The Live Lightly Podcast

Jessica (00:00)
to the Live Lightly podcast. I'm your host, Jessica Franklin. And today I'd like to welcome my guest, Mike Everly. He's the founder of Bees in Trees Honey, which is a US-based manuka honey company that offers sustainably sourced and packaged manuka honey. Welcome, Mike.

Mike Everly (00:17)
Thanks, Jessica. Really good to be with you today. Thanks.

Jessica (00:20)
excited to dive into our conversation. I found your company because I've heard all about the wonderful benefits of manuka honey. There's a lot of beautiful healing stories around how it can be used as kind of a, as a medicinal at home, right? Like a little home remedy. And so I've always been curious about it. And when I started looking for manuka honey at my local health food stores, I

really wasn't excited about the fact that they're all in plastic packaging. And so of course, you know me, I did my digging and started looking online for something that was, and also when you're at the grocery store, you have no idea about the sourcing. So that would be something else that I would have had to have researched, but I just wasn't willing to buy it in plastic. And so when I went online, I was looking for two things.

Mike Everly (01:05)
Mm-hmm.

Jessica (01:13)
one was sustainable sourcing and high quality products always come from things that are sourced more sustainably, I think, and also packaged in glass. so after quite some time, I've stumbled upon bees and trees and I right away ordered a three pack of the, what do I have here? The five 50 MG. And we'll talk about that, but for those of you watching on YouTube, here it is. And it is absolutely incredible.

It is like so smooth and creamy and I just want to use the word luxury like it's luxurious. It's a very, yeah, it's just such a beautiful honey. here in California, Southern California, have, and most places have local honey at their farmer's markets. So it's great too. But this is just like, takes it up another level, right? Like it's just so.

Mike Everly (01:52)
Mm-hmm.

Sure.

Mm-hmm.

Jessica (02:11)
delicious and I have a hard time stopping. Stopping myself. So thank you for such a beautiful product and we want to hear all about that and the sourcing but first I want to hear about you and your background and what brought you to decide that this is what you want to do.

Mike Everly (02:29)
Yeah, yeah. Well, it's a pretty interesting story. So any story about manuka honey really has to start with how did we make it to New Zealand to learn about manuka honey. So my background is not in agriculture. I'm an engineer by training.

Early in my career, I worked in management consulting. And back in 1998, while I was a consultant, I was asked to come to New Zealand. I had developed some airline industry expertise. I live in Atlanta, Georgia, had done a big project for Delta Airlines, which led to another airline project. And Air New Zealand was looking.

for some help and our affiliated firm in Auckland, New Zealand was looking for somebody with the right airline industry expertise to help out. So my wife and I went over to New Zealand in 1998. We had a two-year-old, our two-year-old with us at the time and my wife was pregnant with our second child. So we were there for about four months. It was

really a great experience. When we got back, were so taken by New Zealand, by the people, by the culture, by the natural beauty of the landscape. we realized when we got back that it had made a real impression on us. And we started dreaming about talking about, wouldn't it be great if someday we could get back there, spend a few years when our children are old enough to

experience and appreciate a different experience than just growing up in Atlanta, Georgia, you know, kind of start to finish. So soon after getting back in 2000, I changed careers. got into, I joined a friend of mine that was a local real estate developer and I worked doing commercial property management for him for almost 10 years. But during that time, which I love

You know, I love my time with that company and it kept me closer to home. was traveling less, but my wife and I, kept dreaming about, kept talking about this New Zealand idea that we wanted to go do. eventually we looked at ourselves and said, look, if we don't make this happen, it won't. And we'll be 90 years old looking at each other and saying, now, why didn't we go to New Zealand when we, when we really could have back then.

