October 10, 2024 • 20 mins
Chris Schad is the founder and owner of Rochester, Minnesota-based The Bee Shed, where his passion for bees, science, and the environment come together to make a meaningful impact. Through his story, you'll learn how a hobby can grow into a legacy business, all while championing environmental stewardship and the vital role bees play in our ecosystem.
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Bill Von Bank (00:00):
The Growing Destinations podcast is brought
to you by Experience Rochester.
Learn more about Minnesota'sthird largest city, which is
home to Mayo Clinic and featureswonderful recreational and
entertainment opportunities, byvisiting
experiencerochestermncom.
Chris Schad (00:16):
Most people.
If you sat down and looked atwhat you ate throughout the
course of the day and took whatis there because of pollinators,
you'd be missing a lot of food,and so the work that we do to
support honeybees is also aimedtowards helping all of the
native pollinators that are outthere.
Bill Von Bank (00:34):
Welcome to the Growing Destinations podcast,
where we take a deep dive intodestination development and
focus on a wide range of topicsfrom tourism and entertainment
to economic development andentrepreneurism and much more.
I'm your host, bill Von Bank.
Today, we delve into the worldof beekeeping, conservation and
(00:55):
sustainable entrepreneurshipwith a very special guest, chris
Schad.
Chris is the founder and ownerof Rochester, minnesota-based
the Bee Shed, where his passionfor bees, science and the
environment come together tomake a meaningful impact.
Chris Schad, welcome to theGrowing Destinations podcast.
Thank you, bill.
It's great to be here.
Chris, before we take a deepdive into the beehive, share
(01:17):
with us your background andcareer journey.
Chris Schad (01:20):
So, first of all, I resist the urge to use too many
puns, because it tends tohappen in the world that I live
in.
Bill Von Bank (01:26):
You can have at least three here, three puns.
Chris Schad (01:29):
We have a pun jar at home Every time I use a bee
pun, I have to put a dollar inthe jar.
I started my career at MayoClinic working in genetic
laboratories doing a lot oflaboratory testing, worked my
way through a variety ofleadership roles over the years
that transitioned into someadministrative roles in the
research world of Mayo Clinicand ultimately led me to the
(01:50):
work that I'm doing now, whichis more outside of Mayo Clinic
around business and economicdevelopment activities.
As a biologist, by training, myfavorite place is to be outside
and my career hasn't given me alot of opportunities to be out
in the natural world.
So when we got into the prairierestoration and we got into the
beekeeping, it sort of broughtme back to where I really wanted
(02:11):
to be ultimately.
Bill Von Bank (02:13):
So a side hustle, a business called the Bee Shed.
Tell us more about that.
I took up beekeeping.
Chris Schad (02:19):
Gee, what was that?
Probably 12, 13 years ago now.
It was sort of on a lark.
We had some friends that weretaking care of some bees.
They said this is something youshould try.
I put it off for a couple ofyears, took a class, put it off
for another year or so andfinally jumped in with a couple
of colonies of bees in ourbackyard and I was smitten from
the beginning.
(02:39):
It was a lot of fun.
We had done some prairierestoration on our property.
Bill Von Bank (02:51):
A couple of years before that, with an aim of
supporting pollinators, and Ithought, well, what better way
to sort of go to the next stepand keep some bees here?
You keep bees, but also youcreate honey and you go to
market with that.
So walk us through that journey.
Chris Schad (02:59):
You know, I had the bees for a couple of years.
Since I was young, I'd alwayswanted to own a business and run
a business.
I had no idea what to do.
We launched the businessprobably within two years of
keeping the bees.
I had no idea what I was doingkeeping the bees.
I was still learning the trade,if you will, or the craft of
keeping bees.
So I opened a business and Ihad no idea what I was doing
(03:20):
running a business as well, butthat process was fascinating to
me.
You know, when we're keepingbees, some people are keeping
bees because they just want theenjoyment of the activity.
Some are doing it to produce alittle bit of honey for their
own use.
That's how I started, butultimately I wanted to turn it
into a business.
That process, though.
There's a lot of steps alongthe way just to get the product
(03:40):
before you even take it to astore or take it to your kitchen
table, the bees are going outpollinating flowers and they're
bringing nectar back to the hive.
Nectar is a mixture of waterand sugar, if you will, and it's
got a lot of chemicals in therethat are from the plant, and
the bees are turning that honeyinto honey from the nectar and
(04:01):
ultimately it gets dried down toa point where it can be stored
indefinitely in the hive andthat's what we take.
So they produce far more thanthey need.
We take the extra and weharvest that every year and
ultimately we put it intobottles and take it out to
stores.
Bill Von Bank (04:17):
Chris, when you started the bee shed, did you
realize that you wanted toultimately start selling honey?
Chris Schad (04:22):
Yeah, eventually, I knew I wanted to do that.
That was always one of thegoals.
Ultimately, I didn't think itwould get to the size that it is
now.
