We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Candace Vanderhoff a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that. Can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

I am a designer who is passionate about the environment. Currently I am working in a company I founded, SoloBee. We manufacture shelters for solitary native bees, which is a great combination of my skills and passion, nature and craft. I received my architect’s license ten years ago, but I wanted to do work specifically to restore the environment. I founded a company called Rain Thanks, to conserve greywater, and then founded SoloBee, where I am now. I have always loved nature, but it was after my time in Micronesia, where I met self-sufficient people who lived off the land. When we met, their fish supply was sparse due to commercial fishing vessels overfishing their waters. The rising tide on their low-lying atoll was intruding on their water well and their only water source was salty. It was heartbreaking because I realized it was the developed world that was causing these changes. That was a pivotal moment and after that trip I promised myself I would work to restore nature. Once I learned about solitary native bees and their plight, I created a beautiful bee shelter that sold immediately and SoloBee was born. We have several designs but the one I am most excited about is our new SeeBee observation shelter with clear sides. We just launched it on Kickstarter. The campaign runs until July 27th.

We’d really appreciate if you could talk to us about how you figured out the manufacturing process.

Do you manufacture your product(s)? We make our products in our Lemon Grove shop. After a year of outsourcing fabrication to local carpenters, we had to bring the work in-house to manage quality. We received a training grant for Advanced Manufacturing from Workforce Partnership, it allowed us to set up a shop and train bee house builders.

Tell us the story of how you got started – did you already know how to manufacture the product?
I grew up around carpenters and crafters, so making a wood product was easy for me. What was difficult was preparing for production. I hired a person to run the CNC and make jigs, he was a great asset and together we streamlined our fabrication process. It was such a challenge and so much fun. There is nothing better than taking a leap if your intuition says, yes, you can figure things out as you go. Looking back it was pretty crazy, but I feel like I gained a bachelor’s degree in manufacturing.

Okay – so how did you figure out the manufacturing part? Did you have prior experience?

What lessons have your learned along the way about manufacturing a product? I learned the value of using new, refined materials in fabrication, but unfortunately we use salvaged wood, it slows us down but makes up for it in character. We collect salvaged wood from the community. We also partner with Taylor Guitars who donate their scrap mahogany to us for our bee shelters. So the money we save on materials, we spend on labor to alter the wood. Plus, using reclaimed wood makes for a unique product with a great backstory. Making a handmade product requires putting your heart into the product and when a person buys a shelter and I take of photo of them holding it, it makes all the work worth the effort. It is so rewarding to know together we are helping some bees.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.solobee.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/solobee_shelter/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/solobeeshelter/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/candace-vanderhoff-8322a815/

Image Credits
Candace Vanderhoff