So we started putting things in motion in about 2007 and that took a couple of years. And then in 2009, we made a big move, a real leap of faith. I didn't have any idea of what I was going to do when I got there. I had a very broad skill set in a lot of different areas. And I thought, well, I'll find something to work at, work on, invest in, do while I'm there.

and we'll figure it out. And if we don't and it just all goes south, we can always come home and then we'll figure things out again then. So we got there and settled into this community on the South Island, Nelson, New Zealand, and the kids got them into school. And then I started investigating, exploring different business ideas, different

different things to, to kind of work on. And took about a year and I was up on the North Island and, looking at a block of native forestry, which I got attracted to as I learned about sustainable management of native forests and how native forests could be, if managed correctly, you know, trees could be taken down.

just slowly over time and replenish themselves and that type of thing. And sustainability has always resonated well with me or it's always been something I've been interested in. I was way ahead of my time. I was tracking my own carbon footprint back in the early 2000s on spreadsheets, know, kind of thing and trying to figure out how to get it lower. So anyway, digressing a little bit, but.

Jessica (07:02)
you

Mike Everly (07:04)
While I was looking at this block of native land, I spent two days up there and there were helicopters flying beehives into these remote areas up there. And the guy who was showing me around, I was like, what's this about? He said, they're here for the Manuka honey. And I was like, well, what's that? And he said, it's going to be the next big thing. It's, you know, this native New Zealand tree. And I'm like, hmm, that sounds interesting. How do you spell it?

Jessica (07:25)
Thank

Mike Everly (07:33)
You know, so, so I had to go out and start doing my research. And the more I looked into Manuka honey, was like, well, wow, this is something that comes from the native land. it's, it's a natural product. has a health and wellness benefit, which has created this worldwide market for it. So I got interested and we found a way to buy some beehives that would be managed for us by another company.

Jessica (07:36)
you

Mike Everly (08:03)
So was a bit of a passive investment initially. And then we did end up buying that native forest block and the surrounding land turned out to be really, really good land for manuka honey production. So immediately I had neighbors. To them, I looked like I came from a different planet, know, this American in the back hill country of Taranaki, New Zealand.

Jessica (08:20)
Thank

Mike Everly (08:33)
But I made friends with my neighbors and we started striking agreements to put hives on their land. And one thing led to another. So that's the origin of it. We stayed in New Zealand until 2012. We were there three and a half years and made the decision to come back to the US. Our parents needed some support and help. And we decided

getting the kids through high finishing high school here and then on to college here was the right right answer for us. So and then you know I immediately started a bit of a commute to to New Zealand which was typically three to four trips a year. I'm down to about two to three now but still spend quite a bit of quite a bit of time there. And yeah and we launched our retail brand.

Jessica (09:20)
Hmm.

Mike Everly (09:27)
very slowly and casually back in 2012, but have started to focus a lot more on that side of the business about five or six years ago.

Jessica (09:41)
sounds like you just fell into it. And just kind of following your heart and your passion and your interests.

Mike Everly (09:46)
I-I-I-I-

Yeah, I really would say that that's kind of how it happened. It was appealing and we can talk more about the manuka tree and the role it plays in the native New Zealand ecosystem, which is very cool and very interesting. But yeah, was, we kind of fell into it and it also was a nice fit because we were pretty sure we weren't staying in New Zealand permanently.

And it fit the bill of something that could translate well. If we went, when we moved back to the U S it was something we could continue to do while living here. And in fact, as it turns out, we're, think the only Manuka honey brand that has a U S founder that's based in the United States. have, you know, U S customer service, we answer phones, we, respond to questions where, you know, we're

Jessica (10:18)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Everly (10:45)
We're kind of unique in that regard and which is super helpful to be able to relate to us consumers and just be more effective at communicating the Manuka honey story, which is really what I try to spend most of my time on. And then our brand story, you know, supporting that. I really love educating people and building awareness about Manuka honey.

Because it's just an absolutely incredible gift from nature that, you know, I still run into maybe it's one in 10 now Americans that know what manuka honey is. And nine out of 10, it's like, what kind of honey? You know, what do you do?

Jessica (11:29)
Mm-hmm.

I think that it's definitely,

more expensive type of honey. And so that kind of might be the first barrier when people just see the price tag, they might, turn their head to whatever other type of honey is available on the shelf. And, but as we speak today, you can unfold the layers and through the stories and the information that you share, it will become very, very clear that it's worth every penny. And

Mike Everly (11:39)
Mm-hmm.

