, he's got to go back to the basics.

Jeff: 100%, cover the basics, and keep your bees healthy. The condensing hive or a ventilated hive, it really doesn't matter as long as your bees are healthy, in my opinion, especially in any location.

Becky: Once he's got that, wintering in his location down, then maybe understand what a healthy colony looks like going into winter, what they look like in the spring, and then maybe start changing up the actual boxes you're keeping them in. Don't look to a condensing hive as a way to get your bees through the winter, because we know they can winter in other configurations, and they can winter with those standard wooden boxes. Not saying anything against them. I'm just saying go to the basics.

Jeff: Right. There's no magic bullet. Healthy bees in, healthy bees out. Then focus on the basics.

Becky: That should be put on the hive tool. OK... it's too late. [laughter] Thank you, Will. Thank you for that question. It is a good one.

Jeff: Thanks, Will, for kicking off this episode, and we will be talking to you soon, and enjoy the hive tool. We've been focusing on the business of bees a lot this year. A lot of beekeepers are wanting to know, what can I do next with my bees? I feel really good, or I want to make more money. Our next guest, Delaney Dameron, she runs a company called where they hire out to other companies who want to have bees on their properties, and she hires beekeepers to do this for them. This will be an interesting discussion for a beekeeper who wants to work with more colonies, but doesn't really necessarily, at this point, have the funds to work up their hives to get the experience.

Becky: It's also great for those beekeepers who love outreach and education because usually in these relationships, there is a component where you are talking to the employees in that company. You're able to get the word out as far as why pollinators are important, and habitat for those pollinators is so important. I'm looking forward to hearing about what they're doing and how

beekeepers can potentially join them.

Jeff: I know Delaney's out in the green room right now. Let's invite her in, and we'll talk to her in just a few moments after these words from our sponsors.

[music]

Betterbee: Winter is coming. Prepare your bees for the cold months with Betterbee's insulating hive wraps, outer covers, mouse guards, hive straps, and more. Visit betterbee.com/winterprep for tips and tricks to help your hive withstand the harsh weather.

HiveAlive: HiveAlive has always been backed by science, and now US beekeepers are proving it in the field. Last winter, average colony losses hit around 60%, but for HiveAlive users, losses were closer to 23%.

That means nearly twice as many colonies survived. HiveAlive's unique blend of natural extracts boosts gut health, builds resilience, and helps your bees survive the toughest season. Beekeepers trust HiveAlive to keep colonies stronger, healthier, and more productive. Get your hives ready for winter at usa.hivealivebees.com. HiveAlive, proven by science, trusted by beekeepers.

Jeff: Hey, everybody, welcome back. Sitting around this great big virtual Beekeeping Today Podcast table, sitting in Boston, Massachusetts, is Delaney Dameron of Best Bees. Sitting in St. Paul is Becky, and I'm sitting here out in the West Coast in Olympia, Washington. Delaney, welcome to Beekeeping Today Podcast.

Delaney Dameron: Thank you so much. I'm really psyched to be here. Thank you for having me on.

Becky: I'm really looking forward to talking to you this hour, so thank you for joining us.

Jeff: Delaney, we invited you on because of our arc. This season has really been focused on the business of bees. We've had probably more episodes this year on the business of bees than any other season since 2018. Your business model is really cool in that you cater to the business of bees. That's the whole business model. Before we delve into that, why's and what for's, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself, and then we'll get into the Best Bees business model and what you're doing.

Delaney: I'm the CEO of the Best Bees company. I've been with the company for just about four years. I started on their marketing team. I came in as their marketing manager and worked my way up and around through a pretty enormous level of curiosity in wanting to get my hands in the mix of all the different departments and operations, and what it is that we do. I've been in the role for about six months now and really been diving into what it means to run this business, and I love it so, so much. I don't think there's a company out there that's like this, both in personnel and what we do. I'm just really, really proud to be in this seat.

I come with a business background. I have a business degree. I worked as a marketing and sales consultant. I'm really focused on numbers. I'm a spreadsheet person. It's been really fun to get to apply my knowledge of business, and brand positioning, and sales, and revenue, and finance to such an incredible mission-driven company like this.

