Service Matches Bees With Blossoms
HiveLend puts beekeepers together with farmers needing pollination services. An amateur beekeeper, Nick Zajciw got the idea for the online pollination service after struggling to find farmers to rent his hives. He and HiveLend co-founder Dawn Musil, who started keeping bees at the age of 14, say there’s a need for beekeepers as small as 50 hives.
“We offer a solution to beekeepers trying to break into pollination servicing, as well as those looking for new customers closer to home,” says Zajciw. “There are well known, existing markets for pollinators and often multi-generational relationships between beekeepers and farmers. We hope to create opportunities for those who don’t have those relationships.”
Zajciw expects increasing demand for hives and their services. He notes that a growing body of research demonstrates yield-increasing benefits of pollination in nontraditional crops and areas. While actively identifying farmers and beekeepers on the West Coast, HiveLend is also working in the Midwest and on the East Coast, where Zajciw is based.
“With our diverse platform in multiple areas, we are different from traditional beekeeper brokers,” says Zajciw. “Our online services will be useful in identifying opportunities for a beekeeper traveling across country with hives.”
HiveLend is designed to help facilitate contact between farmers and beekeepers, and also to streamline the paperwork process. Other goals include helping beekeepers find new markets for the byproducts of pollination.
Zajciw and Musil are working with beekeepers to develop an acceptable transaction fee for their services based on the crops being pollinated.
“We think we can help traditional pollination services and the farmers they service also,” says Zajciw. “We believe we can streamline their relationships with more of a paper trail than in the past. We can relieve stress on both ends.”
Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Nick Zajciw and Dawn Musil, HiveLend


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2020 - Volume #44, Issue #5