Jessica (12:05)
So that might be just one of the reasons why people aren't open or aware to what manuka honey is, because you see it and you're just like, what's that over there, half the price. But I think that you also, you use less, you don't need a ton of it. And so there's that as well. think.

Mike Everly (12:15)
Mm-mm.

Right, right.

Jessica (12:30)
when you're looking at certain things that you're wanting to get something more out of than just a little sweetener on your tea, right?

So I'd like to talk about, I think the next thing that makes sense would be to talk a little bit about the difference between manuka honey and regular honey that you see on the store shelf or even local honey that you might be enjoying from your farmer's market, which is amazing and wonderful and has great benefits too if it's from your farmer's market and local and raw. But yeah, what is the difference?

Mike Everly (13:03)
Yeah.

So the basic difference between manuka honey and virtually any other honey produced from any floral source in the world is some chemical profile within manuka honey that has demonstrated very, very potent antibacterial properties, which were the first properties that were discovered and studied by a researcher back in New Zealand in the 1990s.

but then since then, antiviral properties, anti-inflammatory properties, antioxidant properties, antiparasitic properties on some level, and research going on now around various cancer cell lines and the effect manuka honey can have on modulating the growth or reducing cancer cell growth. Now, we can talk more about that. All of that research is

early stage, it's all lab-based versus clinical trial type stuff. But what is kind of mainstream embraced in that topic is the use of Manuka honey to help people better tolerate. So complimentary with radiation therapy, especially throat and neck cancer, the radiation therapy is very, very harsh on your throat. And by using Manuka honey,

while you're undergoing that therapy, people are getting much further through their treatment protocol while they can still stay on solid foods. So that's an example of kind of a complimentary use with traditional cancer treatments. So with these properties, Manuka honey is, it is, it's a wellness product. you're not gonna...

Like you say you're looking down the shelf and it's like, you know the six dollar jar local honey the $12 maybe Savannah B company nice glass jar larger and then you see manuka honey and it's $50 and you're like, well, what the heck, know I just want to jar of honey, but it really it really more is a wellness is a wellness product and People buy it to consume it daily for immune support

Jessica (15:13)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mike Everly (15:25)
to generally stay healthy and fight off potential bacterial or viral infections. You can do that. You can buy it and keep it kind of in the medicine cabinet for use if you start to feel something coming on or starting to get sick. People probably what we're selling, the use case that I'd say the most people are interested in right now is digestive health.

Jessica (15:42)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Everly (15:53)
So a lot of Americans suffer from various digestive health issues, acid reflux, ulcers, irritable bowel, and those types of things. And we're getting phenomenal reviews and really more than reviews, testimonials by people that are like, look, I'm getting off these pharmaceuticals that have all these adverse side effects that I've been on for years. I'm able to take, you know,

teaspoon of your honey in the morning and a teaspoon in the afternoon and I'm like a changed, I'm a changed person kind of thing. So the digestive health, story for manuka honey is super, super potent other use cases, I mean, it kind of goes on and on. People use it for skin care.

Jessica (16:30)
Hmm.

Mike Everly (16:43)
So as a very natural product, you can use it for skin care and skin treatment. And whether that's to treat a blemish like acne, that's a big use, but also just for better, healthier skin. It's used as a wound care product. Again, mainstream medicine embraced for its wound care properties. So you'll find it in hospital emergency rooms, in burn clinics, very, very good on treating burns.

and that type of thing. So when you start to appreciate how much research has gone into Manuka honey and its properties and its use cases and what potential impact it could have on your wellness, then it starts to make more sense why you might pay that much for a jar of honey when you could get your local honey for a lot less.

Jessica (17:13)
Mm-hmm.

and I can add a little bit to that. have a little bit of a story about a burn that that happened on my arm. And, you know, this is like what's left of the burn.

and it would have sent me to the emergency room, I think, because it was pretty bad, close contact steam burn. I was reaching across the stove because I had a pot in the back that I was checking and something was steaming that I reached across and immediately it just really started to become super painful. And I remembered.