It was going to be a smallhobby business, if you will, and
in fact, the original businessmy original business partner, ed
, was a woodworker and abeekeeper and he was making
(04:44):
beekeeping equipment and theoriginal idea, or his original
idea, was we're going to makeequipment and sell it to
beekeepers.
My original idea going into itwas that's great, but it's a
small market.
Let's also produce honey andsell honey, and so we started
out doing both and it wasn'tvery long before we stopped
making the equipment and focusedon the honey production.
Bill Von Bank (05:03):
Fast forward to today, right, and tell us how
your business has grown andwhere people can actually find
your honey the business hasgrown significantly, I would say
until 2020.
Chris Schad (05:17):
I did not treat the business as seriously as I
could have up until 2019, reallyIn 2019, not knowing that COVID
was coming.
We had made a decision that wewere going to get really serious
about the business in 2019.
So we sort of floated along ordrifted along up until 2019.
We had the idea in 2019 then tocome up with these specialty
(05:37):
seasonal honey products that weultimately now have, where we
take the honey off the beesevery month rather than at the
end of the summer, and so we getdifferent even though the bees
are in one place, they don'tmove, but different things are
blooming throughout thesummertime, and so we get
different kinds of honey monthby month, and that's become our
specialty niche sort of thing.
We figured that out in 2019that we could do that Entering
(06:00):
into 2020, we started arebranding process, redid the
website, redid our sort ofmental energy towards the
business.
When I say we, I mean mybusiness partner at the time,
john Shanyo, and reallyrededicated to building the
business significantly.
So we started experiencinggrowth even in spite of all of
the pandemic-related stressorsthat we were going through.
(06:23):
Beekeeping lends itselfnaturally to social distancing.
People don't really want tohang out with me when I'm with
the bees so I could get out inthe yards and I wasn't didn't
really slow down from thatperspective.
And since then the business hasreally taken off.
We sort of hit some milestonesin 21 and 22.
And then in 23, we we alwayswanted to break into the Twin
Cities market.
(06:44):
We're, we're, we've done adecent job of getting some brand
recognition here in Rochesterand this will always be our home
base.
But we wanted to get into theTwin Cities market and we
managed to do that.
We're now in all of theKowalski stores up in the Twin
Cities and that was kind of thestart of breaking more into the
Twin Cities market.
And now we have 71 differentretail partners throughout the
(07:08):
state of Minnesota and we'reshipping product all over the
country every week.
So it's been really fun towatch it evolve and grow.
It's been a lot of work, somesleepless nights now and then.
Bill Von Bank (07:18):
I know, when I first experienced your honey,
you were, I think, at a farmer'smarket or some pop-up, and is
that still part of the businessplan?
Chris Schad (07:25):
It is, although eventually we want to get to the
point where we do less of thatright, because it's very time
intensive, it's very laborintensive.
You get a better margin on yourproduct.
But we tend to look at thoseevents Many people who are
having a side hustle businessthey look at those events as a
way to how much money do I makeat that event?
(07:45):
We look at it through that lens, but we also look at those
events through two other lensevent.
We look at it through that lens, but we also look at those
events through two other lens.
Second one is what kind of brandexposure and market exposure
are we getting for our product?
How many people are we going tobe able to see when we are
there?
And then the third one is howmany business opportunities are
going to come out of that event?
So if the sales aren't greatbut I can pick up a couple of
(08:07):
new stores because they happento stop by the booth, or I pick
up a new staffer in the TwinCities because she happened to
be in the booth next door,that's a great place for us to
be.
If I get in front of 15,000people but I don't sell a lot of
product.
I still got in front of 15,000people and I learned a lot from
talking with those people.
So the goal, ultimately, isalways to do fewer events and be
(08:33):
on more stores and more ways toreach more people with less
effort.
Bill Von Bank (08:34):
Tell us about the evolution of your products,
because I was at an event andpurchased some of your hot honey
as well as some candles.
So you've obviously expandedyour product line.
Chris Schad (08:46):
Yeah, we started out with the kind of honey that
everybody produces.
We call it all summer longhoney, right, the bees fill up
boxes, you stack on boxesthroughout the summer and you
harvest it at the end of theyear.
As I mentioned earlier, we dothis, this thing now with our
bees.
It's a lot more work, but we'repulling honey off every month,
so we have honey from May andJune and August and September.
(09:06):
We then added buckwheat honey,so we move our bees to an
acreage of organic buckwheat andwe get buckwheat honey off of
that super rich, bold flavor.
Beekeepers don't tend to like it.
I don't know why, but I lovethe flavor and it's our best
seller.
Then this hot honey became athing and we had people asking
(09:29):
us hey, could you make a hothoney?
So we spent a decent amount oftime diving into the best way to
make honey.
We've tasted a lot of it.
A lot of it is sweet and hot,but not necessarily honey and
hot.
So we really worked hard onthat recipe.
I think we found a good balance.
We worked with a localRochester branding firm,
neighborly Group.