The Best Bees company installs and manages beehives on residential and commercial properties across the United States. We're in 24 regions. Ultimately, what that means is we're a white glove beekeeping service, similar to having a gardener, a landscaper come to your property to care and tend to your garden. We have beekeepers come to your property and tend to your hives. What makes us really special in this marketplace is that all of our beekeepers are research and scientifically focused.

We have a proprietary software called Bzzz, and at every hive visit, our beekeepers are collecting anywhere from 60 to 90 data points per beehive regarding what is happening in that hive. That goes into our data set. That is the largest standardized data set on beekeeping in the world. All of this data on honeybees is leveraging the same standardized beekeeping practices, which means that we're able to say if all of these beekeepers are using the same practices. We can start to look at what other variables outside of beekeeping practices are impacting bees' health.

We partner with different research institutions and nonprofits. We don't receive any revenue for the data that we share with them. We try and use that data for good and understanding honeybees and pollinator health. What our clients get out of it is they get to experience being that much closer to nature, to bees. I'm sitting here today with bee people, so I don't feel like I have to sell you guys on bees. [laughter]

Jeff: No.

Delaney: We do have to sometimes sell people on why bees are so incredible to have on your property, supporting your property, pollinating your gardens, your neighbors' gardens, your communities. In addition to that, we also bottle and jar the honey and give it back to our clients. We call that just a little cherry on top of getting to have bees and get to see the benefits of having bees on your property.

Jeff: That's quite the service, because I know many beekeepers think about doing that. You have a whole business model, and you said 24 regions. Does that relate to 24 states? Is it 24 cities?

Delaney: 24 cities. It's generally about a 60 to 90-mile radius outside of the city, just depending on the footprint of that individual city. It's a lot of the largest cities in the US. A lot of our beekeepers are urban beekeepers. Of course, we service hives outside of dense urban areas, but we have beekeepers on up to 40-story buildings in downtown Manhattan, caring for bees all the way out to outside of Austin, Texas, on a vineyard. That spectrum of where these bees are and what climates they're in really varies.

Jeff: It's always an interesting discussion is how they get a colony of bees up 40 stories.

Becky: Very carefully.

Jeff: It's a very interesting elevator conversation. [laughs]

Delaney: Always. [laughs]

Jeff: You're in 24 regions around the country taking care of bees for your clients. Typically, how many colonies are on each site?

Delaney: We like to see a minimum of two colonies per site. We might go up to four, maybe six. It doesn't tend to, on average, be over that. We really, on average, are between two and four colonies on a single property. We assess all of our properties. Our beekeepers will do in-person site assessments to assess if the property is a good fit for bees, a good fit for humans, depending on where foot traffic is. Just making sure all around that it's going to make sense for those bees, our beekeepers, and the tenants of that property.

Jeff: Let's talk about your business model and how you have set this up for the beekeepers who work for you. I assume that they're not full-time employees.

Delaney: They're part-time employees, but they're not contract-based. We do employ and staff our beekeepers. It's also a big differentiator. We really pride ourselves in our quality of beekeeping and also have a high amount of importance on the standardization. It's pretty hard to just bring somebody in on a project or contract term because they have to be using our standardized practices. We actually put our beekeepers through a proprietary training. We have a full LMS training system that they'll go through. They can work their way up from beekeeper one, to beekeeper two, to beekeeper three, to head beekeeper, lead beekeeper, national beekeeper.

All of that is because everything is so heavily standardized. Of course, not a benefit to that, as well as we want to really ensure that we're taking good care of our beekeepers and employees. We love the opportunity to be able to provide this employment for beekeepers, for them to be able to work their way up, work full-time, get health insurance, and benefits, and all of those great things as well, because it is an industry that's so hard to find full-time, good-paying work. It's another reason that we do what we do.

Becky: Do you have multiple beekeepers then employed in each city?

Delaney: We have 80 beekeepers staffed with us this year across the United States. Depending on the number of hives in the city, it could be one part-time beekeeper up to 10 or 12 full-time beekeepers. It will totally vary on the size of the city and number of hives we're caring for.

Becky: Wait, 10 to 12 full-time beekeepers? That's a commercial operation, potentially.

Delaney: A lot of bees.