Mike Everly (17:54)
Mm-hmm.

Mm.

Jessica (18:19)
that prior to that time, several years prior to that, had spilled.

water from my tea kettle on my hand. And I'm just the type of person that goes immediately to researching online. Like, what do I do? What's the natural remedy to help this? And it said honey and lavender essential oil and tea tree oil. And I had all of that in my home at the time. Like it was my local farmer's market honey. So I just used that, what I had. And but a high quality, you know, raw local honey. And then my lavender oil and my tea tree oil.

Mike Everly (18:36)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jessica (18:55)
and was great and I have no scarring whatsoever and this probably won't be this happened not too long ago but basically that

I thought it was gonna be, and it was on my hand and I was like, wow, that's gonna leave quite the scar. And it left nothing because I did it immediately. And so I can't imagine like this time I had your honey in my cabinet. So I was like, that's what I'm using. I know Manuka honey is definitely a better honey for this. And it stopped hurting immediately. And the redness went down immediately. I didn't even have a...

Mike Everly (19:19)
Mm-hmm.

Jessica (19:33)
the lavender oil, I was actually out. And so was just the honey and I took it off before bed, I washed it off and went to bed and tried not to sleep on it and used it again the next day and the next day. And so about three days, four days into it, it started, you know, peeling and whatnot. And after the layers peel, looked really gnarly. But after the skin peeled off about a week later, just it was fine. Totally.

beautifully healed up and that reminded me that my friend is dealing with some sores that are being treated medically and it's been ongoing for quite some time. It's actually a friend of a friend and so I said, know, like, let's get some manuka honey for him to my friend and she said, you know, I...

Mike Everly (20:25)
Mm-hmm.

Jessica (20:27)
think he has some and she sent me a picture of like medicinal patches, Manuka honey patches. So I'm that they're actually using those in hospital settings. Amazing, but it's, know, if it works, it works, right?

Mike Everly (20:40)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jessica (20:45)
I also want to just attest to your customer service that you mentioned I did make a phone call when I wanted to reach out and contact you to ask for an interview and I believe it was your business partner Sean Who answered the phone? He was super sweet very helpful

actually told me the story about the Manuka trees.

and it was just a beautiful story. So maybe you can share that with us.

Mike Everly (21:13)
Yeah, yeah, I'd love to. So the manuka tree is considered the primary colonizing species in the successive regeneration of native forests in New Zealand. So I know that that's like a big mouthful. So what does that mean? So when the land gets damaged, when the land gets scarred, maybe there's a earthquake and there's a landslide or

or if there's a fire and the forest gets burned, or in the case of most of the land that we're currently producing manuka honey, if Europeans show up and decide that we should be grazing sheep on this land and they cut the native forest down, well, the native forest wants to regenerate and replenish itself. And the manuka tree comes back vigorously

and keeps coming back and it establishes itself on, let's take the landslide scenario. the manuka kind of covers the land like a bandage and it will be the predominant species on that patch of land for 30, 40, 50 years. And as it's getting established and those trees are getting taller, the next successive

species, which in our area tends to be this tree type of tree fern, it's growing in like a nursery environment underneath and then they start pushing through shading out the manuka and creating more space and opportunity for other native species. And you let that process go on for about 150 years and you're back to this highly complex, multi-story, multi-canapeed

New Zealand native forest, is really something to behold. If you ever go to New Zealand, you've got to get out in the native forest and spend some time. It's really pretty amazing. the manuka tree, and eventually the manuka trees die out. They get shaded out and crowded out by these other tree species. So it has a role in the life cycle of the native forest.

But then those seed sources stay in the ground. So over time, as a fire occurs or something else happens, they'll emerge again and start that process over again. And the way that that has played out on a lot of this farmland is the farmers were always battling the manuka because it kept coming back. And especially on their steeper hills, they were having trouble keeping the manuka cut back enough to grow their

grass to be able to graze for sheep or for beef. And those battles went on for decades until somebody discovered that the manuka was actually valuable and good for something. And so now we have this interesting scenario playing out where the farmers who all their lives and through several generations were trying to battle the manuka and now embracing it.