Shout out to the NeighborlyGroup.
They did all of our brandingand they did a great job on the
(09:51):
branding for the hot honey.
We call it hot shed honey andthat is really starting to get
some traction.
That product is starting to getsome traction.
Now.
The candles will always beprobably a small part of the
business.
Beeswax processing is prettyfussy.
Bill Von Bank (10:08):
I'd rather sell the bulk wax to someone else and
let them make the candles.
At this point, Chris, I'mcurious in the wintertime, what
do you do with your bees Most?
Chris Schad (10:13):
beekeepers most hobby beekeepers keep their bees
around here in the wintertime.
They're perfectly suited tomake it through a Minnesota
winter.
They collect enough honey.
They're able to make it throughthe winter.
They don't die because it's toocold.
They have plenty of food.
They'll make it through winter.
We cold, they have plenty offood.
They'll make it through winter.
We have chosen to do somethingdifferent with our bees and we
(10:33):
ship our bees out.
So we only have, you know, 100to 150 colonies of bees.
That sounds like a lot, butfrom a commercial beekeeper
perspective that's pretty tiny.
Commercial beekeepers arerunning 15 to 50,000 colonies of
bees and they're hauling theirbees someplace warm for the
winter.
Many of them head out toCalifornia and that's what we do
(10:54):
.
So we take our bees, we putthem on a flatbed truck, we haul
them over to a commercialbeekeeper over in Wisconsin
who's taking 15,000 colonies ofbees out in the fall to
California Central Valley to doalmond pollination.
So that's 30 flatbed semi-loadsthat he's taking out and I've
got a tiny drop of bees in hisocean of bees that he's taking
(11:17):
out there.
So they will spend October,november, december into early
January just sort of hanging outin the Central Valley getting a
tan not doing any work, takinga break, and then in January
they get moved out into thealmond groves.
roughly 70 75 percent of all ofthe bees in the us are in
california for almondpollination wow, that's
(11:39):
fascinating, it's it's anenormous industry, absolutely
enormous industry, and it'sprobably saved the commercial
beekeeping industry because theprice of honey has not risen
nearly with the cost ofproducing honey.
But they make it work, the bigcommercial operations they make
it work with the pollinationfees that they're getting from
the almond industry.
(12:00):
So they spend January, february,march into early April out in
California.
They come back here in earlyApril, I pick them up and we
start the whole thing over againnext April.
Bill Von Bank (12:09):
As a science guy, how does your background as a
biologist and Minnesota masternaturalist shape the way you
manage bees at the bee shed?
Chris Schad (12:17):
Oh, absolutely.
In a lot of ways.
That's the inspiration for, forexample, the different kinds of
honey that we have, the reason,I know, we get different kinds
of honey throughout thesummertime is that.
I know what's going on in thenatural world.
I know the bloom cycles, I knowyou know from the prairie
restoration that we've done,just understanding what's going
on out there in the naturalworld, these pulses of nectar
(12:39):
that happen when new things areblooming.
So my biology background, mymaster naturalist background,
sort of plays into that andmonitoring the health of the
hive.
It's understanding what's goingon inside the hive but it's
also understanding what's goingon outside in the natural world
around them.
The bees need a lot of pollenin order to produce new bees,
(13:00):
young bees, if you will and ifwe have an extended period of
time of rain and the bees can'tget out and fly a lot, they're
not going to be bringing muchpollen in it.
So we're going to have tosupplement with some pollen that
we put in the hive ourselves inorder to keep the colony
growing.
Well, if you're not tuned intowhat's going on in the natural
world around where the hives are, you're not going to notice
(13:21):
those sorts of things.
Bill Von Bank (13:22):
And the overall importance of bees are really
important to the naturalenvironment.
Chris Schad (13:34):
They are.
There are some estimates thatas much as 30% of our food comes
from pollinators, and not justthe European honeybees that we
are curating or managing, if youwill, but all of the native
pollinators that are out there,the bumblebees and all the other
bees and, frankly, wasps toothat most people don't think of
as pollinators.
They're all important, I thinkmost people.
If you sat down and looked atwhat you ate throughout the
course of the day and took whatis there because of pollinators,
you'd be missing a lot of food,and so the work that we do to
(13:57):
support honeybees is also aimedtowards helping all of the
native pollinators that are outthere.
So prairie restoration,reduction of pesticides and
fungicides and herbicides outthere that helps our honeybees,
but it also helps all of theother native pollinators.
Bill Von Bank (14:15):
What have been some of the biggest challenges
you've encountered as anentrepreneur in the beekeeping
world?
Chris Schad (14:20):
The first challenge was learning the craft of my
business of being a beekeeper.
That has been a real challenge.
I think the other one, but froma business perspective I really
didn't.
I'd worked in retail stores butI didn't really have an
understanding of what wasimportant to them.
I'm good with Excel, but I'mnot great on the finance and
budgeting side of things, sothat's a skill set that I had to
(14:42):
learn.