Jeff: Well, that begs the question, how many total colonies are you managing for clients?

Delaney: Across the country this year, it's about 1800 to 2000 hives across the United States.

Becky: I'm curious because I actually ran the Bee Squad program at the University of Minnesota, and we managed about 450 colonies for about 100 customers. We did the standardization of data. The very first question I have for you is that it's so different to keep bees across the country. If you're making a decision on standardizing management, it's really hard to standardize something like mite treatment. You must have a really good team, and maybe it's the beekeepers themselves, but making these collective decisions so that your data are shareable and they make sense.

Delaney: 100%. The company was founded in 2010, so we have about 15 years of figuring out how to do this right. A lot of trial and error on the standardization of our beekeeping practices. I would say that, that trial and error continues today, but we've seen enormous improvements in what it means to standardize data across the United States. Without giving out too much proprietary information about how our business works, we have been able to iron out various forms of segmentation by climate, microclimate, and things like that. The different types of beekeeping practices that need to take place throughout these various segments in order to be able to create essentially unique datasets within

our working data set.

Becky: Like subsets of data that are able to be broken apart and looked at.

Delaney: Yes. We're able to identify where there would be a variation in care, but that follows a standardized practice for that variation, if that makes sense.

Becky: No. That absolutely makes sense. I have another question. I told you, Jeff, I've got lots of questions. One of the questions I think about, and I've talked to different customers about, they wanted to branch out into locations across the country where they maybe had another office, and it happened to be a location where there were Africanized bees. I just said to them, "Make sure you get a professional who has insurance, who is really experienced in managing Africanized bees." Have you gone to that market? Because you said Austin.

Delaney: Yes. That's right. Southwest and in the South as well. We do work in feral genetic regions. We do have standardized practices that are differentiated from our standard practices in non-feral regions to support the additional attention and care that those hives need to make sure that we are being the best beekeepers that we can be to those bees.

It tends to cost more for those clients because it does require a higher level of beekeeping as well as additional visits outside of a standard region that doesn't require that much, as many visits, essentially to be proactive and take care of the intent to those hives. We do service those areas, but it does look a little bit different from a client's perspective.

Becky: A lot of the residential customers want to be there during the inspections. One, is that something that you allow and encourage? Then two, do you still allow in those other regions where there's a potential genetic change over in the colony, and you could have maybe a more defensive colony?

Delaney: Yes. That's a really good question. We always come back to that we're a white glove service, and we are the ones opening and caring for hives. If our clients actually open the hives themselves, it's like a breach of contract because they're essentially making the hive vulnerable. We have a full client services team and scheduling team. Our clients do know when our beekeepers are going to be on site, and we do our best to coordinate for clients that do want to be on site to be able to shadow and attend. We generally recommend that those folks have on the proper PPE and equipment, and we'll let them know if we're doing hive mite treatments or anything like that as well.

Feral genetic regions, as well, are going to function a little bit differently depending on that hive's needs and what that beekeeper anticipates for that hive visit. Ultimately, we're not a mentorship company. We're really meant to be doing the hands-on work on behalf of our clients. They can shadow, they could ask a couple of questions, but we always let them know that that beekeeper is on a [unintelligible 00:22:50] and on a schedule, and they're going to do their best to answer your questions, but you're always welcome to direct questions back to our client services team who can get a little bit more in the weeds with you.

It can be a great option for folks who eventually want to become a beekeeper, but don't have the time or energy, or they want to have a hive on their property or a couple of hives on their property while they're working on taking those courses and coming up to speed. Then hopefully they'll have a beautiful established colony on their property when they're ready to take over at some point in the future.

Becky: Do you do something like a lunch and learn for the employees or any events?

Delaney: Exactly, yes. Programming and education is really important to us, especially in the corporate and commercial space. Generally, a lot of clients that are putting beehives on their properties have generally two core motivations. It's going to be sustainability, and biodiversity is a core initiative that they have. They might have that at the corporate level or at the property level. They might be going after different types of green building certifications that pollinators and pollinator habitat can support.

