We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful TYLER STELLERN. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with TYLER below.
TYLER, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.
I have always had a love for nature. But my origin story starts, right after college when I got a job for an organic soap company with some very passionate people dedicated to environmental sustainability. One day I was listening to our charismatic founder talk about all the wasted space on roofs which could capture the sun’s energy with gardens. After thinking through this overnight, my eager excitable younger self told our founder that we should put a garden on the roof of our factory. Naive of the fact, I was volunteering for an adventure which would plant the seed of my purposeful work for the rest of my life. After that comment, I was put in charge of setting up an organic educational garden at the factory. We did not get to put it on the roof, but there was open space next to our factory which we were able to lease for super cheap as the land owner was holding it for long term development.
Following my excitement and newly discovered passion down the rabbit hole of organic gardening, growing and cultivating; I found my way to a Chinese herbalist’s mountain sanctuary and bee hives. He introduced me to the ladies on a warm summer day where the bees were buzzing happily in the warm sun. The song from 10s of thousands of happy bees singing in harmony was like nothing I had ever heard before and resonated so deeply within me. It was love at first sight and I was instantly under their spell. Like a sirens song I was willing to jump into the deep waters of the unknown for their love. It was then the connection was formed, and I decided to devote my life to learning how to care for these beautiful creatures who were in great danger of the influences of modern human’s on the garden they depend on.
How did I come up with my idea? How can WE save the bees? I ask myself this every day. We all, as a corner stone species and care takers of this world, need to come together to cultivate wellness for ourselves, our planet and our bees. The honored ancient way to achieve this is through reciprocity of living with the earth and her creatures.
“Give more than you receive.”
“Leave the world better than how you found it.”
To this end, I believe the best way to achieve this is through giving one of the great gifts of the bees. Delicious nutritious honey! Through sharing the wellness contained in the mysteries of honey, we at Simply Bee Organics hope to spread the word of how to bring nature back home and bring well-beeing to ourselves and the bees. We give away free wild flower seeds with every order and all of our events, to give people something tangible to do to save the bees…Feed the bees with wildflowers.
In reciprocity we give food in the form of flowers, habitat, and nurseries to the bees. In return they give us the gift of pollinating flowers and our food. Remember to thank the bees for all the flowers you see and for 1 of every 3 bites of food you take because they are responsible for pollinating our crops.
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
I got into this work when I fell in love with honey bees. My father always taught me to leave this world better than how you found it. To this end, I contemplated how I can use this gift of my life to the goal of leaving the world better than how I found it. This came to a head for me, laying in a hospital bed in the ICU on the edge of life and death going through chemo therapy. I found our beautiful earth, our wealthy nation, and myself sick. How can such an intelligent species as man, who evolved as a tribe, a hive of connected humans connected to the land; find themselves with a world and a society suffering ill health? I found the bees dying at an alarming rate, our ice caps melting, the world species declining at an alarming rate, obesity, diabetes, cancer, depression on the rise. But I took heart and found hope as mankind is a resilient and loving species when we work together as a community. The way nature intended. I decided then and there, my mission was to cultivate well-beeing for myself, for our community of humans, the earth and my bee-loved bees. (Yes bee people love bee puns, hope you do to!)
The question became what is causing our health problems and how to cultivate a sweeter future. What issues were we facing? I talk to so many beautiful humans who are looking for “Community”. Refined sugar was rampant in my diet and in the American diet. Why would we refine sugar and create flavors in a lab, when nature’s healthy sweetness has sustained us for untold generations. It is like taking a leaf from a coca plant, used by ancients in ceremony, and refining into cocaine to get your customers addicted in order to generate profits at the expense of well-being. Our agricultural system after WWII and the invention of chemical agriculture turned our wholesome farmers into hazmat suit wearing industrial workers. This chemical monoculture system adds toxins to our bodies, our water, and kills our soil biology washing away top soil at an alarming rate. Leading to our food declining in nutritional value. This chemical practice was then brought to our homes to spray cancer causing glyphosate on the beautiful dandelion so we can have the perfect green lawn without other color. The dandelion being the first food in the spring for the bees, a food we use to eat and use as medicine, is now our war time enemy because someone called it a weed.
How do we solve our issues? Learn from the bees. They are one hive, many beeings coming together to care for each other as one community. They cultivate the garden by pollinating flowers. They are the midwives of every flowering plant bringing new life to the world in the form of seeds and receiving nectar they turn into vital honey for their hive. Yes, let’s plant the seed of community, care for our earth-garden and bring vital nutrition to our people.
