By Beth Conrey
On Nov. 27, we celebrate Small Business Saturday, a time when shoppers are encouraged to patronize small businesses to do their holiday shopping. Despite being “small,” many of these local businesses work hard to improve the quality of our communities and make up the backbone of our economies.
Today, Colorado is home to more than 653,000 small businesses, accounting for roughly 99.5% of all statewide businesses. As a small business owner myself, I recognize the value in supporting small businesses and encourage Coloradans to make contributions to our small business community both today, and all year long.
My journey as an entrepreneur began 20 years ago when my fascination with insects grew into a small business. I opened Bee Squared Apiaries, a beekeeping business that has grown from two bee colonies to more than 125 hives today and spread throughout Colorado’s Front Range. Not only does my company maintain bee colonies, but we also sell locally sourced honey, handmade beeswax candles and other bee products.
Colorado is currently home to a great amount of bee diversity, but the bees need our help. More than a third of the world’s food crops rely on bees and other pollinators, but their populations are dwindling rapidly. That’s why we’re proud at Bee Squared Apiaries to support thriving colonies and use our profits to continue working on pollinator issues. After all, without bees, we wouldn’t have our world famous Colorado Rocky Ford melons.
We’re incredibly thankful to Coloradans for supporting our efforts to save the bees. We’ve seen great support from customers statewide on our social media pages, and have been able to grow our online community on Facebook to people who share our conservation mission. We also recently launched a Facebook “Shop” so customers can purchase our products directly on social media, and we’re excited for it to become a major tool in our growth as a business and expansion of our mission.
Like many small businesses, we face a new set of challenges during COVID-19 including supply chain disruption and soaring prices for inputs. It hasn’t been easy, but we’ve been able to continue operating in large part due to the support we’ve received from the local community.
During Small Business Saturday, we encourage people to take a walk down Main Street and get to know their local small businesses and the great impact they can make for the local community. And, if you can’t make it in the doors, supporting local businesses online through follows, shares, reviews and more is a great way to make a difference right from home.
Beth Conrey is the owner of and founder of Bee Squared Apiaries, located in Berthoud. To learn more, visit its website, bethsbees.com, for information on protecting pollinators.