In addition to that, they're also really focused on their tenant, their community, and their employee engagement, depending on the type of building that that is. As you guys probably know, bees bring everyone together. They create so much curiosity and joy and have been an incredible unifying amenity or service for these buildings that want to bring people back to the office or engage the tenants at their multifamily building or their luxury hotel. This can be a really amazing engagement point for them.

We have beekeepers. We have different types of programming and engagement across a lot of different levels and interactive types, how interactive they want to be with bees, and honey, and beekeepers. All for the ultimate benefit of supporting that engagement level within a building.

Jeff: What type of hives are you using? Are you also supporting observation hives in, say, the lobby of a hotel or a corporate headquarters?

Delaney: The Best Bees Company uses Langstroth hives for our hives across the US. Then, for observation frames, we'll do them seasonally. It'll be a single frame, and it almost looks like a briefcase that you guys are probably familiar with, like a wooden briefcase. That will be available for clients as it's a good fit for the bees and the seasonality of the business.

Jeff: When you set up a new client, are you using brand-new equipment or are you using equipment that's repurposed?

Delaney: We call it seasoned equipment. [laughter] Our clients have three equipment options. They can have our season select equipment. That's going to be used honeybee equipment. We do go through a pretty intensive sanitization of equipment. If it does get pulled from the field, it gets refurbished and sanitized by our team, but we do try to maintain the integrity of the patina, and the propolis, and things like that.

We ensure that if that hive was sick for any reason or had any issues that we're fully sanitizing that. Then some clients will choose they want to have brand new equipment. They can opt into having brand new equipment or a fully customized equipment. Sure large corporation wants to have their logo on their equipment. We can do custom hive boxes as well.

Jeff: Maybe you can send us a picture or two of a client's hive that we could put in the show notes, and you can take a look at how they're set up on a client property.

Delaney: Absolutely. I'll make a note of that.

Jeff: Are the corporations approaching you, or are you approaching the corporations?

Delaney: [chuckles] Good question. Little bit of both. We have inbound and outbound leads. We get a good amount of media and press. We have a strong SEO strategy with our website, and so we got a nice amount of inbound opportunities. Then I do have a sales team here that works on prospecting and finding clients that, based on their sustainability goals or initiatives, or based on what building certifications they might have, or how they're being featured in the media, we've identified them as being a great fit for these. A little bit of both.

Jeff: Do you have an ideal customer that you try to find? Alternatively, are there customers that you would say would keep them from being a good client?

Delaney: Oh, that's a hard question. We have a lot of different types of ideal customers. We work in a lot of different markets and verticals. The property variation can be really wide. It can be from a really, really green space, like a city's public park. A lot of green space has meadow, has a lot of trees to a place that doesn't have as much forage available or is very industrial. It can really, really vary. I think ultimately a good client for us are people who are generally curious about bees and pollinators who want to learn, want to have a high touchpoint of engagement.

Those end up being really successful clients. They have a high level of what we call stickiness with us because they care. Those are clients that do well for us or are clients that care about bees, care about nature, care about pollinators for whatever reason, like the wide spectrum of reasons that they might care. Those are going to be the clients that really care. The variation in sites and properties can really vary, where bees can be successful, and where bees for our clients can also create success for them.

Jeff: What metrics are you looking at when you consider a customer, whether you want to keep engaged with them, or what is the critical factor that you're looking at, considering their colonies or whatever you're looking at, whether you want to stay there or not?

Delaney: We're going to look at the hives over winter rates. Are the bees successful here? If the bees are not successful for a number of seasons and our team is able through the data, through conversations with our beekeepers to identify a strong list of reasons or areas of improvement for that property that we're able to offer. We try and collaborate with our clients to make those property improvements, whether it's with water sources, moving the hives to a less windy area, whatever those variations might be.

Ultimately, there might be properties that the data proves that it's just not a good fit for bees, and they're not able to make the changes on the property or site for a wide range of reasons. That'd be like the primary reason that we wouldn't move forward with the client would be if the data and the hive success rate is really low, and we're not able to create positive change to create success for those bees.

Jeff: That could be a difficult conversation.