Jessica (24:13)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Everly (24:35)
and letting the steeper hills on their farms revert to native forest and to Manuka and then striking, you know, relationships with a local beekeeper who brings hives in during that time of year. And you're getting a much more natural landscape re-emerging that has a compliment of some of the low-lying flatlands still in pasture and then the steeper hillsides in native, in Manuka and in native.

And it's quite, gratifying to see. And I've been at this long enough. We've been doing this now 13 years. So I've been on some of these farms that long, and I've seen the real transformation in their land as a result of the manuka honey. So yeah, so the manuka tree.

It's kind of nature's bandage and wound care to the land when it needs to heal itself. So it's not really surprising that it has properties that can provide healing benefits to us. And hundreds of years before Europeans ever came to New Zealand, the native Polynesian population, the Maori,

They were using the leaves for tea, for calming your stomach. They were using it externally for burns and wounds. So again, boiling the leaves and getting the essence out of the leaf itself long before bees started to forage for the nectar.

Jessica (25:58)
Mm-hmm.

Nature is incredible, right? If we just observe nature, we'll learn what to do. And it sounds like these farms are regenerative.

Mike Everly (26:18)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

So they really are and more and more what we've evolved into is working with, well, we're on effectively what would be in the US national parks lands. So we have concessions from the government to put hives into land that is 100 % in conservation. So there's no farming use whatsoever.

And then there's a couple of organizations, one in particular we've partnered with on two different projects, the Native New Zealand Forest Restoration Trust. And their mission is to purchase land and help it go back to completely, native forest. So we've worked with them on two projects to help buy land. And then we've got long-term access rights to put hives on.

for the manuka honey production and they're managing it just for 100 % for conservation. So, and then we still are on farms that are actively being farmed. Just the footprint of the actual pasture farming is shrinking as the economics of the manuka honey have stepped up and balanced things out where.

they can fight the land less and more, work with the natural process of the land and still make the economics of the farming work. So it really is helping to restore and regenerate the native forestry, which is then supporting native bird populations, which have become threatened over time. And we have some

direct initiatives going with the Taranaki Kiwi Trust. The Kiwis, iconic flightless New Zealand bird that is still in a threatened state in terms of its population. And we do a lot of on that block that I told you that we bought that we've never ended up cutting any trees down, by the way, my conservation side of me took over and I was like, you know,

just focus on the honey thing and we'll just let the trees get old and die of old age. anyway, now on those blocks, we've got extensive trap lines to trap stoats, which are in the weasel family. And stoats are super detrimental to the kiwi population. They get into the nest, they the eggs.

They can kill the chicks when they're young. So you've got to keep the stoat population down so the Kiwi can get old enough to be able to defend themselves. A full grown Kiwi can take on a stoat and they wouldn't, you know, they'd be okay. So, so we do trapping, on that land to help with that initiative where they're repopulating the Kiwi. And we've got another partnership with, a, bird reserve, the Rhoda carry reserve.

Jessica (29:10)
Hmm.

Mike Everly (29:37)
And there's stuff about all of this on our website. And Rhoda Cary, they're introducing native birds in a protected environment, so a fenced in pest-proof environment. we're working with them on a partnership where we put hives in and donate all of the honey to their organization. We put it in bottles and put a special label with their reserve on it, and then they sell it to generate.

revenue to support their nonprofit efforts to reintroduce and expand some of the native birds that used to be native, you know, used to be local to this area, but had disappeared and are now getting reintroduced. So, so that's a super, I guess I get a lot of satisfaction when I go over to Rotacare Reserve and you walk through and you hear all of this bird life.

I mean, it's a big, you know, how many acres would it be? Three or 400 acres surrounded by a test-proof fence. It's, when you go through the gates, it's like Jurassic Park. You know, you got these double gates that open. You got to go through one set before the other set opens. Everybody jokes it's like Jurassic Park, but it's super, super cool to be in there. And yeah, and just be a part of the work that

Jessica (30:53)
you

Mike Everly (31:00)
a lot of volunteers are putting their heart and soul into in that community. So that's another fun thing I get to do and something I feel really good that our company's a part of.

