Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Bela Malacsina. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hi Bela, thanks for joining us today. What was it like going from idea to execution? Can you share some of the backstory and some of the major steps or milestones?
I little family background on myself, Im actually a third generation beekeeper so thats the core knowledge base. My grandfather kept a few hives on the side during the great depression, that knowledge was passed down to my father as a child in the 50’s, and he picked up the hobby again in the 80s just before I was born, and I have grown up in and around hives the first 20 years of my life. My father always maintained 200-400 hives, but when I was a teenager and got involved on the business scale we grew his business to 1300 hives – until 2006, when Colony Collapse Disorder crashed out hive count down to 30 hives from October to November. It was a hard loss to the family, I had to reinvent myself, and put myself through college working retail – a career that in it of itself progressed from Sales Associate to Manager to Store Manager in 10 years; learning a lot about different elements of business, people, operations, logistics, etc.
Fast Forward to June 2020, a couple months into the pandemic, and in the middle of uncertain times, a chance swarm of bees decided to take up residence in our roof. Most people would freak out, but with my background, in the middle of a shutdown with world isolating, I just laughed and figured ‘Well, I guess I know how to deal with this’. I actually still have my old beekeeping gear in the garage, and even still had a spare hive box. I called up my buddy for the shared experience, and to just help hold the ladder for me; and a couple hours later we had a hive in a box!
The spark of thought was along the lines of ‘That was fun, its been a while – that could have been a really expensive emergency had it not been for my knowledge at a particularly inopportune time’. It was at a time that the news was saturated with the topic of how many people were out of work, long lines for food giveaways. I wanted to help out people in those hard times, so I put an ad out on Craigslist stating that I would do swarm and hive removals, depending on the complexity my estimates would be minimal and a fraction for the industry wide going rate – often times I didnt even give people estimates, I flat out refused, I just explained to them what I would do if they wanted, how long it would take, and that if they felt inclined to give me a donation for my time and fuel I would appreciate it.
I had calls from folks that were in rough financial times, husband/wife was deathly allergic to bees, and they had a small swarm the size of an orange hanging from a palm frond. They didnt have the heart to hit them with a can of Yard Guard; and I could just merge them with a bigger established hive to help them survive – I accepted some cash for gas. Sometimes, folks had gone through a string of other supposed bee removal specialists, been given astronomical quotes in the thousands of dollars. I would tell them that the bees in their carport, roofs, were huge, established, would require hours worth of work – some ended up taking up 2-3 days of my time to make sure minimal damage was done to save them on repair costs while removing the hive saving the most amount of bees, and not making a mess that would attract the whole animal kingdom of subsequent pests like roaches, rats, etc.
There would be some jobs that were interesting challenges, massive trees that people didnt want cut down, the hive was in a hollow at the base – requiring what is referred to as a trap out. I hadnt had that experience growing up, so I took on the challenge purely for the learning experience – my prize aside from the hive in the end – 2 thank you lobster tails! I just like helping people, and I like when my work is appreciated, and I like saving bees.
Ive currently got hives in 12 locations, from Homestead, to Naples, Punta Gorda, Venus, Loxahatchee, and even catching swarms in bait hives in my own backyard. I take care of the bees, and I hope that in time they might reward me with a means of a full time steady primary income – but until then, its fun, its good to help people and bees, and atleast it sustains itself.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I little family background on myself, Im actually a third generation beekeeper so thats the core knowledge base. My grandfather kept a few hives on the side during the great depression, that knowledge was passed down to my father as a child in the 50’s, and he picked up the hobby again in the 80s just before I was born, and I have grown up in and around hives the first 20 years of my life. My father always maintained 200-400 hives, but when I was a teenager and got involved on the business scale we grew his business to 1300 hives – until 2006, when Colony Collapse Disorder crashed out hive count down to 30 hives from October to November. It was a hard loss to the family, I had to reinvent myself, and put myself through college working retail – a career that in it of itself progressed from Sales Associate to Manager to Store Manager in 10 years; learning a lot about different elements of business, people, operations, logistics, etc.
Fast Forward to June 2020, a couple months into the pandemic, and in the middle of uncertain times, a chance swarm of bees decided to take up residence in our roof. Most people would freak out, but with my background, in the middle of a shutdown with world isolating, I just laughed and figured ‘Well, I guess I know how to deal with this’. I actually still have my old beekeeping gear in the garage, and even still had a spare hive box. I called up my buddy for the shared experience, and to just help hold the ladder for me; and a couple hours later we had a hive in a box!
The spark of thought was along the lines of ‘That was fun, its been a while – that could have been a really expensive emergency had it not been for my knowledge at a particularly inopportune time’. It was at a time that the news was saturated with the topic of how many people were out of work, long lines for food giveaways. I wanted to help out people in those hard times, so I put an ad out on Craigslist stating that I would do swarm and hive removals, depending on the complexity my estimates would be minimal and a fraction for the industry wide going rate – often times I didnt even give people estimates, I flat out refused, I just explained to them what I would do if they wanted, how long it would take, and that if they felt inclined to give me a donation for my time and fuel I would appreciate it.
I had calls from folks that were in rough financial times, husband/wife was deathly allergic to bees, and they had a small swarm the size of an orange hanging from a palm frond. They didnt have the heart to hit them with a can of Yard Guard; and I could just merge them with a bigger established hive to help them survive – I accepted some cash for gas. Sometimes, folks had gone through a string of other supposed bee removal specialists, been given astronomical quotes in the thousands of dollars. I would tell them that the bees in their carport, roofs, were huge, established, would require hours worth of work – some ended up taking up 2-3 days of my time to make sure minimal damage was done to save them on repair costs while removing the hive saving the most amount of bees, and not making a mess that would attract the whole animal kingdom of subsequent pests like roaches, rats, etc.
There would be some jobs that were interesting challenges, massive trees that people didnt want cut down, the hive was in a hollow at the base – requiring what is referred to as a trap out. I hadnt had that experience growing up, so I took on the challenge purely for the learning experience – my prize aside from the hive in the end – 2 thank you lobster tails! I just like helping people, and I like when my work is appreciated, and I like saving bees.
Ive currently got hives in 12 locations, from Homestead, to Naples, Punta Gorda, Venus, Loxahatchee, and even catching swarms in bait hives in my own backyard. I take care of the bees, and I hope that in time they might reward me with a means of a full time steady primary income – but until then, its fun, its good to help people and bees, and atleast it sustains itself.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
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Have you ever had to pivot?
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