I started Simply Bee Organics (a mission driven organic functional honey company dedicated to spreading the seeds of well-beeing for the people plant and the bees) while I was recovering for chemotherapy treatment. In collaboration with the bees, Simply Bee Organics works hard to sell honey, herbal honeys, honey + fruits in order to support our sister company Simply Bee Conservation. A Non-profit dedicated to bee conservation and education. Simply Bee Conservation works with local community groups, farms, schools, parks, neighborhoods, non-profits, companies, and community members to create pollinator sanctuaries and living classrooms on their land linking us all together as a community; in order create a Community Pollinator Corridor.
Why a connection of pollinator gardens? The smallest of bees can only fly for 3 blocks before they need to refuel on the nectar of flowers looking for a mate and a nursery for their babies. By coming together as a community and creating a link of pollinator gardens, we can help these at risk bees thrive. In turn insuring there will be enough pollinators and food for many generations to come. This also connects us as a community uniting us with a mission of education and well-beeing. We to need to connect as a hive as a tribe. In a world of 7 billion people it seems like it would be impossible not to feel disconnected. Yet our modern life of machine factories, distractions and convenience delivered to our doors in two days, we have lost our connection to local businesses and the delicious nutritious creations humans can achieve with our bare hands.
Let’s come together to support our community of local bees and businesses!
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
Resilience is necessary for any entrepreneur. It’s a risky business as 90% of new businesses fail…. historically. I do believe the tide is turning and local businesses, artist, crafts persons, and repair people are the wave of the future. How much more do you value a sweater which is handmade and purchased eye to eye from the seamstress? You will sew up every hole and wear it until it falls apart. Buy a sweater off amazon and one defect you throw it away and buy a new one to be delivered to your door next day.
Adaptively also goes hand in hand with resilience. The idea you start with may not always be the idea you end up with. Plant the seed and see what grows. Simply Bee Organics started with men’s hair care using beeswax based products. I came from a body care background and a love for bees. The issue with selling beard balms is they only turn over a few times a year. That’s not going to give us the resources we need to save the bees or the outreach we needed to the entire population.
When you feel like giving up. Follow your feet, follow your passions. Passionate about, bees, honey, herbs and wellness, I shifted our product line to herbal honeys. Supplement herbs with a delicious sweet delivery system takes herbal remedies to a whole new level. The next step was to add CBD as so many customers we demanding it. We even got into a local grocery chain. But alas regulations and competition were prohibited. Then covid hit and our successful grocery partnership went bankrupt and orders slowed from the rest of our brick and mortar customers. Farmer’s markets ground to a halt. So what do we do? Reinvent yourself! Innovation the third key to resilience.
Brick and mortar grocery stores are costly to the vendor and require a lot of environmental resources to keep those stores up stocked and lit. So we switched to e-commerce and a focus on farmer’s markets to get feedback on our beloved honey + fruit line. We believe farmer’s markets, local connections, local support for farmers is the way to a healthier future for our families, communities, local farmers and the lands that support our ground water. Towards this effort we partner with several non-profits working towards creating more local farmers and art markets as well as community farm CSA’s. Community farm CSAs connect all the small farmers to give our community a diverse selection of delicious goods and support our front line farm workers and their families. If you’ve never tried it, let me tell you farming is not easy. Bee Blessed in your pursuits of your passions, don’t let hard lessons hold you back but instead hold you up stronger than you were the day before.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
We tell ourselves many stories about our lives, our expectations the paths we want to walk. These can be motivating but also can be limiting if you stick to them without adapting. My ego wanted to be a national grocery brand and soon. We went at it with everything we had. Costs mounted up for the brokers, demos, advertising, free fills, sales reps all the expenses of the grocery business. But i wanted to be bigger than a “farmer’s market brand”. My story was so be successful you have to be bigger than this.
I had to unlearn this story, farmer’s market’s are beautiful to look your customer in the eye and see their wow face when they try our honey plus cocoa. Online farmer’s markets can tell your full story and give the customer direct access to you and support more with their dollars cutting out the middleman. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. The first word being the more important reduce waste, bee efficient and the planet and community will thank you for it. Support us at the Louisville farmer’s markets, Erie farmer’s markets or our online market www.simplybeeorganics.com
Contact Info:
- Website: www.simplybeeorganics.com
- Instagram: #simplybeeorg
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/simpybeeorganics/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/simply-bee-organics?trk=public_profile_experience-item_profile-section-card_subtitle-click