09 - Natalie Pereira

There's so much buzz around Episode 9 of Green Collar! We have a fun conversation with Natalie here about the importance of pollinators, recognition days like Bee Day and No Mow May, and even get some insight on how Natalie BEE-came an expert in her field! (Hint: it might be from watching a classic movie about bees). 

Connect with Natalie on LinkedIn. 

Resources:

1. The Bee Movie - available on Apple TV, YouTube TV, Google Play, and Amazon Video
2. National Bee Day
3. No Mow May

Transcript

[00:00:00] Kiersten: Hello. Hello everyone. We are here today with Natalie Pereira. She's a partnerships manager with a dynamic background spanning business development, advertising, and sustainability. Currently serving as an account executive at Alveole, Natalie helps drive impact through urban beekeeping by cultivating partnerships that support biodiversity and bring nature back to cities. At Alveole, she's not just growing accounts, she's growing ecosystems, helping organizations across the US and Canada take meaningful steps towards sustainability. Natalie is known for her strategic thinking, creative sales approach, and collaborative spirit. Her mission? To create buzz in the best way possible! Welcome Natalie.

[00:00:41] Natalie: Thank you! What a wonderful way to, to kick things off. It's so awesome to be here.

[00:00:45] Aparna: We are so excited that you're excited and it's great to see you again here, outside of the muggy DC summer that we saw you in last. So welcome to the podcast.

[00:00:53] Natalie: Thank you, and I'm here for all the bee puns, so let's see how we can fit more in.

[00:00:58] Aparna: We'll keep em going. This is music to our ears. To kick things off, Natalie we'd love it if you could tell us more about your previous roles and how you ended up where you are today.

[00:01:07] Natalie: Yeah, what a fun place to start because, where I previously came into and where I am now, I, uh, I don't really think there was a very conventional or traditional path into my current role today, which is working with bees and the urban environment and biodiversity. B ut I went to school and graduated with a degree in media and communications and my world, you know, post-education, really started off in non-sustainability roles that involved customer support and, you know, sales and a little bit of this, a little bit of that is, is kind of how, the best way I'd describe it.

Prior to where I'm currently work, for Alveole, I was specifically working for a small startup company that built business management software for music teachers and, when I mean that, that was like not at all where I expected to end up for work or I don't know, job, career stuff. I feel like everyone might have a moment, especially when you're fresh outta school and just trying to figure it out.

But it was an amazing place to, to build skills. You're really building muscles when it comes to communication, when you're talking on the phone to mom and pop music teachers and all that. It kind of led me into a place where when I was looking for my next role, which is  where I am now, I was looking to find and follow more of my curiosity necessarily than following a passion or following a traditional path, which is what I think led me to where I am now.

[00:02:39] Kiersten: We talked a little bit before listeners about how I think Aparna and I are both finding that a non-traditional path (and I'm making air quotes), is more of the traditional path to roles and sustainability. There's no right way to arrive here. With that in mind, I’m curious if there was a defining moment that made you pivot into sustainability specifically.

[00:03:00] Natalie: When I think of defining moment, for me, I was looking to move to a new city where I am now in Montreal, Canada. And, when I was deciding between working with Alveole (where I am now), or another company, it was a bit of a push and pull of, “Ooh, do I find myself in a job that might be a little bit more familiar to me?”

You know, doing the same kind of skillset and things that I'd done before. Or, “do I dive into the world of bees and pollinators with this kind of really funky looking company here in Montreal that I know nothing about?” I have no experience working with bees. And so really it came to that moment of “If you're gonna try something new, like if you're gonna move somewhere new, new, like, why not follow something that you haven't done before and at least see what you figure out from it?” and the world into that, it was never just about bees, but it was more about the, “What can I learn from this?” and what really helped me grow in excitement and curiosity for the world of sustainability around it.

[00:04:04] Aparna: I love the open mindset and just willingness to dive in and learn something that you have interest in, but you don't have a background in. Right? That's how we all get started and that's how knowledge is built. I can just imagine it was probably a very long transition or just a tough jump to make.

Right? So can you walk us through how that transition went?

[00:04:24] Natalie: Yeah, when I think back to it, it was a combination of you're moving to a new city, you're starting a brand new job, and you're learning a lot very, very quickly. And when I tell you that my knowledge went from I'm making small little fingers, you know this much about bees to an astronomical

wealth of knowledge about pollinators and bees, and now biodiversity too. It's incredible what time can do and what just a curiosity can allow your mind to, to, just, like you said, Aparna, what you could open yourself up to. But it feels like the first. Three or so months we're, we're a bit of a crash course on all things, learning about the built environment, real estate, commercial real estate specifically, and what we do as a company and, why bringing bees to urban cities essentially is such an important act and is a way to also give back to yourselves and the spaces around you.