Delaney: Oh, yes. Ultimately, there's things that are in our control, there's things that are not in our control. Nobody likes to have their bees die. That's a pretty unhappy client anyways if their bees are dying year over year. It's also not a surprising conversation when we're coming together after a hive doesn't overwinter with a client and talking about what different variables may have played a role in their hive not overwintering. If there's a consecutive couple of years that that's happening, there's not a lot of surprises in those conversations, and say, "Okay, last year we talked a bit about water sources, or available forage, or about sun exposure on this site."

It's very conversational. We're a very consultative company. All of our corporate accounts have an account manager that they're in a high level of communication with and can go and ask questions about. Our clients are very well informed about the health of their hives after every hive visit throughout the year.

Jeff: This is really fascinating. I'm enjoying the conversation. We need to take a quick break, hear from a couple of sponsors, and we'll be right back with Delaney Dameron of Best Bees.

[music]

Bee Smart Designs: Dealing with robbing and summer dearth, consider adding these Bee Smart products to your colonies. The Bee Smart robbing moving screen installs in seconds. No tools are needed and fits both 8 and 10-frame hives to help protect your colony. Feeding is a breeze with the Bee Smart direct feeder. It holds a full gallon, sits right over the brood nest, and makes syrup or supplement delivery clean and easy. Made in the USA from recycled materials, Bee Smart products are ready to use. No painting, no assembly. Visit beesmartdesigns.com, click where to buy, and experience simply better beekeeping products.

StrongMicrobials: Strong Microbials presents an exciting new product, SuperFuel, the probiotic fondant that serves as nectar on demand for our honeybees. SuperFuel is powered by three remarkable bacteria known as bacilli, supporting bees in breaking down complex substances for easy digestion and nutrient absorption. This special energy source provides all the essential amino acids, nutrients, polyphenols, and bioflavonoids, just like natural flower nectar. Vital for the bees' nutrition and overall health, SuperFuel is the optimal feed for dearth periods, overwinter survival, or whenever supplemental feeding is needed.

The big plus is the patties do not get hive beetle larvae, so it offers all bioavailable nutrients without any waste. Visit strongmicrobials.com now to discover more about SuperFuel and get your probiotic fondant today.

Becky: Welcome back, everybody. Delaney, this is such great information, and your enthusiasm is so wonderful as well as your knowledge. I've a couple more questions on my list and Jeff might have a couple too, right? [laughter]

Delaney: Let's do it.

Becky: Okay. From my experience, one of the most exciting parts about running this kind of business is the fact that when you put the bees on the property, people immediately turn around and say, "Wait, what do we plant for them? Or what should we do?" Could you talk a little bit about how you've navigated that question and maybe what you've seen generally as an impact?

Delaney: Absolutely. No, it's really incredible how much ownership all of our clients have over the outcome and success of their bees. The number one question is what can I plant? If you guys check out our blog, I'm happy to plug links later. Our blog is this intense, all free access, what to plant for what seasons in what regions, and our client services teams. How managers are, I would say plant experts as much as bee experts, because forage has such a high correlation to the success of a hive.

Ultimately, so much of what we come back to with hive health and bee health is, especially from a what we can control perspective, is going to come down to what we're planting and being really intentional and really strategic. That's a huge piece of our mission is to help inform and educate people. We have found that by having bees on your property, kind of everyone at that building, whether it's just a couple and their kids are going to think differently about what they're planting or what pesticides they're using to a property that's a million square feet.

Everyone in that building, once they know that bees are there, start asking a lot more questions about what trees are on their property. What's in flower, what's in bloom? What are we doing with our pesticides? Is there water available? We'll kind of see all these different people and hear about people coming out of the woodwork asking the facility, sky, and the landscaper about like, "Wait, wait, wait, we're not going to do a pesticide this year. Oh, we got the bees guys, let's really think about this."

It creates this moment of intentionality and pause because when people see that hive and get to connect with that hive, it really changes your thinking around what it means to create a green space for not just bees but for animals and for wildlife on these properties. I think that it's a hard number to create a tangible number around, but we see that positive impact every day with our clients.

Becky: One of the most impressive habitat locations that I found we had for colonies were golf courses. Golf courses, although people think about the chemical inputs all around those greens, are natural areas with a lot of opportunities for bees to make honey. I've also seen golf courses make decisions on what they're going to put into the ground and pay three times more for the chemical if it is safe for bees compared to what they may be used previously.

