OUR STORY
It’s always a winding road, explaining how you get to where you are. The same is true for NectarShare. Allison Wickham, founder of NectarShare, grew up in Virginia and attended James Madison University. She had never been a beekeeper but was passionate about the outdoors and the environment. You know the “grace period” of one year after you graduate college before you have to start paying student loans back? Yeah… she took full advantage of that.
Allison left for Hawaii shortly after graduation. Why? The better question is Why not!?
Allison got a job on a diversified tropical farm called Paradise Meadows that produces coffee, macadamia nuts, fruits, and honey! You can visit the farm stand when visiting the Big Island of Hawaii.
Beekeeping was all in a day’s work at Paradise Meadows, so Allison learned the basics of beekeeping there. She was buzzing with passion for the hive.
After leaving the farm, Allison never stopped beekeeping as a pastime. In the back of her mind she wondered if she could make a living doing it…
Allison continued her education in environmental studies and agriculture, gaining professional and academic experience in soil and crop management, all the while beekeeping. But something just wasn’t right. Every job seemed like a poor fit.
The COVID-19 pandemic, while tragic and devastating, changed the definition of “career” and presented many with the perspective shift and opportunity necessary to make a change. Allison started Siller Pollinator Company and started beekeeping full time in April of 2020.
While promoting her business at a holiday fair, she raffled a beehive off at a fundraising event for Green Dogs Unleashed - a local dog rescue. The winner of the hive donated the hive to Green Dogs! Siller Pollinator Company was really excited to place the hive at Green Dogs. But Green Dogs had a small problem - there was no budget to pay Allison to help take care of the beehive.
Allison noticed Green Dogs had a huge online following, and an idea was born.
Allison and Green Dogs asked the Green Dogs community to financially support the hive, $50 at a time, and the NectarShare program was born.
The NectarShare concept: Allison and the rest of the NectarShare Crew (a growing staff of beekeepers) will care for the beehives at Green Dogs Unleashed free of charge. People from all over the world will support the hives for a small contribution. In exchange, NectarShare will send them honey and regular updates on the hive.
But don’t forget Allison’s background in agriculture and land management.
We know this will be shocking to hear, but keeping happy, healthy beehives is not the most important way to “save the bees”. Honey bees are just one of thousands of bee species in the US, and they all need support. They are all in trouble due to habitat loss, pesticide use, and globalization of disease and pests.
Allison knew that hands-down, unequivocally, the best thing you can do to support pollinators is to plant flowers.
We started including wildflower seeds in our NectarShare packages to encourage people to plant wildflower seeds in their yards or communities. Wildflowers will feed hundreds of types of pollinators and provide nesting habitat so they can make more pollinators. Kill your lawn and plant flowers!
We gained years of experience learning how to care for our pollinators friends, and started sending regional seed mixes appropriate to the shipping zip codes of our customers as our customer list expanded.
The wildflowers create a beautiful mosaic of environmentally friendly habitat. Siller Pollinator Company has become a regional expert in the installation and care of these wildflower meadows.
The program was a hit at Green Dogs. And other nonprofits heard the word. We started expanding our marketing, expanding our partner list, and adding more hives in our community.
We now have dozens of hives in several nonprofit locations. We have hundreds of happy customers who purchased NectarShare as a gift or for themselves. NectarShare also makes a great corporate gift for your club, company, or organization. Through NectarShare and Siller Pollinator Company we have planted over a hundred acres of wildflowers for pollinators. Our growing list of happy customers can take comfort in knowing they are supporting their environment, their community, pollinators, and a small woman-owned business with a mission to do the right thing.
We love sending out the monthly updates on the hive and providing further education to our customers through our PollenBlog.