[00:05:17] Kiersten: I think it's, uh, really meaningful too to our listeners to understand that there's a way they can market the skills they have acquired to move into a space they want to, even if it is very different subject matter. You did mention though that you have now an astronomical amount of B knowledge, so I have to ask, can you drop some beef on facts for us?

[00:05:35] Natalie: Yeah, the one that always blows my mind and I think it's so important: When we think about, there are many types of bees out there, and predominantly when people think about bees, they almost assume honey bees because honey bees either people think two things. Their first thought is either, “ah, bees stay away from me, don't like 'em, don't have care for them”, all of that. Or in other cases you get, “aw honeybees. I love bees. They're so great.” And hopefully by the end of today's uh, episode, maybe you'll start leading towards the latter half, but if you didn't know this, honeybees are essentially responsible for one of every three bites of food that we eat due to their work in pollinating, like all different types of crops and fruits and vegetables around the world there.

So think about that and think a, the next time that you go to eat your smoothies, your salads, whatever it is.

[00:06:30] Aparna: I am part of the populace that is a little scared of bees.

So, I'm wondering if you can walk us through a conversation, because exactly what you're saying, it is a huge misconception of bees in urban beekeeping in general, right? The fact that they have such an important part to play and a lot of the things we take for granted wouldn't be possible without them. So how would you go through a conversation with somebody? To show them that bees aren't as scary, that they might think, or to highlight their importance for you know, an end goal of having a rooftop bee garden. 

[00:07:03] Natalie: My first thing I would say is go watch The Bee Movie. It's an amazing cartoon, but also very educational resource, which in full transparency, when I started working at Alveole, the first thing I did was go watch the Bee Movie and great movie, but also you learn a lot too, and it also, in a way humanizes bees it, it uses a lot of care to help with taking some of the misconceptions and misinformation around bees, but creating a, a better story behind them and, and making sure that we know how important they are. 

But in a lot of cases, in the role and what I do, I day in, day out speak to building management for office towers, shopping centers, apartment buildings, hotels and schools all across Canada, US, and Europe.

And when people are looking that sustainability is important to them and they're trying to find ways like how can they increase sustainability or what does it even mean to bring sustainability to a building? Or, there's so many different things that you know, we should look at.

But where do I even start? What I try to do is play a role of at least educating them on easy things that they can do but also helping by overcoming some of the misinformation around bees and also how incredibly efficient and great they can be to have on your building. What people don't know are that honeybees are managed and they're social insects, which means that they live in a colony and they all hold different roles and functions within the hive itself.

The hive mindset. And so in many cities think about your dense urban downtown areas like Washington, New York City, Boston, for example. These hives end up going on building rooftops where people don't even know that there are bees like buzzing around your heads for the majority of the year itself.

And when I'm able to point, paint a little bit of a picture that way to people who might be apprehensive and say, “Hey, there are already four or five beehives on your neighboring buildings and you've probably never even interacted with them.” It definitely helps with changing a little bit of perception on some of the fear or the, the misconceptions around these, bugs or insects that people sometimes refer to them as. 

[00:09:20] Aparna: Yeah, fair point. Bees are living their life up there. You're living your life down here and y'all can coexist in happiness.

[00:09:28] Natalie: In happiness and harmony.

[00:09:30] Aparna: Happiness and harmony. I like it. You did mention The Bee Movie, so I feel like it'd be remiss not to ask, you watched The Bee Movie and sped it up every time they say the word “bee”?

[00:09:40] Natalie: I have not done that, but have you done that?

[00:09:44] Aparna: Oh yes. That was the last time I watched it. I feel like it was this trend that was sweeping the nation I don't know, maybe five, six years ago but, it was all over social media!

[00:09:54] Natalie: I didn't know. I, I haven't heard of that trend, but I am a little bit more inclined to go rewatch it again, so.

[00:10:00] Aparna: Twist my arm, The Bee Movie once more?

[00:10:03] Kiersten: Yeah, I think we need to reignite that trend because as you said earlier, The Bee Movie actually is such an amazing underlying message. So if we can get more people to watch it, you know, it's been out for a while now. A  little reinvigoration…

[00:10:14] Natalie: You know, there's also, I, this comes up a lot of my conversations now, but world bee day actually, it's a real thing. It falls on May 20th and so you know, Spring is a very great time of year to be able to kind of resurge this, this Bee Movie trend. 

[00:10:32] Kiersten: To BEE able to? On a more serious note, how do you see the intersection of sustainability and urban beekeeping evolving in the future?