Jessica (31:14)
there's sustainability just woven through all of the different layers of this amazing product. And I am wondering as you're speaking about this, how your honey and where it's sourced from compares and maybe you know and maybe you don't know to the manuka honey that you see on most of the store shelves in the US.

Mike Everly (31:43)
Yeah, yeah, I would say the easiest way to do the comparison, well, there's two things that I'll talk to within that comparison. One is that our honey is sourced from this one region, the Terineki region, and really this one extended valley within that region. So all of the honey that we sell, we produce ourselves, we know all of the sites, we know everything about it, we control it from raising the bees to

producing the honey to extracting it to working with a packer that we are very, close to and getting it to your counter. So, so it's small batch, region specific, and it preserves a lot of the natural flavor. It's, it just tastes a lot better. The manuka from this region tastes better than the manuka from other regions, which I think has to do with our microclimate.

But the biggest difference is most of the big brands, they'll buy up honey from all over New Zealand and they'll blend it together. And their main goal is just to kind of hit that number that they're putting on the jar, which I want to talk to in a minute, the MGO level. And so it's more of a chemistry experiment to get to the right number and less of a craft food production exercise, which is how we consider what we do.

Jessica (32:56)
Yeah.

Mike Everly (33:08)
So that's a fundamental difference in how our product is sourced. And we'll always be, region specific to Taranaki. We have no plans to try to grow so big that we have to buy honey from outside of our region or anything like that. But the other big difference is that a lot of the honey on the shelves in the grocery stores

Jessica (33:10)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Everly (33:36)
is very, very low concentration of manuka honey. So you held up your jar a minute ago, and I've got one, my only prop today. So this is our 550 MGO manuka honey. So we sell a 350, a 550, and an 830.

Jessica (33:49)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Everly (33:58)
you will find if you go to Whole Foods or a lot of the grocery chains, you'll find honey as low as 30 MgO or 50 or 80 or 100. And what you're really getting there, once you're under 100, what you're really getting is about, depending on that number, let's pick 50 for example, you're getting about one-tenth Manuka honey and about nine-tenths other.

Jessica (34:20)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Everly (34:24)
just what we call bush honey, other native New Zealand honeys. And they blended it together and they've got the numbers just enough to still be able to use the word manuka on the label. And they're relying on consumers in a grocery aisle where there's nobody to explain the differences. They're relying on consumers to look at that number and say, I don't know what the numbers mean, but that seems like a good price.

Jessica (34:31)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Everly (34:51)
So what we always say is for wellness benefit, at least get a 250 milligrams. And the MGO is a measure of the dietary methylglyoxal. It's the active ingredient that directly correlates with the antibacterial properties, antiviral properties, all of these wellness properties. And the measure is milligrams per kilogram or parts per million, same thing. So we say get at least a 250 if you want a wellness result.

Jessica (34:51)
Right.

Mm-hmm.

Mike Everly (35:20)
If you look at a lot of the science and medical research, that seems to be the real entry point when they're running these experiments and running these studies where they're really trying to study the effectiveness of manuka honey. So stay away from anything kind of a hundred MGO and down.

And that's going to be 80 % of what you're seeing on the grocery shelf. So that's a really, really big difference. And that's the most important thing. If people take anything away from this podcast, understand that MGO, that MGO number and what you really want to be, you know, want to be looking for there because that's the, that's the most important. Yeah. The most important factor I'd say.

Jessica (36:15)
Okay, so if you're not seeing and you said it was 250 or above or 350.

Mike Everly (36:20)
Yeah, 250 or above. Our starting point is 350, but 250 and above is typically considered kind of a medical grade or a medicinal, you know, manuka honey. I mean, if I was, if I was on a desert Island and I found a jar of 200, you know, I would, I would treat it like treasure and gold and, and use it sparingly. But if, but if, you have your choice, get 250.

Jessica (36:24)
Okay.

Sure.

Mike Everly (36:46)
You know, 250 or higher.