I'm a fairly creative problemsolver and that's to my benefit
in terms of figuring out how tomake things work that otherwise
weren't working, how to brandand advertise and market things.
It works well for me, butcertain logistics are beyond me.
I'm no good at fixing stuff.
If a machine breaks down, Ican't fix it myself.
(15:06):
So I spend more money ongetting stuff fixed because I
can't do it myself.
Bill Von Bank (15:11):
Little things like that.
How do you balance your lovefor teaching about bees and
prairie restoration with thedemands of entrepreneurship?
Chris Schad (15:18):
I wish I could do more of that.
I find that teaching part of ita lot of fun.
It's energizing to me.
I'm a member of the Universityof Minnesota Bee Squad and I was
running a mentoring apiary forthe University of Minnesota down
here for a couple of years.
I really enjoyed that.
It became a function of timemore than anything else, that I
(15:39):
didn't have time to do thatbetween my day job and the
business and I wish I could domore of that and I find it very
rewarding.
Bill Von Bank (15:47):
How does the Bee Shed contribute to the broader
conversation about environmentalstewardship and conservation?
Chris Schad (15:53):
We have a platform.
I know that's a that's a termthat's probably overused a bit,
but we've got people that followus and so when we can get
messages out, we can use that toget the message out about why
it's important to reduce youruse of herbicides Now herbicides
that only kills weeds andgrasses.
Why would we care about that?
Well, it's still a chemicalthat ends up on a flower, that
(16:14):
ends up being brought back intothe hive and it still impacts
the health of the bees.
So we can advocate and we canuse our voice and we can use our
followers on social media tosay this is really important and
this is why it should matter toyou.
That's probably the biggest way.
I think that we can use ourvoice.
Bill Von Bank (16:31):
What advice would you give to someone who is
passionate about nature andsustainability but unsure how to
turn that into a viablebusiness?
Because you've done it.
Chris Schad (16:44):
Yeah, I think it requires some creative thinking,
because you have to.
It has to be something turningit into a business.
It has to be something that youwant to do, even when you don't
want to do it right.
Like sometimes turning a hobbyinto a business can can kill
your passion for the hobby, andin my case it certainly hasn't,
(17:05):
and I wish I could spend moretime on the beekeeping side of
it and less time on the business.
But you have to be a creativethinker in order to find ways to
turn a passion for conservationand a passion for the natural
world into businessopportunities or advocacy
opportunities, like I see whatsome people are doing, for
example, with the DriftlessTrail.
(17:28):
Right, it's an analog to theSuperior Hiking Trail and
there's a group of people thathave taken this passion for
outdoors and hiking and they'returning it into developing the
Driftless Trail here insoutheastern Minnesota.
That's some creative ways totake a passion for the outdoors
and turn it into a thing thatthey are advocating for it's
(17:49):
often said that being anentrepreneur can be lonely.
Bill Von Bank (17:52):
Do you have networking groups or
collaborations that you're partof to kind of keep you energized
and know that there are otherpeople out there maybe facing
some of the same challenges orwins that you have?
Chris Schad (18:05):
There are some groups out there.
We have Collider Foundationhere in town.
I plug into them now and again,not as much as I'd like to,
mainly because of function of mytime.
There's a group called Renewingthe Countryside that hosts the
feast event here at the MayoCivic Center later here in
November.
They've got a network of foodentrepreneurs that I'm able to
(18:25):
plug into.
They're super supportive ofpeople that are doing the kind
of thing that I'm doing.
There are other network groupsthat I'm frankly I'd like to
plug into but I'm not able to,mainly because of the dual
nature of my life, which is dayjob, side hustle.
It doesn't leave a lot ofmargin for plugging into those
groups, so I tend to focus onthe renewing, the countryside
(18:49):
people that are supporting thatfeast event.
That's probably the biggestgroup that I plug into.
Bill Von Bank (18:53):
What's the future look like for the B-Shed?
Chris Schad (18:56):
Good question.
I think you might get adifferent answer from my wife,
sandy, than you would get fromme.
But continue to grow it.
I've been in the workforce fora long time.
I've got far less time in frontof me than I have behind me in
terms of full-time employment.
I don't know when that happens,but the transition into
(19:17):
quote-unquote retirement will berunning the business.
I'll have an opportunity toplug into some of these other
organizations.
I'll have an opportunity togrow the business.
Ultimately, I'll exit thebusiness and I have no intention
of just dissolving it.
I want to build it to a pointwhere somebody wants to acquire
it, and so my exit will looksomething like that.
(19:37):
But that's quite a few yearsdown the road.
Bill Von Bank (19:40):
Chris Schad, you've done a great job with the
business.
I can attest to that as acustomer.
It's a sweet topic, of course,sweet in your mind for sure, and
we really appreciate you beingour guest on the Growing
Destinations podcast.
Chris Schad (19:51):
Thank you, Bill, great to be here.
Thank you.