Delaney: I love that you brought up golf courses. I have a good example to talk about, but one of the data points that we look at and pull for our clients is a honey DNA analysis. We run genomic analysis on the honey and we're able to understand what they've used foraged on. We had a client that is a large golf course, who wanted some honey DNA reporting, and ultimately it's delivered in the format of a pie chart. You can see the diversity of forage available, and the results were not great. [chuckles]

Becky: Cool.

Delaney: The bees tend to not have a lot of available forage or a diversity of forage that they had available. We were able to meet with the client and horticulturalists on our team and say, "Look, we really need to think strategically, especially about this season throughout the year, when there tends to be a dearth, what can we plan for next year that we can make sure is improved during this time of year?" We were able, based on that data to have a little bit more of a concrete data point to bring back to them rather than it being a bit more theoretical based on what we see and know about the property.

They were able to change their planting strategy for the year ahead. We were able to pull the honey DNA data a year later and see a completely different pie chart of the forage that was available for those bees. We were able to identify some invasive species that they didn't know were on that property, [laughter] and they like took care as well. There was some added benefits.

Jeff: It's funny you brought up the golf course because back in 2023, we talked with Jennifer Barry and a Scott Griffith from University of Georgia about their pollinators for golf courses program that they have going. It's really fascinating and like Becky said, it's not what you would expect, but it's a big program.

Delaney: Yes, that's really cool.

Jeff: You also work with mason bees and the bee hotels and everything? Can you just real briefly talk about that as well?

Delaney: Totally, yes. We just introduced mason bees last year, the 20-- well, what year are we in? The 2024 beekeeping season was our first beekeeping season with mason bees. We're still in a piloting season with mason bees. Mason bees are obviously an incredibly different species to work with. They're not really a managed species so much as you can kind of monitor them. You can install cocoons, you can harvest. It's a really different approach to what it is that we do.

What we're really trying to understand is what data points we can pull from them to complement the data set that we have, or to better understand biodiversity and metrics on these properties. Which is why we're piloting it in smaller steps to understand what learnings we're able to gain from the field. Just about five regions throughout the US testing on a couple different variations of sites, seeing what data points we can collect to complement our services.

We do pair them with the hotel we designed that in-house, and consulted with some experts in the field on what it means to create one of these. That can be both structurally beautiful, but really, really supportive of those bees needs and other types of wild and solitary pollinators so that it can benefit as well. We try to be really, really intentional, all made by hand in Boston. Both from a vendor sourcing creation perspective, as well as making sure that what ultimately got created is going to be in the best interest of those pollinators.

Becky: I've always found the actual need for cleaning of the bee hotels to be a little daunting.

Delaney: Yes. Building them in a way that beekeepers can actually access for harvest and clean was a big element into the structural design. That would make sense for our type of services.

Jeff: Let's switch gears a little bit. What kind of beekeepers are you looking to join Best Bees and the training that you might provide, et cetera?

Becky: Jeff, are you asking for a friend?

Jeff: Yes, I'm asking for a friend. [laughter] I know somebody.

Becky: I was just checking, okay.

Delaney: Well, we love to be able to bring beekeepers on with experience. Seasoned beekeepers, we really love adding to the level of expertise that we're able to have in the field. We also take beekeepers in without experience from zero years to maybe one or two seasons. It really varies depending on that region's unique needs. All of our job postings go on our website, which I'm happy to also link later. You'll see throughout our different job postings what level we're specifically looking for.

We want to make sure that if we're bringing in those entry-level beekeepers in a specific region, that we're going to have those more advanced beekeepers available for mentorship, reach shadowing, and things like that as well. We have apiaries across the US, so we need apiary support and apiary management. Then we also

take on pilot programs like mason bees, piloting smart hive technologies, some different types of hardware technology in the field. That spectrum of skills and spectrum of specific beekeeping expertise and needs really varies, and it really can go from super, super entry level to very, very advanced beekeepers.

Jeff: We'll have to talk later.

Becky: If the podcast ends in the next week or two, we know that somebody got a better gig. [laughter] If you just hear my voice on the podcast, it's really bad editing and recording; we know that Jeff has moved on. [laughter]

Delaney: We'll be happy to have you, Jeff.