Jessica (36:49)
I'm just assuming here, but from what you said, it sounds like yours is pure. It's not mixed with anything else to cut costs or, quality.

Mike Everly (37:01)
Absolutely, absolutely. It's just 100 % natural, pure manuka honey. And the differences in activity tend to be the areas you're in. And that's a question we get a lot is, well, how can you make sure it's pure manuka honey? And you do it two ways. You try to get it as pure as you can by putting your hives into areas that mostly are just manuka. And you put them in just at the right time.

Jessica (37:16)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mike Everly (37:29)
So the manuka flowers after a couple of other native species, the rewe rewe and the Kamehi have finished and the manuka then flowers. And then when it's finished, there's another native honey, the Rata that flowers. So you try to put them in at the right time, get them out at the right time. And if you do that well, then you're going to get a higher concentration, pure manuka honey. And if the bees are foraging for some other things because

Jessica (37:39)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Everly (37:58)
It's nature and they might, you might get them in a little bit early. They're bringing something else in until the Manuka flow really gets going. Those kinds of things. That's where at times you'll get lower activities and at times you'll get higher activities. So that tends to be how we figure out which activity is which for our brand. And when it says 350 plus, that actually might be a 430.

You know, it's going to be more than 350, but less than 550. So don't get hung up on how do you get it exactly to 350? It just means it's at least a 350. Yeah. Yeah. So, and we put all of that's the other thing about our brand. We put our test results for every batch we sell on our website. So if you want to read the report yourself and read what that looks like, you can just look on the jar, see which batch you have.

Jessica (38:34)
Okay.

You

Mike Everly (38:55)
click on the link which is on our product page, open up the test report and see what that batch tested as. So we think all brands should do that. I don't know anybody else who does, but it's an easy enough thing for us to do. So we put that on there.

Jessica (39:18)
Yeah, that was one thing that I really liked seeing on your website because it helps to the consumer some backing as far as quality is concerned. And I appreciate that with all of the products that I find to bring into my home, I really want some sort of or...

Mike Everly (39:29)
Mm-hmm.

Jessica (39:42)
something third party tested or whatever that is that's going to tell me that what I'm getting is actually what I'm getting and a quality check. So I appreciate that. And the other thing I really appreciate about the website is that you have all of the scientific papers listed on website. It's very easy to get to it. And, you know, it's just saved so much time and having to look up

white.

paper is just not super fun. And so I love that it's just all right there on your website and very organized under different categories for different health ailments. So if you're wanting to get a little bit geeked out on this, you can definitely do so on the Bees and Trees website and read these scientific papers. And then also, I just, we've talked about pretty much everything. The one thing that I would love to

is the reason why you chose glass as your packaging, which obviously is a little bit more for shipping is gonna be a little bit more costly and there's that argument of glass is heavier and it's leave more of a carbon footprint for shipping it from where...

you're on the East Coast, I'm on the West Coast, and so there's that. But I think there's always a trade off, right? And so in my opinion, I think that the trade off is never going away. And it's also made of petroleum. And so there's that. That's my argument whenever I am talking to someone who is talking about offsetting the carbon footprint of glass and.

Mike Everly (41:06)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jessica (41:29)
Plastic is lighter, yeah, and it's gonna take less carbon to ship it from the East Coast to the West Coast or wherever you're shipping it to. But in my opinion, it's made of petroleum and lots and lots of chemicals that are never going away. And the recycling, we're just not even gonna talk about that. You can listen to my first episode if you wanna know more about plastic and the fact that it's just not being recycled. If you're new to this podcast, episode number one, I speak with

Mike Everly (41:51)
Mm-hmm.

Jessica (41:58)
the director of Global Earth Day and he explains the disaster of plastic in not only our landfills but around the world, what it's doing to impact the environment as a whole. We also have an episode together, maybe five or six, where he speaks about its impact on the ocean. So yeah.

if you're listening and you are not well versed in the plastic conversation, please listen to those episodes where I interviewed Aidan from the Global Earth Day, well, from Earth Day Organization. He's their global director. And, you've got your own reason why you put it in glass, and I'm guessing that it has something to do with, wanting to keep the high quality of the product that you spent all this time and energy to get.

and not wanting to leach those chemicals into your product.

