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Archive for Bees

Me and the Bees Lemonade

Posted by silveiraeg24

· Friday, October 11th, 2024

· 2 Comments

Mikaila is a young girl who lives in Austin Texas. Her entrepreneurial story begins with an unfortunate interaction she had with a Bee that stung her twice. After getting stung, Mikaila had a very unhealthy fear of Bees and wanted to avoid them at all costs. However, her parents helped Mikaila overcome her fear by teaching her about the vast benefits Bees provide to the world and showing her that much of life depends on the jobs Bee’s accomplish. Mikaila’s perspective about Bees was completely changed, her fear was gone, and she began taking interest in Bees and desired to help support and protect the life of Bees.

This young girl put her creative mind to work and decided to open up her own lemonade stand in her front yard using her grandmother’s lemonade recipe that used honey as a sweetener. After gaining a lot of popularity, Mikaila started growing her business and advertising to different companies and stores. Mikaila has created five different lemonade flavor options, all sweetened with Bees honey, a classic lemonade flavor, passion fruit, prickly pear, very berry, and cherry. Mikaila’s “Me and the Bees Lemonade” website is very colorful and has lots of pictures of her journey as well as an adorable and interesting video that shares her story and her mission with creating her lemonade product. Mikaila’s website also provides consumers with easy access to buy her products and has a map to find the nearest store that sells her lemonade.

Driven by her desire to save the Bees, Mikaila selflessly donates a percentage of her lemonade profits to local and international organizations that are fighting to save the Bees. Mikaila displays a true desire for innovation and shows that she cares a lot about her mission by constantly sharing her story with others. This young girl even wrote and published a book called “Bee Fearless” that talks about her entrepreneur journey. Mikaila’s lemonade products are now found in all 50 states, and she enjoys speaking about her products and mission worldwide at different events. Mikaila’s story proves that when it comes to thinking creatively and starting a business it doesn’t matter how old you are. Her life shows that as long as you have a passion for something and a desire to fight for a change you can use that as motivation and inspiration to start a business. Additionally, Mikaila’s story shows that you can take things that used to disinterest or scare you and turn them into something that can bloom into a successful and innovative business.

2 Comments

Categories : Bees, Beverages, Drink, Lemonade

Buzzing with Purpose: The Inspiring Journey of Mikaila Ulmer and Me & the Bees Lemonade

Posted by VahlbergCD22

· Saturday, December 9th, 2023

· 3 Comments

Emory freshman saves the bees, one bottle of lemonade at a time | The Emory Wheel

Don’t be discouraged by life’s little stings. Get back up and spread your wings – Mikaila Ulmer

It’s not often that our greatest adversity can become our biggest success. But that was the case for 4 year old Mikaila Ulmer. At that young age she started on a journey that would conquer her fear of bees. In the process she but also lead to the creation of a purpose-driven brand. Inspired by a serendipitous encounter with a bee sting and her great-grandmother Helen’s 1940s recipe for flaxseed lemonade, Mikaila founded Me & the Bees Lemonade. Adding honey to the mix, she not only created a delicious beverage but also initiated a mission to save the honeybees.

For over a decade, Me & the Bees Lemonade has been producing refreshing lemonades. Mikaila’s journey is not just about entrepreneurship; it’s a commitment to environmental stewardship, 10 percent of the profits dedicated to bee conservation. The company has seen remarkable growth. With a staggering 500 percent increase since its humble beginnings in Austin, Texas

Mikaila’s entrepreneurial spirit was evident from a young age. Starting with lemonade stands and entrepreneurial events she built an aptitude for buisness. The brand’s success story extends to national retailers such as Whole Foods Market, The Fresh Market, World Market, H-E-B, and Kroger. Me & the Bees Lemonade can also be found in restaurants, food trailers, and natural food delivery companies.

Mikaila Ulmer is not just a business magnate; she’s a social entrepreneur with a heart for the environment. When she’s not leading workshops on bee conservation or participating in entrepreneurship panels. Her favorite nonprohit,Healthy Hive Foundation, amplifies her mission to save pollinators.

Despite her business and speaking engagements, Mikaila remains a dedicated high school student. She juggles classes in Spanish, science, and rock climbing while actively participating in her buisness. Her commitment to education and advocacy showcases the importance of a balanced and purposeful life.