Jeff: Yes. Let me think about this, actually. It sounds really fascinating for a beekeeper who's looking to gain a lot of experience and doesn't necessarily want to invest in the equipment themselves. It sounds like if you're a beekeeper who has extra time, this is something that might be able to fit into their schedule. This is not a 40-hour-a-week job in most cases, I have to believe.

Delaney: That's right. We love working with beekeepers who work as beekeepers for a majority of their hours during the week with other companies and roles. We also work with those that work in academia or institutions or might have other types of jobs, and they're looking to bee keep for a couple of hours a week, 10 or 15 hours a week. Then some beekeepers will work their way up, or the region will grow organically over time to full-time beekeepers.

Jeff: Are they involved in the marketing and the sales effort?

Delaney: No.

Jeff: You said you have a sales team. Say, if my friend is really good at keeping bees but doesn't really want to reach out to companies and knock on doors and do that cold calling, they don't have to do that, is what you're saying.

Delaney: 100% correct, yes. Our beekeepers are welcome to opt in to a referral program. They can earn a commission if they make referrals to our sales team. Our beekeepers do not do sales or marketing for us, and that's fully volunteer and opt-in. If they're looking to make a couple extra bucks on getting some commissions, if they have some family or friends that they want to have our services, they can make those referrals and get those commissions.

The main thing that our beekeepers do, so our beekeepers are specialized in two different unique ways outside of traditional beekeeping, and that's going to be first that the beekeeping is research-focused beekeeping. They have to be comfortable with technology. Our beekeepers leverage an iPad or tablet that our software runs on, and that's where they're actually doing the data entry; they get trained on it.

A lot of beekeepers really love it because beekeepers generally I think are pretty scientifically minded people. They're already taking those data points in their head or writing down in notebooks, and this is actually just a really organized way to do all of that. That tends to not be a very big barrier to entry, but can be for some people who are just like, "To me, beekeeping is intuitive. I don't want to pull out an iPad and plug all of this in."

The second is going to be that client engagement aspect. It is a client-facing role. Our beekeepers are representatives of our company. Even though they're not doing marketing and sales, they are in the backyard of a person's residence, and that person might walk out and want to chat and talk about honey or their queen bee that they named, and they're obsessed with.

They do need to be comfortable speaking with people and representing the company, doing education and programming at corporate sites, doing honey tastings, and things like that. Just a general higher level of comfortability being in a client-facing role versus more traditional beekeeping, which has a lower interaction or touch point with just people throughout your day as you're visiting hives.

Jeff: Your ideal beekeeper would have to at least wash their bee suit or jacket a couple of times a year, maybe?

Becky: I was going to go there and say, "Oh my gosh, I would never make the dress code because everything I keep bees in just has so much propolis on it." It's clean, but it's full of propolis, oh, and holes and things like that. I know a lot of the running here.

Delaney: We have some guidelines and standards, but we also support our beekeepers with the equipment that they need to do their job and represent the company. With bee suits and suit replacements as needed, equipment as needed, and things like that. We, as a company, are supporting the beekeepers being representatives of the company. We don't have any unfair expectations that beekeepers are going to be able to keep their suits perfectly white for many years in a row.

Jeff: Based on your experience, what beekeepers make a really good fit for these roles? Which beekeepers really thrive working for Best Bees and really do a good job?

Delaney: Yes. It comes back to what I'm saying having that research or scientific mind. You have to care about the data ultimately because if it's an extra step of work that isn't very traditional in beekeeping, that, again, it's already happening in your brain. It is an extra step of work to really go through and understand what happened in each hive and be able to really document it in such a standardized way, and be able to follow that general standardization of practices.

I think it's a little bit different. Those are the people that tend to work well in it, do have that more scientific and research-focused mind that they love to test a hypothesis and understand what's working. Be curious about the outputs of the data, what's happening in our different regions across the US. Just have a general high level of care for the ultimate mission, which is getting that really important and critical data out of these hives and creating learnings from it.

Jeff: We're getting close to the end of the time here. Is there anything we haven't asked you that you want to make sure our listeners know about Best Bees?

