Bee Regenerative

Bee Regenerative is a “Bee Girl” co-brand, while our founder, Sarah Red-Laird (aka Bee Girl), is still the lead worker bee, beekeeper, and educator — the scope of work began to amplify in 2018 into regenerative agriculture, native bee conservation, and wildlife coexistence.

Last year we hired Ginelle as co-director, who is holding it down in Oregon, while Sarah buzzes about in the field. Ginelle Dekker is in charge of operations, development, and fundraising. Tara Laidlaw is a long-time collaborator who helps us with all-things educational content. We’ve brought on Skyler Burrows who will provide solid taxonomic data that will identify the bee communities Sarah is monitoring. We’re also thrilled to work with Dr. Autumn Smart who will help us make it all make sense with her data analysis and visualization skills.

Our staff and contractors work shoulder-to-shoulder with ranchers and wine makers, universities, government entities, policy makers, and partner nonprofits to understand and address issues in agriculture that affect bees, and to create collaborative win-win solutions for bees and producers.

Bee Regenerative’s mission is to create a world where bees enrich our working landscapes and our lives.

We envision a future filled with the vibrant hum of biodiverse working landscapes, bursting with healthy bees, coexisting with livestock and wildlife, and where agricultural producers work in harmony with nature to provide for our communities.

We Value:

Conservation: We practice a mindset that natural resources are finite and must be treated as such.  Advocating for the proper management of natural resources on working lands to ensure life giving nutrition and shelter for bees today and two hundred years into the future is one aspect of a conservation mindset.  Another is ensuring our day-to-day business is conducted in a way that supports the conservation of our natural resources through minimizing consumption and waste of soil, water, forests, fossil fuels, food, and fiber.

Regeneration: We uplift and support producers who use agricultural practices to improve the landscape instead of degrading it.  A working landscape undergoing regeneration boasts a diversity of multiple species of insects, plants, and mammals, has water infiltration and holding capacity, and cycles and stores carbon.  We also highly value the regeneration of human hearts, minds, and communities by advocating for more heartbeats per acre in our working lands.  

Complexity: We recognize the complexity of nature.  We embrace the fact that sometimes we can’t make sense of what happens in the landscapes we work on.  We accept that not all problems are the same, and not all solutions are the same.  Though nature is resilient, and recovery and regeneration is possible, ecological scales may not always be linear and may take years or decades.  We choose delight, not frustration, when presented with the opportunity to learn from (and educate with) the lessons presented by natural complexity. 

Resilience: We acknowledge and accept the multitude of adverse conditions that arise by the nature of working for a nonprofit organization and working on agricultural and natural landscapes that are in constant flux, made more dramatic by the effects of climate change.  We are committed to maintaining flexibility in the administration of our programs and patience and grace in our human relationships. We emphasize a positive culture and support the mental health of our team and those we work with.  Despite mounting challenges, we seek delight in our work – every day.  Observing a honey bee return to the hive, a swollen golden globe, nearly transparent in the glinting, setting sun.  Vibrating with the hum of a meadow, as the flowers are protected from grazing until the bees have had their fill of nectar and pollen.  Watching the gleeful face of a child when you tell them honey bees must collect nectar from two million blossoms to make one pound of honey.  Feeling the thump of a low bison rumble as a summer long-horned bee dozes off in a small, native sunflower.  These are our delights, creating resilience.   

Affection: Our connections with the individuals we work in collaboration with (to build bee habitats, raise funds, organize events, etc.) must be based on genuine authenticity and a mutual admiration for each other’s vision for how we want to heal our relationship with the earth.  Our human relationships deepen and thrive when infused with trust, humor, and generosity.  We also hold a deep love and reverence for our bees, and all they do.  Feeding people through pollination and facilitating biodiversity above and below the soil through playing the key role in plant reproduction.

To learn more about each of our programs, click here.

Bee Regenerative is an IRS designated 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, to support this work, click here.