[00:10:40] Natalie: Yeah. Really exciting question because it's something that I try to challenge myself to think about. I would say daily, but also something for what Alveole does and, and you know, why we do what we do the, the real intent and the mission at the end of the day is to help with reconnecting people back to nature in these urban cities and urban areas, and if we take a step back for a second, we look at the past five or six years and we think back to those dreadful pandemic days where, you know, some good, some bad, whatever you wanna call it, came with it.

But one of the most, I think, important things that humans recognize then is that we all seem to have a need or a desire to be connected to nature in some ways. We all started going on hikes and going on neighborhood walks and social distancing picnics and all the things that we did around then It came to this point where we were like, wow, actually as, as humans, we kind of crave finding nature and having that connection in city spaces, and so I. What we do and what I think about the role of what urban beekeeping is now and where it goes in the future is that it's not just about putting beehives on rooftops in cities and you know, using that as a connection point for nature, but it's really about educating people on the things that they can do to also take better steps in their day to day.

What that means for sustainability or doing good for the environment. You know what that means for having awareness dates like World Bee Day or Earth Week or Pollinator Week, for example, and finding other ways to not only just support honeybees, but all the other important pollinators that do surround our ecosystems and are just as important to us as humans too.

[00:12:22] Kiersten: So, if a city becomes a little bit too urban, you know, the whole concrete jungle concept, is there ever a possibility that an urban beekeeping situation would become not possible given the lack of vegetation in the area?

[00:12:36] Natalie: Ooh, that's a good question. And from my experience, I want to say no because honeybees are kind of nifty. They, on average will forage and fly within three miles, sometimes more, surrounding their beehive to go and source what they're looking for in terms of pollen or nectar and then bring that resource back to the hive itself.

So in a lot of cases where sometimes these hives go on, you know, 30 story rooftops in the kind of heart of the city where there's certainly not flowers or like landscaping or anything up there, the bees actually do just fine. They're able to go and find the things that they need and bring them back to their hive. But on the other side of that, I think it's also an incredible way to educate people on the importance of finding green sources or, you know, maybe you're taking a rooftop that is not the most pretty thing, but you can repurpose or revitalize the space by adding some greenness to it by revamping it or rethinking of it as a green space itself.

[00:13:37] Kiersten: I just have to say I hope I never live in a space that has three miles with no vegetation, so I didn't know their ability to fly so far. with that fact, I feel more confident that you probably wouldn't find spaces where it's completely infeasible.

[00:13:52] Natalie: No, and you'd be surprised because, you know, sometimes when people think beehives, they go, well, don't, don't they need, you know, flowers and plants around them to do well? Like, don't they need pollen and nectar like right next to them? And like, short answer is no. They're quite smart when it comes to it.

Bees actually do, I'll drop another bee fact over here. So specifically when your worker bees go and leave the hive to go and forage for pollen and nectar, when they're taking their first flight out of the hive and their first worker bees, they do a thing what they call the waggle dance, and essentially they do a little, they're like, they kind of do a little dance, which mimics the direction and where they essentially want to go find that specific source of poly and nectar that was so great so that it can teach and lead other bees to go fly directly to that source.

[00:14:39] Aparna: The waggle dance. This is the first time I'm hearing that term, but I've definitely seen the little bees movin their tushies.

[00:14:45] Natalie: They do a cute little thing and I, I like to compare it to, you know, bees on average I, I mentioned this will fly, they can fly up three miles, but they can fly. Even farther, depending on how good or strong that quality of nectar or pollen is. And it's kind of like humans in a way where if we're hungry and we really want to eat, we'll probably go to our neighborhood takeout spot and you know, grab our usual order or what we're familiar with.

But on specific days when we're like, no, there's a new Mexican restaurant that opened up on the other side of town and I'm really committed to going there. Bees are kind of like that too.

[00:15:19] Aparna: A food analogy hits home! So you, you have so many cool bee facts, Natalie, and I feel like you've learned so much since joining Alveole and able to use 'em in a way that speaks to the people you're speaking to. It's easy to understand. So, with education and like maybe reflecting on how you yourself got education on the bee space. I'm wondering if there are cool trends that you're seeing that maybe Alveole is doing or anything else to help spread education about bees to the general public? 

[00:15:51] Natalie: Ooh. Yeah. There's actually a lot of cool things and not to to pump our tires or to, to go off that way, but because education is really a core value of what we do at Alveole, and we're never just putting a beehive on a rooftop, but we're finding ways to get the people inside these buildings, whether you're in a downtown office tower or you are in a hotel and your beekeeper comes to check on the bees once every three to four weeks.

