Meet Candace Vanderhoff of SoloBee in Lemon Grove

Today we’d like to introduce you to Candace Vanderhoff.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
In my early thirties, after spending my twenties working in construction-related fields and economic development, I decided to do something I had always wanted to do. I sold everything, packed up my Jetta and moved from Detroit to LA for a five-week summer program in architecture. The program, Making and Meaning, was at SCI-Arc, which I discovered was one of the best architecture schools in the country. Honestly, if I had known architecture was a white male, elitist profession, I would have never had the courage to apply, but luckily, my life in Michigan kept me a bit sheltered and naïve. I’ve learned that one of the best ways to approach your dream is with more passion and fewer details. The summer program was filled with the magic and mystery of shadow and light, examining the built environments, fabricating wood models and sketching with our face to the wall and pencils taped to our fingers. The training was everything I could have hoped for, so I applied to the graduate school there.

After two years, the politics of academia wore on me, so I decided to either quit or take a break. That week, a professor had seen a flyer posted at school and gave it to me. It was an ad to teach architecture at a Jesuit boy’s trade school in Micronesia. Coincidentally, I had just bought a book on the indigenous stone platforms in Micronesia that were a few miles from the trade school. I interpreted this as divine intervention and I applied for the job. In four months I was in my new louvered window classroom, enjoying daily downpours, and teaching the required Junior Architecture curriculum. I taught my students how to design a concrete block house with a tin roof, which many boys planned on building on their summer break. But, the fact was, many students came from small islands where the majority of the village families lived in indigenous structures made of coconut post with a pandanas thatch roofs. The building I was teaching them to create would destroy the social fabric of the community because the new modern building would elevate these young men above the local chief, a common problem when new technology or systems are introduced to indigenous cultures.

After two years of island hopping, teaching and working, I returned to LA, completed my degree and moved to San Diego to work at the only green architecture firm I could find. I became an expert on green building materials and methods. This lead to working with alternative building materials, strawbale, cob, papercrete, earthbag and bamboo. I also developed and taught a curriculum to 200 children on how to restore a two-acre estuary site, another program on sustainable village design, and I also lead 20 women in a workshop to build an earthen poetry bench in a public park and many more programs and projects. Then, in the worst economic crisis of my lifetime and one of our many droughts, I founded a water conservation business, RainThanks & Greywater, where we installed hundreds of rain tanks and greywater systems. Then, in 2015, while in a business accelerator program, I founded SoloBee.

Creating native bee shelters at SoloBee brought together my passion for design, nature, entrepreneurship, and activism. While living on the tiny atolls of Micronesia, I experienced first hand the rising tides and sinking villages. I saw the high tide flood a water well, a taro patch get washed away and an all-day fishing trip a bust, because the sea is overfished by foreign ships with 30-mile long fishing lines with 12,000 hooks, that sweeps up all the fish.

When I left the islands and returned to the US, I promised myself that I would only work for the good of the earth and to honor my island friends. Today I run my small businesses, with one employee and myself, have made over 1,600 bee shelters that we number and mark on our world map. We have been blessed with two incredible partnerships. Taylor Guitars donates their salvaged mahogany to us, and last year, Kashi added our story to the back of the strawberry snack bar box. I have also written to Oprah hoping to be on the O-List, so if anyone knows Oprah, please have her call us. We have a high-end bee shelter for her beautiful garden.

With the current challenges to our environment there is only one direction we can take and one message I want to share, give your creativity and passion to the earth, you make a difference and the earth needs you. Pick an issue and take action.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Life as an entrepreneur is unbelievably challenging, rewarding, it favors the curious and driven. From a young age, I was a maker, sewing clothes and building tree forts, exploring the woods and later the world. I started traveling as soon as I could and saw it as my first step in making sense of the world, something I would use later when I settled down and founded my business. As it turns out, the skills of a traveler as similar to those of an entrepreneur: improvisation, openness, resourcefulness, and appreciation of culture. Those are my superpowers. However, bookkeeping, purchasing, running a CNC, computer numeric controlled machine and laser printer are not my highest skills, but in the world of entrepreneurship, if you want to launch a business the bad news is you have to do everything until you can hire it out. We are a bootstrap company, taking no outside investment, while I still do work that is challenging, I always make time for my first love, creating and improving products that restore nature.

Please tell us about SoloBee – what should we know?
Our mission is to restore nature and invite people outdoors. We do this by manufacturing beautiful bee shelters for the 20,000 species of solitary native bees that live alone, rarely sting, and pollinate most of our plants, especially food crops. They are 99% of all bee species. The female solitary bee spends her eight-week lifespan looking for a tunnel cavity where she can lay her 20-25 eggs. Once a tunnel is filled, she caps the door and dies. A year later new bees emerge to repeat the cycle. These bees are very gentle, completely the opposite of honeybees, which swarm, sting and make honey. Another alarming fact is that honeybees were imported from Europe in 1600, making them a non-native, invasive species in the US. The aggressive nature of honeybees means they are bullies to the native bees, often taking pollen from them while also contaminating them with mites. The tragedy of this is that solitary native bees are a keystone species; evolving over millennia in their home habitat to create the complicated ecosystem we have today. When a keystone species is removed, an ecosystem collapses. I find this alarming and that is why in addition to manufacturing products, I also offer public talks and a hands-on “Build a Bee Bungalow” workshop. To create a community, we showcase our SoloBeeKeepers on our international bee map, highlighting where people are helping bees. I also wrote, Zoe the SoloBee, a children’s book about the solitary berry bee species to teach our smallest advocates how to take steps to restore nature and address the climate crisis. The good news is anyone can set out a SoloBee shelter in any location. Native bees are everywhere, and they are looking for a home.

What are your plans for the future? What are you looking forward to or planning for, any big changes?
We are excited about our Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign “Shelter the Solo Bees” starting in October 2019. We will offer a beautiful new bee shelter that is sold as a DIY Kit or assembled and other accessories. As we expand, we will be offering more workshops in our woodshop, and I will continue speaking out for solo bees.

I am also writing a book about my strategy for life. Why I made travel a priority to learn and grow and how I lived a simple life to create freedom. The book should be out next year.

Pricing:

• Kickstarter Shelters and accessories. $69 to $ 99.
• SoloBee Native Bee Shelters $49-$169
• Make America Buzz Again T-shirt $20
• Workshop – Build a Bee Bungalow $65

Contact Info:

• Address: SoloBee Workshop
  7936 Lester Ave.
  Lemon Grove, CA 91945
• Website: www.solobee.com
• Phone: 619-807-9193
• Email: solobeeshelter@gmail.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/solobee_shelter/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/solobeeshelter/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/solobeeshelter
• Other: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/candacevanderhoff/shelter-the-solo-bees

Image Credit:
JjMorado; C.Vanderhoff

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