We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Bryan Godfrey. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Bryan below.
Bryan, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Naming anything – including a business – is so hard. Right? What’s the story behind how you came up with the name of your brand?
I live on Mango Blossom Ct. and I started my first hives in my backyard. I decided on Mango Blossom Apiary
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
After living here in San Jose, Ca. for the last 15 years I noticed we didn’t have very many honeybees in our area. As is well be reported, our honey bee population is in decline. I noticed, while tending my garden that I didn’t have very many bees around, so I decided to get a hive to pollinate my garden. 8 months later, I had Mango Blossom Apiary! I started keeping beehives in my backyard June ’18 and have had great success, not only with honey but with all the flowers, fruits and vegetable plants in my yard as well as my neighbors. It’s a lot of fun watching the bees going to and from, building their community and raising brood after brood. (Did you know a honeybee only lives 6 weeks and that it takes approximately 22,700 bees to fly 32,000 miles to 2,500,000 flowers to make us 16oz. of honey?) I’d also show you what I’m doing when I’m working the hives. I “work” the hives about 1 or twice a month.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
I was in the restaurant business for 32 years, the last 22 as a General Manager. I love gardening and spent a lot of time in my garden. In 2019, I got a beehive in my garden to help increase the number of bees throughout my yard. I was managing a restaurant in San Jose when covid hit and my restaurant shut down. As the Universe would have it, honeybee swarm season starts every year in March. For some reason I had taken a swarm collecting class about a month earlier. I put a message on Nextdoor.com asking my neighbors if anyone would like a beehive in their backyard. I had over 200 families reply with a resounding, “US PLEASE”!! I call my families “Hive Hosts”. Within 30 days, I had gone from my original 3 hives as a hobby to 30 hives into a potential business. 5 years later, I am still a “backyard beekeeper”, with 140 hives, employee 8 people, while mentoring my team and hive hosts on the basics of beekeeping. Myself and my team spend the weekdays working bees and the weekends doing farmers markets, pop-ups and local festivals selling our local honey. In 2023 we were fortunate enough to be involved in over 160 events.
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
Beekeepers, we are all in this together. When I have people reach out to me publicly, on social media, mostly on Nextdoor.com, I will ask what neighborhood they live in. If I know a person that sells honey closer to them, I will refer them to their “neighbor” beekeeper. 75% of the people will still buy from me, but people on ND admire that I’m out to help my fellow beekeepers. Word spreads fast. I sell about 30% of my honey to my “neighbors”. Don’t think you’re going to loose business by referring your competition. The perception that you’re not afraid to help other businesses will go A LONG way. You won’t loose as much business as you may think, on the contrary. People will think it’s a selfless act, admire your willingness to help other business and patronize you more and spread the word. We’re all in this together
Contact Info:
- Website: www.mangoblossomapiary.com
- Instagram: @mangoblossomapiary
- Facebook: #mangoblossomapiary
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/mango-blossom-apiary-san-jose
- Other: https://nextdoor.com/pages/mango-blossom-apiary-san-jose-ca/