Bill Von Bank (19:53):
Thank you for tuning in to the Growing
Destinations podcast and don'tforget to subscribe.
This podcast is brought to youby Experience Rochester.
Find out more about RochesterMinnesota and its growing arts
and culture scene.
Its
The Growing Destinations podcast is brought
to you by Experience Rochester.
Learn more about Minnesota'sthird largest city, which is
home to Mayo Clinic and featureswonderful recreational and
entertainment opportunities, byvisiting
experiencerochestermncom.
Chris Schad (00:16):
Most people.
If you sat down and looked atwhat you ate throughout the
course of the day and took whatis there because of pollinators,
you'd be missing a lot of food,and so the work that we do to
support honeybees is also aimedtowards helping all of the
native pollinators that are outthere.
Bill Von Bank (00:34):
Welcome to the Growing Destinations podcast,
where we take a deep dive intodestination development and
focus on a wide range of topicsfrom tourism and entertainment
to economic development andentrepreneurism and much more.
I'm your host, bill Von Bank.
Today, we delve into the worldof beekeeping, conservation and
(00:55):
sustainable entrepreneurshipwith a very special guest, chris
Schad.
Chris is the founder and ownerof Rochester, minnesota-based
the Bee Shed, where his passionfor bees, science and the
environment come together tomake a meaningful impact.
Chris Schad, welcome to theGrowing Destinations podcast.
Thank you, bill.
It's great to be here.
Chris, before we take a deepdive into the beehive, share
(01:17):
with us your background andcareer journey.
Chris Schad (01:20):
So, first of all, I resist the urge to use too many
puns, because it tends tohappen in the world that I live
in.
Bill Von Bank (01:26):
You can have at least three here, three puns.
Chris Schad (01:29):
We have a pun jar at home Every time I use a bee
pun, I have to put a dollar inthe jar.
I started my career at MayoClinic working in genetic
laboratories doing a lot oflaboratory testing, worked my
way through a variety ofleadership roles over the years
that transitioned into someadministrative roles in the
research world of Mayo Clinicand ultimately led me to the
(01:50):
work that I'm doing now, whichis more outside of Mayo Clinic
around business and economicdevelopment activities.
As a biologist, by training, myfavorite place is to be outside
and my career hasn't given me alot of opportunities to be out
in the natural world.
So when we got into the prairierestoration and we got into the
beekeeping, it sort of broughtme back to where I really wanted
(02:11):
to be ultimately.
Bill Von Bank (02:13):
So a side hustle, a business called the Bee Shed.
Tell us more about that.
I took up beekeeping.
Chris Schad (02:19):
Gee, what was that?
Probably 12, 13 years ago now.
It was sort of on a lark.
We had some friends that weretaking care of some bees.
They said this is something youshould try.
I put it off for a couple ofyears, took a class, put it off
for another year or so andfinally jumped in with a couple
of colonies of bees in ourbackyard and I was smitten from
the beginning.
(02:39):
It was a lot of fun.
We had done some prairierestoration on our property.
Bill Von Bank (02:51):
A couple of years before that, with an aim of
supporting pollinators, and Ithought, well, what better way
to sort of go to the next stepand keep some bees here?
You keep bees, but also youcreate honey and you go to
market with that.
So walk us through that journey.
Chris Schad (02:59):
You know, I had the bees for a couple of years.
Since I was young, I'd alwayswanted to own a business and run
a business.
I had no idea what to do.
We launched the businessprobably within two years of
keeping the bees.
I had no idea what I was doingkeeping the bees.
I was still learning the trade,if you will, or the craft of
keeping bees.
So I opened a business and Ihad no idea what I was doing
(03:20):
running a business as well, butthat process was fascinating to
me.
You know, when we're keepingbees, some people are keeping
bees because they just want theenjoyment of the activity.
Some are doing it to produce alittle bit of honey for their
own use.
That's how I started, butultimately I wanted to turn it
into a business.
That process, though.
There's a lot of steps alongthe way just to get the product
(03:40):
before you even take it to astore or take it to your kitchen
table, the bees are going outpollinating flowers and they're
bringing nectar back to the hive.
Nectar is a mixture of waterand sugar, if you will, and it's
got a lot of chemicals in therethat are from the plant, and
the bees are turning that honeyinto honey from the nectar and
(04:01):
ultimately it gets dried down toa point where it can be stored
indefinitely in the hive andthat's what we take.
So they produce far more thanthey need.
We take the extra and weharvest that every year and
ultimately we put it intobottles and take it out to
stores.
Bill Von Bank (04:17):
Chris, when you started the bee shed, did you
realize that you wanted toultimately start selling honey?
Chris Schad (04:22):
Yeah, eventually, I knew I wanted to do that.
That was always one of thegoals.
Ultimately, I didn't think itwould get to the size that it is
now.
It was going to be a smallhobby business, if you will, and
in fact, the original businessmy original business partner, ed
, was a woodworker and abeekeeper and he was making
(04:44):
beekeeping equipment and theoriginal idea, or his original
idea, was we're going to makeequipment and sell it to
beekeepers.
