Honeybees Have A New Hero, Thanks To One Little Girl’s Lemonade Business

Kokutangaza — Fri, 05 May 2017 13:46:06 +0000

Author: Rebecca Endicott

Is there anything more remarkable than the mind of a child?

They may not have the knowledge and experience of their parents and grandparents, but kids are just incredibly creative, adventurous, and flexible in the way they think about big problems.

That’s why kids — like adorable little Alia who cheers up San Franciscans with her rainbow rocks — have such a knack for solving problems with totally out-of-the-box solutions. They don’t snag on the same particularities as grown-ups, and always reach for the stars.

The latest example of the incredible phenomenon of kids taking charge? A little girl named Mikaila Ulmer who started with nothing but a painful bee sting and an old lemonade recipe from the 1940s.

For Mikaila, the unpleasant experience of being stung by a bee got her thinking, and launched her on the path to creating BeeSweet Lemonade.

It’s the kind of creative leap that only a child could make, and now, it has paid off big time. According to The Grio, In March 2016, the now-11-year-old entrepreneur signed a major, multi-million dollar deal with Whole Foods, placing her product on the shelves of 55 stores in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana.

Now, she’s poised to become one of the biggest new products on shelves across the country, but her clever and environmentally friendly idea grew from humble beginnings.

Facebook/BeeSweet Lemonade

Little Mikaila was just 4 years old when she got stung by the business bug — quite literally!

According to the BeeSweet website, the pint-size entrepreneur was preparing for a children’s business fair when she was stung not once, but twice, by bees.

Facebook/BeeSweet Lemonade

As Mikaila puts it, “I didn’t enjoy the bee stings at all. They scared me.”

But then, something strange happened. “I became fascinated with bees,” she continued. “I learned all about what they do for me and our ecosystem.”

Facebook/BeeSweet Lemonade

Mikaila was receiving an introduction to an important environmental topic. Though lots of people are scared of bees, they play a key role in supporting our ecosystems, and have been slowly dying out for decades.

Facebook/BeeSweet Lemonade

Well, little Mikaila wasn’t about to sit around and let that happen.

The tiny mogul decided to do something about it, armed with her Great-Granny Helen’s signature lemonade recipe, a technique from the 1940s that Helen had handed down to Mikaila.

Facebook/BeeSweet Lemonade

The recipe is simple, old-fashioned and wholesome, handed down through generations of her family. It calls on fresh lemon juice and flaxseeds, a hearty-healthy, fiber-rich super food.

Mikaila just made one tiny change. She decided to sweeten the lemonade, using local honey.

Her motto? “Buy a bottle, save a bee.”

Facebook/BeeSweet Lemonade

Mikaila donates a portion of every sale to Heifer International, a charitable organization that provides sustenance animals to families all over the world who can feed their children and create thriving small business with the help of animals that provide milk, eggs, or, yes, honey.

BeeSweet’s profits help fund beehives, helping people in need and promoting crop health and growth of the bee population.

Facebook/BeeSweet Lemonade

Now 10 years old, Mikaila has taken her business model in front of Shark Tank, and has put her product on the shelves of major retailers, including Whole Foods.

We imagine her Great-Granny Helen, now 90, couldn’t be prouder of the direction her innovative little entrepreneur took that old-fashioned recipe from the 1940s!

Check out Mikaila’s thriving business at BeeSweetLemonade, and learn more about saving honeybees here.

Don’t forget to spread the word about her incredible project and delicious lemonade — SHARE with family and friends!

Essays – Kokutangaza

Honeybees Have A New Hero, Thanks To One Little Girl’s Lemonade Business