She gained national attention when she appeared on Shark Tank in 2015, securing a $60,000 investment from Daymond John. In 2016 she was invited to the White House, where she met President Barack Obama. She introduced Obama at the United State of Women Summit, earning praise as an “amazing young lady.”

Me & the Bees Lemonade has expanded its reach beyond beverages. In February 2020, the brand was available in over 1,500 stores nationwide. She is now selling throuh major retailers like Whole Foods, Cost Plus World Market, and Kroger. The product line has expanded to include lip balms made from beeswax, showcasing a commitment to sustainable products.

Mikaila’s journey is not just confined to beverages and balms; it’s now chronicled in her book, “Bee Fearless, Dream Like a Kid.” The book delves into her adventures as a social entrepreneur. She offers insights into her purpose-driven brand and the lessons learned along the way.

Me & the Bees Lemonade | LinkedIn From a bee-sting-inspired idea to a nationally recognized brand, Mikaila Ulmer’s journey is a testament to the impact of a young mind. Her dedication to saving the bees, commitment to education, and entrepreneurial success make her a true trailblazer. As Me & the Bees Lemonade continues to flourish, Mikaila’s legacy inspires us all to dream big, stay fearless, and create a buzz with purpose.

3 Comments

Categories : Academia, Activism, Agriculture, Bees, Beverages

Me & The Bees Lemonade

Posted by turnbaughga19

· Wednesday, October 12th, 2022

· 5 Comments

At four years old, most of us are just learning the way of things. For Mikaila Ulmer, one of those things happened to be entrepreneurship.

After being stung by a bee two times in less than a week at age four, Mikaila began researching bees and their role in the ecosystem. Simultaneously, Mikaila was sent her great grandmother’s flaxseed lemonade recipe to enter in a business competition. So Mikaila decided to combine the two– bees and lemonade. She added honey to the flaxseed lemonade and began selling it, donating a percentage of the sales to saving bees, and Me & The Bees Lemonade was born.

Now, Me & The Bees Lemonade has been in business for 10 years and is currently sold at Whole Foods Market, World Market, and other grocery stores across Texas.

5 Comments

Categories : Bees, Beverages

Me & the Bees Lemonade: Saving the Honeybees

Posted by nuzumrk22

· Sunday, October 2nd, 2022

· 4 Comments

Perhaps fear can best drive someone towards success. Well, that was the case with young Mikaila Ulmer, whose fear of bees drove her to create a delicious honey and flaxseed lemonade concoction at the age of four. To conquer her fear of the little pollinators, Ulmer took initiative to understand bees and their environment and after looking through a cookbook from her great grandmother, she found her great grandma’s special recipe for flaxseed lemonade. She decided to add a bee-inspired twist to it: honey. What started as a lemonade stand in her front yard and at a few youth entrepreneurial fairs grew into Me & The Bees Lemonade.

The business started to take off when a local pizza shop asked her if they could sell her product. She agreed and in doing so, was forced to start bottling her lemonade. A few years later in 2015, Ulmer took Me & the Bees Lemonade to the TV screen, appearing on Shark Tank. She walked away with $60,000. Me & the Bees Lemonade has, since its beginnings, been sold in 1,500 stores all over America including Whole Foods Market, Kroger, and The Fresh Market, to name a few.

From the beginning, she’s been donating to save the honeybees since they are such an important part of agriculture. Ulmer donates ten percent of her profits to charities that support the honeybees. Furthermore, she has established The Healthy Hive Foundation, a nonprofit that educates people and supports beekeepers and research. Mikaila Ulmer is a great example of not creating something entirely brand new, but something with a brand new twist: honey-sweetened, flaxseed lemonade. Mikaila Ulmer is a great entrepreneur because she saw that something great (her grandma’s lemonade) could, with a little innovation, be made even better.