My original idea going into itwas that's great, but it's a
small market.
Let's also produce honey andsell honey, and so we started
out doing both and it wasn'tvery long before we stopped
making the equipment and focusedon the honey production.
Bill Von Bank (05:03):
Fast forward to today, right, and tell us how
your business has grown andwhere people can actually find
your honey the business hasgrown significantly, I would say
until 2020.
Chris Schad (05:17):
I did not treat the business as seriously as I
could have up until 2019, reallyIn 2019, not knowing that COVID
was coming.
We had made a decision that wewere going to get really serious
about the business in 2019.
So we sort of floated along ordrifted along up until 2019.
We had the idea in 2019 then tocome up with these specialty
(05:37):
seasonal honey products that weultimately now have, where we
take the honey off the beesevery month rather than at the
end of the summer, and so we getdifferent even though the bees
are in one place, they don'tmove, but different things are
blooming throughout thesummertime, and so we get
different kinds of honey monthby month, and that's become our
specialty niche sort of thing.
We figured that out in 2019that we could do that Entering
(06:00):
into 2020, we started arebranding process, redid the
website, redid our sort ofmental energy towards the
business.
When I say we, I mean mybusiness partner at the time,
john Shanyo, and reallyrededicated to building the
business significantly.
So we started experiencinggrowth even in spite of all of
the pandemic-related stressorsthat we were going through.
(06:23):
Beekeeping lends itselfnaturally to social distancing.
People don't really want tohang out with me when I'm with
the bees so I could get out inthe yards and I wasn't didn't
really slow down from thatperspective.
And since then the business hasreally taken off.
We sort of hit some milestonesin 21 and 22.
And then in 23, we we alwayswanted to break into the Twin
Cities market.
(06:44):
We're, we're, we've done adecent job of getting some brand
recognition here in Rochesterand this will always be our home
base.
But we wanted to get into theTwin Cities market and we
managed to do that.
We're now in all of theKowalski stores up in the Twin
Cities and that was kind of thestart of breaking more into the
Twin Cities market.
And now we have 71 differentretail partners throughout the
(07:08):
state of Minnesota and we'reshipping product all over the
country every week.
So it's been really fun towatch it evolve and grow.
It's been a lot of work, somesleepless nights now and then.
Bill Von Bank (07:18):
I know, when I first experienced your honey,
you were, I think, at a farmer'smarket or some pop-up, and is
that still part of the businessplan?
Chris Schad (07:25):
It is, although eventually we want to get to the
point where we do less of thatright, because it's very time
intensive, it's very laborintensive.
You get a better margin on yourproduct.
But we tend to look at thoseevents Many people who are
having a side hustle businessthey look at those events as a
way to how much money do I makeat that event?
(07:45):
We look at it through that lens, but we also look at those
events through two other lensevent.
We look at it through that lens, but we also look at those
events through two other lens.
Second one is what kind of brandexposure and market exposure
are we getting for our product?
How many people are we going tobe able to see when we are
there?
And then the third one is howmany business opportunities are
going to come out of that event?
So if the sales aren't greatbut I can pick up a couple of
(08:07):
new stores because they happento stop by the booth, or I pick
up a new staffer in the TwinCities because she happened to
be in the booth next door,that's a great place for us to
be.
If I get in front of 15,000people but I don't sell a lot of
product.
I still got in front of 15,000people and I learned a lot from
talking with those people.
So the goal, ultimately, isalways to do fewer events and be
(08:33):
on more stores and more ways toreach more people with less
effort.
Bill Von Bank (08:34):
Tell us about the evolution of your products,
because I was at an event andpurchased some of your hot honey
as well as some candles.
So you've obviously expandedyour product line.
Chris Schad (08:46):
Yeah, we started out with the kind of honey that
everybody produces.
We call it all summer longhoney, right, the bees fill up
boxes, you stack on boxesthroughout the summer and you
harvest it at the end of theyear.
As I mentioned earlier, we dothis, this thing now with our
bees.
It's a lot more work, but we'repulling honey off every month,
so we have honey from May andJune and August and September.
(09:06):
We then added buckwheat honey,so we move our bees to an
acreage of organic buckwheat andwe get buckwheat honey off of
that super rich, bold flavor.
Beekeepers don't tend to like it.
I don't know why, but I lovethe flavor and it's our best
seller.
Then this hot honey became athing and we had people asking
(09:29):
us hey, could you make a hothoney?
So we spent a decent amount oftime diving into the best way to
make honey.
We've tasted a lot of it.
A lot of it is sweet and hot,but not necessarily honey and
hot.
So we really worked hard onthat recipe.
I think we found a good balance.
We worked with a localRochester branding firm,
neighborly Group.
Shout out to the NeighborlyGroup.
They did all of our brandingand they did a great job on the
(09:51):
branding for the hot honey.
We call it hot shed honey andthat is really starting to get
some traction.