Every interaction with a beekeeper in itself is meant to be or can be used as an education point, which at the end of the day, you know, through communication is how we're able to share and spread the right information and make sure people understand how important bees and pollinators are to us.

When you use that, along with the momentum of some key awareness dates, we talked about Earth Week, World Bee Day, Pollinator Week, there's also National Honeybee Day in August, there's so many fun times of year and fun things that people can do to draw the right attention and just, you know, bring this as a topic that becomes more and more involved into their day-to-day life.

[00:16:54] Kiersten: Love integration with day to day life. In an imaginary, maybe not day-to-day life, we have a fun question we have asked some of our guests, and that is we were to grant you all the powers and make you a sustainability celestial being, the special power we've granted you, gives you the ability to implement one major policy change or something in the culture that integrates sustainability. What, what would you choose to integrate? What would you use your powers for?

[00:17:22] Natalie: I have to think about this one.

[00:17:24] Kiersten: If we did video, I think we would put the Oprah meme, you know, with bees, unfortunately. Yeah. 

Natalie: Bees! Bees for everyone!

[00:17:32] Natalie: This is actually, one of these questions where I was like, you know, what is it that I would do? What could I use my powers to be? Or like, if I were to think about sustainability outside of the world of urban beekeeping specifically, like where could I create impact or what could I do that would be meaningful? And..

Still to this date. Sustainability is something that we are all learning about on a day-to-day basis. There are conferences and policies and we're learning as individuals so much. It's like hard to, to think of a specific topic that I wanna pin it down to. If we're bringing this back again to bees.

You ever heard of “No Mow May” before? No. Okay, cool. So No Mow May, as we talk about awareness, we talk about fun ways to drive the right attention to things is an initiative where it encourages people to not mow their lawns on their homes or around their residential buildings. In an effort to help with maintaining specific habitat space for our wonderful, solitary and native pollinators.

And for anybody that's listening, and if you heard. What are solitary or native pollinators or solitary and native bees? I'm referring to a large number of different kinds of bees that are already living and nesting in the green spaces around us. And so what a lot of people don't know are that there are lots of little different bees already creating a habitat in their dirt, in their, like landscaping beds or in leafs that they've piled up in front of their tree, or sometimes they're even nesting in as small spaces as plant stems, for example, just to give you an idea. 

And so if I could make one change, I would make No Mow May an official mandate so that for the entire month of May, nobody can mow their lawns so that we give a little extra boost to these important little critters that need the habitat space in that crucial time of year.

[00:19:21] Aparna: I really appreciate that. I've not thought about it in that context before. And full transparency, when you've said, No Mow May, that reminded me of an ice cream brand that I love, Nada Moo. I was thinking maybe it's some kind of bee ice cream? They use the honey? Who knows. If you're hearing this, Nada Moo, please sponsor us. But I think that's a great idea. Right? And it's something tangible that people can do every day. Not every day for, but just for the month of May.

[00:19:48] Natalie: Yeah, I mean, hey, it's less work for you if you have a lawn or if you live in a space where you cut your grass or whatever it is. And I know some people might feel differently about how, you know, wanting their lawns to look nice or to look good, but if we can hold off for a couple of weeks and you think about, that's time saved for you.

I think it's an overall win-win for, for us and the, and the pollinators around us.

[00:20:12] Aparna: I agree with that. I like it. Keeping the thought process of everyday sustainability and things that folks can do maybe in specific months, maybe year round. Wondering how you practice sustainability in your daily life. Natalie?

[00:20:25] Natalie: When I think about sustainability in my day-to-day, I think what are the things that I can do that can create impact for me and for the people or the spaces around me? And what might seem like a, like an simple effort: recycling.

That's an easy thing that I can educate myself and, and educate my friends, my peers on what goes in the right place and what should be composting versus recycling versus garbage, things like that. I think it's always good to have a refresher on that. That, and if you are fortunate enough to live in a space where your work, your whatever that you do for school is, you know, within walking distance, finding an alternative way to get to your work, your school that's not driving. Not only does that cut out on, carbon emissions, but it also is a great, it's a healthy and, and active choice for us as people. It's a great booster if you get to start your day with a, with a walk in the morning instead of, cramming yourself onto the train or, or the bus to, to get where you can.

And those themselves are, they seem like kind of small efforts, but are, are super, super important. And one that actually is quite personal to me and something that I've, I feel like I grew up with is that I really have a hard time with food waste. And this just being, it's, there's also an incredible statistic where like fact, check me on this! There is a really important amount of food that actually ends up going to waste, and so if we as humans can just think a little bit more. Consciously about the types of food that we're eating, what we're buying or putting in our fridges so that we're not sending or, or, or throwing away as much food per year.