4 Comments

Categories : Bees, Beverages, Entrepreneurship, Lemonade, Shark Tank, Uncategorized, Young Entrepreneur

Alex de Bernede and Marius Jacob, Founders of the Darmo Art Gallery

Posted by GagerCR21

· Wednesday, September 28th, 2022

· No Comments

When you think of art collectors, what comes to mind? Is it some eccentric billionaire business man or old recluse in a fortress sized mansion? This often accurate stereotype has lead plenty of younger people to believe that the art world is exclusionary and for those with more money than they know what to do with. Enter Alex de Bernede and Marius Jacob, two young entrepreneurs with the goal to challenge this perception. While studying art in university, these two aspiring artists realized that for the creation and appreciation of art to survive, the up and coming generations need to not only understand and enjoy art, they need to be able to make a career of it. With the increasing difficulty for new artist’s to find platforms for their work, Bernede and Jacob decided to do something new. This idea has become the Darmo Art Gallery, a place for young artists to display their works. The duo started with only $2,000 and a goal, but now, they host highly successful expositions where these indie artists can make some serious money and a name for themselves. A lot of famous artists only get that fame after their life or art career ends. Artists like Vincent Van Gogh and Johannes Vermeer never received the fame and monetary recognition their works earned within their lifetimes, while figures like Pablo Picasso are the exception. If new institutions like the Dormer Gallery become a common and successful part of the art world, then what is usually seen as a past time for the rich or a career for those doomed to obscurity may rise up to join the likes of lawyers, plumbers, and computer tech as common and successful vocations.

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Categories : Bees, Dick's Sporting Goods

Daimiyan Menya- Honey Bee Butter

Posted by noahyeck

· Monday, September 26th, 2022

· No Comments

Daimiyan is 14 years old and lives in Tennessee. It is interesting to see how this 14-year-old combined her passions with an opportunity in the market while positively impacting the World. Daimiyan caught covid within the past couple of years, and like many people, she lost her taste and smell. She noticed that the one thing she could still taste was butter, and with Daimiyan loving to cook as much as she does she decided to make her butter. Daimiyan also expressed her love for nature, so she combined the butter idea with helping save bees. Now her final product is honey-based butter, in which she has forumulted many different flavors.

Daimiyan started her business small by selling her butter at a garage sale. When a customer buys her product they also receive a free bag of wildflower seeds to plant to help save the bees. With the profit Daimiyan has made already she has graciously given some of that profit to a local animal shelter. She also plans to make new flavors of honey butter for the upcoming fall/Halloween season. All this information can be found because Daimiyan made her local news after she began selling her honey butter.

https://wcyb.com/features/5-star-students/hardees-5-star-student-young-entrepreneurs-new-business-is-all-the-buzz

No Comments

Categories : Bees, Food

“Buy a Bottle… Save a Bee.”

Posted by williamslg21

· Sunday, September 25th, 2022

· 2 Comments

When Mikaila Ulmer was 4, she received a 1940’s cookbook from her grandma that would lead to a multi-million-dollar company in just a few years. One of the recipes was for flaxseed lemonade and Mikaila decided to give it her own twist by adding honey instead of only sugar. She came up with this idea when she was stung by bees twice in one week and began to research them and their importance. Mikaila then began to sell her lemonade, called Me & the Bees, locally to support organizations protecting honeybees. Since the beginning of her business, she has given 10% of her profits to charities that protect honeybees. In 2015, Mikaila pitched her business on Shark Tank and landed a $60,000 deal with Daymond John, to put toward growing her business. In just a few years, Mikaila’s lemonade now sold in over 1,500 stores and is carried in many major retailers such as Whole Foods and Kroger. Since then, Mikaila has expanded her business to include other honey and beeswax-based product such as lip balm. Mikaila is now 17 and, in addition to her company Me and the Bees, she works with the Health Hive Foundation, “a nonprofit to further help the mission of saving the pollinators.”

Sources:

https://www.meandthebees.com/pages/about-us

https://nypost.com/2022/06/19/teenager-mikaila-ulmer-became-a-multi-millionaire-with-lemonade-business/

2 Comments

Categories : Bees, Enviornmental, Lemonade

Me and the Bees

Posted by stiererrv22

· Sunday, September 25th, 2022

· 2 Comments

When most people get stung by a bee, they get annoyed and mad at bees. This however, was not the case for Mikaila Ulmer. After getting stung by a bee she began to get curious and wanted to learn more. Around the same time her family suggested that she should come up with an idea to submit for a children’s business competition. She decided to use her grandma’s cookbook for the 1940’s and incorporate honey into the lemonade recipe. That was the start of her successful business. She became successful pretty quick and decided to donate a percentage of the profits to local and international organizations fighting hard to save the honeybees. She continued to do well, and went on the show Shark Tank. She got an offer of $60,000 from Daymond and accepted it. Since airing on shark tank, her company made a deal worth over 11 million dollars and continues to thrive to this day. She still felt that she could do more to help the bees, so she helped out the Healthy Hive Foundation, a nonprofit to further help the mission of saving the pollinators.