That product is starting to getsome traction.
Now.
The candles will always beprobably a small part of the
business.
Beeswax processing is prettyfussy.
Bill Von Bank (10:08):
I'd rather sell the bulk wax to someone else and
let them make the candles.
At this point, Chris, I'mcurious in the wintertime, what
do you do with your bees Most?
Chris Schad (10:13):
beekeepers most hobby beekeepers keep their bees
around here in the wintertime.
They're perfectly suited tomake it through a Minnesota
winter.
They collect enough honey.
They're able to make it throughthe winter.
They don't die because it's toocold.
They have plenty of food.
They'll make it through winter.
We cold, they have plenty offood.
They'll make it through winter.
We have chosen to do somethingdifferent with our bees and we
(10:33):
ship our bees out.
So we only have, you know, 100to 150 colonies of bees.
That sounds like a lot, butfrom a commercial beekeeper
perspective that's pretty tiny.
Commercial beekeepers arerunning 15 to 50,000 colonies of
bees and they're hauling theirbees someplace warm for the
winter.
Many of them head out toCalifornia and that's what we do
(10:54):
.
So we take our bees, we putthem on a flatbed truck, we haul
them over to a commercialbeekeeper over in Wisconsin
who's taking 15,000 colonies ofbees out in the fall to
California Central Valley to doalmond pollination.
So that's 30 flatbed semi-loadsthat he's taking out and I've
got a tiny drop of bees in hisocean of bees that he's taking
(11:17):
out there.
So they will spend October,november, december into early
January just sort of hanging outin the Central Valley getting a
tan not doing any work, takinga break, and then in January
they get moved out into thealmond groves.
roughly 70 75 percent of all ofthe bees in the us are in
california for almondpollination wow, that's
(11:39):
fascinating, it's it's anenormous industry, absolutely
enormous industry, and it'sprobably saved the commercial
beekeeping industry because theprice of honey has not risen
nearly with the cost ofproducing honey.
But they make it work, the bigcommercial operations they make
it work with the pollinationfees that they're getting from
the almond industry.
(12:00):
So they spend January, february,march into early April out in
California.
They come back here in earlyApril, I pick them up and we
start the whole thing over againnext April.
Bill Von Bank (12:09):
As a science guy, how does your background as a
biologist and Minnesota masternaturalist shape the way you
manage bees at the bee shed?
Chris Schad (12:17):
Oh, absolutely.
In a lot of ways.
That's the inspiration for, forexample, the different kinds of
honey that we have, the reason,I know, we get different kinds
of honey throughout thesummertime is that.
I know what's going on in thenatural world.
I know the bloom cycles, I knowyou know from the prairie
restoration that we've done,just understanding what's going
on out there in the naturalworld, these pulses of nectar
(12:39):
that happen when new things areblooming.
So my biology background, mymaster naturalist background,
sort of plays into that andmonitoring the health of the
hive.
It's understanding what's goingon inside the hive but it's
also understanding what's goingon outside in the natural world
around them.
The bees need a lot of pollenin order to produce new bees,
(13:00):
young bees, if you will and ifwe have an extended period of
time of rain and the bees can'tget out and fly a lot, they're
not going to be bringing muchpollen in it.
So we're going to have tosupplement with some pollen that
we put in the hive ourselves inorder to keep the colony
growing.
Well, if you're not tuned intowhat's going on in the natural
world around where the hives are, you're not going to notice
(13:21):
those sorts of things.
Bill Von Bank (13:22):
And the overall importance of bees are really
important to the naturalenvironment.
Chris Schad (13:34):
They are.
There are some estimates thatas much as 30% of our food comes
from pollinators, and not justthe European honeybees that we
are curating or managing, if youwill, but all of the native
pollinators that are out there,the bumblebees and all the other
bees and, frankly, wasps toothat most people don't think of
as pollinators.
They're all important, I thinkmost people.
If you sat down and looked atwhat you ate throughout the
course of the day and took whatis there because of pollinators,
you'd be missing a lot of food,and so the work that we do to
(13:57):
support honeybees is also aimedtowards helping all of the
native pollinators that are outthere.
So prairie restoration,reduction of pesticides and
fungicides and herbicides outthere that helps our honeybees,
but it also helps all of theother native pollinators.
Bill Von Bank (14:15):
What have been some of the biggest challenges
you've encountered as anentrepreneur in the beekeeping
world?
Chris Schad (14:20):
The first challenge was learning the craft of my
business of being a beekeeper.
That has been a real challenge.
I think the other one, but froma business perspective I really
didn't.
I'd worked in retail stores butI didn't really have an
understanding of what wasimportant to them.
I'm good with Excel, but I'mnot great on the finance and
budgeting side of things, sothat's a skill set that I had to
(14:42):
learn.
I'm a fairly creative problemsolver and that's to my benefit
in terms of figuring out how tomake things work that otherwise
weren't working, how to brandand advertise and market things.