Delaney: I don't think so. You guys have really hit on a lot of the important questions.

Becky: I'm just really curious about social media because are your beekeepers taking tons of pictures and sharing them to the customers?

Delaney: [chuckles] That's a good question. We use Slack as a company. Our beekeepers can share photos.

Becky: Oh, Jeff, there you go. [laughs]

Delaney: They can share photos on Slack, and then the photos will get shared back to our clients through our client service system. We try not to have our beekeepers and clients interacting too much through emails and calls, and things like that, and try to have that be more with our client services team. Some of our beekeepers love getting content in the hive, and will take videos, and selfies, and photos, and some of our beekeepers just don't think to do that, and that's okay too. We try and just capture content when we can at different client site.

Jeff: Last question for you then. Where do you see Best Bees in three years, five years?

Becky: Oh, that's a good question.

Delaney: Yes, I love that. We come back to the motto of turning cities from gray to green. What that really means is by the introduction of hives, like I was talking about before, by the output of data and understanding bees and pollinators. I think that we can change how cities are being built and how we can be intentional about our cityscapes, about development, about architecture, and landscaping to be better cities for pollinators and for humans. The two are so deeply intrinsically linked.

A lot of people don't make that connection, but they're so, so deeply connected that by being more intentional with our urban landscapes and our cities, we can create healthier cities for people, and animals, and creatures all alike. We want to be a piece of that puzzle and help change our cityscapes across the US so that we're seeing bees buzzing and butterflies flying around, and healthy humans breathing clean air, and just changing what it means to be in a green, healthy city.

Jeff: Delaney, it's been just a wonderful, delightful time talking to you about Best Bees and your business, and what Best Bees is doing for corporations and individuals around the country. Thank you so much for joining us.

Delaney: This was so much fun. I so appreciate you guys having us on. It was fun just getting to talk about my favorite topic, which is bees.

[music]

Becky: I'm really impressed with what you're doing and what all your beekeepers are doing. Congratulations on your success.

Delaney: Thank you.

Jeff: Hold on, Becky, just one minute. I need to get my resume done. Just hold on one second, and yes-

Becky: Oh, Jeff.

Jeff: -all right, sent.

Becky: Oh, boy. Honestly, what a dream job, though. I can see a lot of listeners say, "Wait, this would be fun. I get paid to do what I'm literally doing already, and I get a lot of technical support."

Jeff: There's a fun conversation. I look forward to learning more, not from my job application, but I look forward to hearing more from Delaney and Best Bees in the years to come.

Becky: It sounds so organized. The beekeepers are so well supported. I love that, of course, the science part of it, where the data are being collected and in an organized way. I just think it's so exciting to hear what she's doing and what they're doing. I'd like to check back with them in the future.

Jeff: We will, definitely.

Becky: I mean, once you get a job with them, you'll have regular.

Jeff: [chuckles] Hey, circling back early on in our answer to Will, we wanted to also include local resources for information would be your local extension office or universities, your mentors, of course. There's a lot of information for your local knowledge for your bees.

Becky: There's a nice balance between people who've been keeping bees for a long time with great survival rates. Then also that science organization, the university extension, and combining that information into the

perfect little system.

Jeff: Excellent. It's been a fantastic show. Just to remind folks that we are looking for questions to answer for your HiveIQ tool that has co-branded with Beekeeping Today Podcast. Thanks a lot, Becky. It has been a good episode.

Becky: This has been fun. Thank you.

Jeff: That about wraps it up for this episode of Beekeeping Today. Before we go, be sure to follow us and leave us a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts or wherever you stream the show. Even better, write a quick review to help other beekeepers discover what you enjoy. You can get there directly from our website by clicking on the Reviews tab on the top of any page.

We want to thank Betterbee, our presenting sponsor, for their ongoing support of the podcast. We also appreciate our longtime sponsors, Global Patties, Strong Microbials, Bee Smart Designs, and Northern Bee Books for their support in bringing you each week's episode. Most importantly, thank you for listening and spending time with us. If you have any questions or feedback, just head over to our website and drop us a note. We'd love to hear from you. Thanks again, everybody.

[00:51:12] [END OF AUDIO]