Two words I would use to describe Mikalia would be caring and hardworking. I would describe her as caring because she truly wants to help the bee community. Instead of getting mad at the bees for getting stung, she wanted to learn more. She was able to incorporate bees honey into lemonade and by doing this was able to support organizations that helped honey bees. She had a passion towards them and cared for them so she had to help out. She uses the slogan “Buy a Bottle…Save a Bee.” I would describe her as hard working because of how young she was when she started her business. Her parents suggested that she entered a business competition, and this created her product. While she was working on her business, she was still at school learning. 11-Year-Old to Sell Lemonade at Whole Foods | Time

2 Comments

Categories : Bees

Rainier Mallol

Posted by GagerCR21

· Friday, September 23rd, 2022

· 1 Comment

In this day and age, predictive ai has become a tool with loads of potential. In the right application, it can be used for identifying weather disasters, marketing analytics, and even finishing sentences. Rainier Mallol, a thirty year old entrepreneur who co-founded and is now president of AIME, or artificial intelligence in medical epidemiology, has put this tool to quite effective use in the world of viral outbreaks.

Started in his graduate study, AIME was started as a way to predict outbreaks of Dengue and other similar infectious diseases, and provide health officials with information to avoid or alleviate them. Since then, AIME has climbed to the Forbe’s Top 40 World Changers, and boasts a 86.37% accuracy. So far, it has been successfully used in Malaysia, Brazil, and the Philippines.

While the software currently only works to predict three mosqutio-born diseases, those being Dengue, Chikungunya, and Zika, this technology, with a little more information, could be used for many other pandemic situations before they become out of control. Though AIME was created in 2016, it has never been more relevant than in today’s post covid world. Millions of people would have benefited from AIME’s ability to predict the viral outbreak of covid and offered solutions on how to minimize its effects. With the right amount of investment in technologies like AIME, we might never see another outbreak like covid again, a post-pandemic world.

1 Comment

Categories : Bees

Taking Care of Bees-ness

Posted by Kasianideseg21

· Sunday, September 18th, 2022

· 3 Comments

“Playing by nature’s rules since the 1980s” reads a banner on the Burt’s Bees website. Established in 1984, Burt’s Bees was founded on the principle of simple living and sustainability. Burt Shavitz used to work as a photojournalist in Manhattan but moved to Maine to escape the concrete jungle. He sought a simple life in the forest. Shortly after moving, he discovered a wild bee colony, he learned how to make a living from the honey and became the local bee man. As he was driving one day, he picked up Roxanne Quimby, a hitchhiker, who also used to work in Manhattan. They talked about bees and the pair hit it off. Roxanne found a book of recipes and using what Burt taught her about the hives was able to make lip balm and candles. During the early stages, Burt labeled their beehives so if they got stolen by bee thieves they could find them again.

They loved emphasizing a low-impact lifestyle and preserving the nature around them. They began to sell more commercially and build the brand. Once successful Roxanne decided to sell her stake in Burt’s Bees. Her philanthropy encompassed both charities and the woodlands of Maine that she loved so much. She donated over 90 million to charities and purchased 87,000 acres of wildlands in Maine which she gave to the National Park Service.

Burt continued with his original plan. Living out of a renovated 300 square foot turkey coop which he transformed into a cabin. The brand grew and he lived off a settlement from the 1984 court case, where Roxanne sued Burt. He was quoted as saying he was more hurt by the loss of the partner than the brand. As of recently, Burt’s Bees sold to Clorox for $970 million. Although no longer involved with the company, Burt continued to do what he always intended: to live with the land. His trusty dog Rufus was enough company for him.

Although to some his story may not look like a happy ending, it is a beautiful example of pure intentions. Burt never wanted to be globally famous or make tons of money. He believed in living respectfully and by nature’s rules. His products are made with the best nature has to offer. His brand never caused him to be greedy or seek more profits. When faced with lawsuits he decided to settle and maintained his dignity. He did not slander his former partner. Burt shared his gift with the world and then went back to his beloved land. He continued to play outdoors and keep bees until he died peacefully at age 80. His values live on through the products and are trusted by countless families across the world and although departed, customers can still recognize his friendly face on the trusted yellow seal.