I think that we can make such an easy change, or it's such a, I think of it as like a thoughtless change that could create so much of a better impact for those around us.

[00:22:19] Kiersten: I think next we have to get in another bee pun, if you will. So everybody has their favorite resources. I'd like to ask you, what resources do you think are the bees knees? If you have any favorite documentaries, books, anything like that for our listeners that they could look up if you've really captured, their attention.

[00:22:40] Natalie: The Bee Movie, and I will like live and breathe by this. I, I think it's such an approachable and digestible way to, to, to have a little laugh and to encourage yourself to learn something new, but in and in such an easy medium where you'll leave. I think very pleasantly surprised at how much you enjoy that movie and how much it changes your perception on bees.

[00:23:02] Aparna: Listeners out there, please watch the B movie. Try the trend, let us know how it works for you. I hope that you have a very funny time and learn a lot of facts along the way 'cause it is a good movie and they're so cute. Thinking about the listeners again, if listeners wanted to BEE involved in your work, that was a bad attempt at a bee pun, so thank you for bearing with me. What are ways that they can support bees, they can support the ecosystems we've talked about, No Mow May, we've talked about just, general education and understanding, so are there other ways that listeners could jump in with both feet?

[00:23:39] Natalie: Yeah, No Mow May is, um, if you have a lawn at home, if you, if you live with people that like to mow their lawn, spreading the education or, or learning the why behind this, I think will always help with hitting home. When you think about bees too, there are specific plants and flowers that you think about, like pollinator friendly plants or flowers that can always be better for specific bees than maybe others per se.

And so it's really easy to go and Google, you know, “what are pollinator friendly flowers in Miami versus what are they in Boston?”, to get an idea on what could be better for your gardens for your little vegetable beds as a way to help with supporting these pollinators in the area. Those are the two that come to mind, but I always come back to education.

One thing that we haven't touched on yet are that, because there's a lot of misconceptions around bees and honeybees specifically here, what people don't tend to know are that honey bees and wasps are very different. They might kind of look similar from afar or if they're like flying towards you at a, at a pace that you're not comfortable with and totally understandable.

But honey bees are actually quite docile and a honeybee will never want to sting you because they actually die right after. It's like their last ever act. It's a way, it's a defense mechanism, and they'll only use their stinger if they have to. On top of that, honey bees are, are basically vegans. Like they're really only attracted to plants and flowers, so super, super important to to know that.

But on the other hand, wasps, they're also pollinators, but they're not as kind. Wasps can sting multiple times and they don't face the same repercussions. That and wasps aren't vegans. They are also gonna be attracted to human foods and sugary scents, and we are more likely to encounter wasps in our spring and summer months when we're eating outside.

We're trying to enjoy a picnic with friends or barbecues. If you do yourself the service of understanding, and the difference between the two and knowing what might be a yellow jacket wasp that is really annoying you or trying to get at your plate in your backyard, versus a really docile little honey bee that is just out on a little pollinating mission to go take, you know, resources back to their hive.

I think that is such an important way to give back and to think about the pollinators and the environment around you, and making sure that you're not accidentally swatting away at a cute little honey bee versus a wasp.

[00:26:19] Kiersten: Seen a cute pun that said a wasp is a wannabe, wanna-bee ha ha. 

[00:26:24] Natalie: Love it.

[00:26:25] Kiersten: Insert, uh, knee slaps sound editor! (Which is us.) Last question for you. Do you have a favorite bee?

[00:26:32] Natalie: Ooh. Yeah, I do actually, if you, have you ever seen the Teddy bear bee before? There are many different types I talked about earlier the idea of there being solitary and native bees and, the teddy bee is one of them. And it sounds exactly what it looks like. It's a really small and cute, furry little bee.

Not intimidating looking whatsoever, but can be found in like specific regions across North America too. I hope it puts a smile on your face when you do Google it, because they're really cute looking. That's my favorite bee.

[00:27:05] Aparna: It has such an adorable name. How can it be scary? Well this has been such a fun session with you, Natalie. I feel like we're working to rewrite the story of bees and make them into a friend!

Thank you so much for spending this time with us. We really appreciate learning more about your world, the bees getting homework to watch a movie. Always my favorite kind. We'll let you go and we're so excited to connect with you back in the future. 

[00:27:33] Natalie: Yeah, it's been so great to be here today. If anybody listens to this and can take, you know, a new fact that they've learned about pollinators or bees or what you can do to, to help the important bees around, I'll consider that a win.

So I really appreciate being here today. Thank you so, so much, and we'll talk later.