It works well for me, butcertain logistics are beyond me.
I'm no good at fixing stuff.
If a machine breaks down, Ican't fix it myself.
(15:06):
So I spend more money ongetting stuff fixed because I
can't do it myself.
Bill Von Bank (15:11):
Little things like that.
How do you balance your lovefor teaching about bees and
prairie restoration with thedemands of entrepreneurship?
Chris Schad (15:18):
I wish I could do more of that.
I find that teaching part of ita lot of fun.
It's energizing to me.
I'm a member of the Universityof Minnesota Bee Squad and I was
running a mentoring apiary forthe University of Minnesota down
here for a couple of years.
I really enjoyed that.
It became a function of timemore than anything else, that I
(15:39):
didn't have time to do thatbetween my day job and the
business and I wish I could domore of that and I find it very
rewarding.
Bill Von Bank (15:47):
How does the Bee Shed contribute to the broader
conversation about environmentalstewardship and conservation?
Chris Schad (15:53):
We have a platform.
I know that's a that's a termthat's probably overused a bit,
but we've got people that followus and so when we can get
messages out, we can use that toget the message out about why
it's important to reduce youruse of herbicides Now herbicides
that only kills weeds andgrasses.
Why would we care about that?
Well, it's still a chemicalthat ends up on a flower, that
(16:14):
ends up being brought back intothe hive and it still impacts
the health of the bees.
So we can advocate and we canuse our voice and we can use our
followers on social media tosay this is really important and
this is why it should matter toyou.
That's probably the biggest way.
I think that we can use ourvoice.
Bill Von Bank (16:31):
What advice would you give to someone who is
passionate about nature andsustainability but unsure how to
turn that into a viablebusiness?
Because you've done it.
Chris Schad (16:44):
Yeah, I think it requires some creative thinking,
because you have to.
It has to be something turningit into a business.
It has to be something that youwant to do, even when you don't
want to do it right.
Like sometimes turning a hobbyinto a business can can kill
your passion for the hobby, andin my case it certainly hasn't,
(17:05):
and I wish I could spend moretime on the beekeeping side of
it and less time on the business.
But you have to be a creativethinker in order to find ways to
turn a passion for conservationand a passion for the natural
world into businessopportunities or advocacy
opportunities, like I see whatsome people are doing, for
example, with the DriftlessTrail.
(17:28):
Right, it's an analog to theSuperior Hiking Trail and
there's a group of people thathave taken this passion for
outdoors and hiking and they'returning it into developing the
Driftless Trail here insoutheastern Minnesota.
That's some creative ways totake a passion for the outdoors
and turn it into a thing thatthey are advocating for it's
(17:49):
often said that being anentrepreneur can be lonely.
Bill Von Bank (17:52):
Do you have networking groups or
collaborations that you're partof to kind of keep you energized
and know that there are otherpeople out there maybe facing
some of the same challenges orwins that you have?
Chris Schad (18:05):
There are some groups out there.
We have Collider Foundationhere in town.
I plug into them now and again,not as much as I'd like to,
mainly because of function of mytime.
There's a group called Renewingthe Countryside that hosts the
feast event here at the MayoCivic Center later here in
November.
They've got a network of foodentrepreneurs that I'm able to
(18:25):
plug into.
They're super supportive ofpeople that are doing the kind
of thing that I'm doing.
There are other network groupsthat I'm frankly I'd like to
plug into but I'm not able to,mainly because of the dual
nature of my life, which is dayjob, side hustle.
It doesn't leave a lot ofmargin for plugging into those
groups, so I tend to focus onthe renewing, the countryside
(18:49):
people that are supporting thatfeast event.
That's probably the biggestgroup that I plug into.
Bill Von Bank (18:53):
What's the future look like for the B-Shed?
Chris Schad (18:56):
Good question.
I think you might get adifferent answer from my wife,
sandy, than you would get fromme.
But continue to grow it.
I've been in the workforce fora long time.
I've got far less time in frontof me than I have behind me in
terms of full-time employment.
I don't know when that happens,but the transition into
(19:17):
quote-unquote retirement will berunning the business.
I'll have an opportunity toplug into some of these other
organizations.
I'll have an opportunity togrow the business.
Ultimately, I'll exit thebusiness and I have no intention
of just dissolving it.
I want to build it to a pointwhere somebody wants to acquire
it, and so my exit will looksomething like that.
(19:37):
But that's quite a few yearsdown the road.
Bill Von Bank (19:40):
Chris Schad, you've done a great job with the
business.
I can attest to that as acustomer.
It's a sweet topic, of course,sweet in your mind for sure, and
we really appreciate you beingour guest on the Growing
Destinations podcast.
Chris Schad (19:51):
Thank you, Bill, great to be here.
Thank you.
Bill Von Bank (19:53):
Thank you for tuning in to the Growing
Destinations podcast and don'tforget to subscribe.
This podcast is brought to youby Experience Rochester.
Find out more about RochesterMinnesota and its growing arts
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