West Virginia Executive Spring/Summer 2020 | Page 52

Blue Ridge Bee Company
BY CATHY BONNSTETTER.
Novice beekeeper Will Lambert
studied for nearly a year before
purchasing his first bee colony.
When his long-awaited bees
became infected with Varroa
destructor mites, a devastating
parasite, he needed a treatment.
After finding only expensive
chemicals to fix the problem,
he decided to create his own
solution. He ended up not only
curing his bees but launching
a business, Blue Ridge Bee
Photo by Blue Ridge Bee Company.
Company, that he owns with
his wife, Emily.
“I scoured the internet and kept running across oxalic acid
vaporization as a treatment,” says Will. “Oxalic acid is found
in plants like rhubarb and is what makes dark chocolate bitter.
This sounded like a better option.”
Determined to solve his problem economically, Will designed
his own vaporizer and built it with some pro-bono help from
a local trade school and a high school friend.
“After working out a few bugs, it worked like a dream,” he
says. “It crossed my mind that I should put it on eBay. Within
a week, I had sold a dozen.”
Encouraged by the
success, Will put his
vaporizer on other platforms
and created a website.
Since 2014, he has sold
about 4,000 and shipped to
every state in the U.S. as well as
several countries around the
world, including Australia,
Canada, England and
Ireland. Will and Emily
have since expanded their
offerings to include everything
a hobbyist needs,
including the bees.
“Beekeepers want reliable products that are built in the U.S.
that they can depend on year after year and that do not cost
an arm and a leg,” says Will. “Having platforms like Etsy and
Amazon has allowed us to reach people we would otherwise
not have been able to serve.”
The couple has also added a brick and mortar shop on
Mercer Street in Princeton, WV, that sells beekeeping equipment,
bees, honey from all over the world, produce, local meat
and ice cream.
“We are happy to provide a place not only for local, regional,
domestic and even international beekeepers to find what they
need to sustain their hobby, but we also have a very nice business
that our local community can enjoy and be proud of,” says Will.
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WEST VIRGINIA EXECUTIVE