Crown Bees are people with a passion for bees and pollination who care about environmentally conscious products and practices. In 1994, Dave Hunter, the Founder of Crown Bees, and his wife noticed that their neighbours’ apple trees had way more apples than the ones growing in their own yard. Dave, being a “why” person, needed to know more. After talking with their neighbour, he learned the secret of his success were mason bees. The following year, he experimented with a backyard bee garden of his own and watched their apple trees flourish! Years later, his passion took over, and he decided that he had to find a way to help these amazing pollinators thrive. So, he converted their garage into a work space and in 2008 Crown Bees was born. Over the years, they’ve outgrown the garage. And, while we’re still a small company, they’ve had a big impact. Through collaborations with researchers, peers, and community groups, they have set the standard for best practices in solitary bee raising and have helped thousands of people across the United States and Canada grow fresh, healthy food. That desire to know “why” still drives Crown Bees. It’s what keeps them informed on current challenges facing bee populations and brings them together to find sustainable solutions. Crown Bees helps create vibrant communities of bee raisers by providing healthy hole-nesting bees and bee raising supplies, along with quality support and educational programs to farmers and backyard gardeners. Crown Bees places huge emphasis on putting Bee’s Health First Their criteria for safe and healthy bee’s rests on meticulous harvesting techniques to remove pests and pollutants, educating their bee raisers on research-based best practices, bee-safe products, and sorting their cocoons by ecoregions to give the bees a better chance of survival when they emerge in the spring. They are continuously updating their business practices to be more environmentally responsible and look to nature first for inspiration. They are committed to being transparent about their sustainability goals and progress towards their targets. They work and partner with beekeepers, landowners, researchers, K-12 schools, universities, non-profits, and government agencies to stay informed on the current challenges facing bee populations and to bring together the best practices for solving those challenges They sell mason bees for spring pollination and leafcutter bees for summer pollination. Their processes and product designs are driven by research and community partnerships to ensure they are bee-safe and sustainability-focused. Solitary bees, while they don’t make honey, are expert pollinators! These gentle bees are known to improve pollination efficiency and increase fruit set (the process in which a flower becomes a fruit) by twice that facilitated by honey bees! Their goal is to help people help bees. Through educational and community programs, school resources, an evidence-based online knowledge base, newsletters and blogs, and their self-service support centre, they aim to help people address food insecurity, sustainability, and solitary bee conservation.