Mike Everly (42:54)
Yeah, yeah. To be honest, we never considered doing anything other than glass. We just kind of came from the position of, well, everything always tastes better out of glass, you know, for just from a starting point. And then the really the only downside is the shipping cost and the ability to protect the product because it's heavy and keep it from breaking shipment. But

Jessica (43:12)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Mike Everly (43:22)
When you get past, get over those hurdles, glass was kind of a no brainer for us. Now we probably looked at 30 different jars on shape and size and dimensions and everything before we settled on the jar that we're using. But we never really considered plastic. The whole industry really standardizes around mostly square plastic, typically a dark

plastic jar. I think one of the reasons that they like doing that is you can't see the color of the product when it sits on the shelf and we're super proud of the color of our product. We want people to look at the honey and see its beautiful color and we're not afraid because we're a small batch. If there's two batches and they're slightly different because it's a natural product and there might be some slight differences in coloration like

That's part of what makes it a natural product. So a raw natural product. So we love glass. And then as you start learning more about how plastic leaches into everything, we're like, yeah, glad we never went down that route. And then when you start understanding how unrecyclable, I'm not sure if that's a word, but how

Jessica (44:37)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Everly (44:47)
What you think is you're recycling where it may be ending up and the damage it may be doing. That's not a great solution. Whereas glass is more infinitely reusable and recyclable as I understand it. Plus we think our jars are just better like to be reused. There's tons of things around the kitchen, around my workshop, around the house that you can use an empty honey jar for. They're just really a nice size and

Jessica (45:02)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Everly (45:16)
and work well for a lot of different things. So whether you're recycling it or reusing it, we think that's a great answer. And we love that you can get every last drop of honey out, either with the spoon or for me, I'm always adding a little bit of warm water to the blast of it and swirling it around and getting every last drop out, which I can't imagine doing that to a plastic.

Jar and and and expose. Yeah, and yeah anyway, so we're we really like we really like we really like being Being in in glass and and like I said the hard part has been learning to ship From Atlanta or Connecticut to our consumers and get it to them in one piece UPS and the post office sometimes are rough with packages. I know that'll be a shocker to to your your audience, but sometimes they're rough with packages, so

Jessica (45:48)
No.

Mike Everly (46:13)
We've iterated now and my business partner, Sean, deserves all the credit three or four times with our packaging. And every time we get better and better in protecting the jar and also more and more sustainable. Early on, we did have some bubble bags that the jar went in and now we're 100 % corrugated cardboard, structured cardboard insert that is all 100 % recyclable.

So, yeah, so we're super happy with the choice we made 13 years ago and our evolution and our packaging to be able to get it there in one piece. And if it ever doesn't, 100 % satisfaction guarantee. And that's not just on the breakage. That's on, if you don't like the taste, you can send it back. We'll give you money back.

If you decide I bought it for such and such and it's not helping and you don't want to keep it, send it back. We'll give you your money back. Like we want you to be happy and that's like a hundred percent. We stand behind the product. But yeah, but it does taste amazing. You were talking about the taste of Manuka. The way I describe it is Manuka and the native New Zealand honeys in general from New Zealand.

Jessica (47:17)
you

Mike Everly (47:40)
the honeys in general from New Zealand, they're more complex in flavor. They're less like sticky sweet and they're more smoother, more complex and yeah, just a more interesting flavor profile. yeah, we don't get too many complaints on the taste and a lot of compliments in our reviews.

Jessica (48:08)
can't imagine that you'd have any complaints on the taste ever. It's amazing. I mean, again, I'm just gonna say like best honey ever. Eat it, don't put it in your tea. Like save that for your farmer's market honey because you wanna taste it. It's thick, it's creamy, it's just so yummy. And one thing that I do with it is I crush a fresh clove of garlic.

Mike Everly (48:12)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Jessica (48:36)
and let it sit out for 15 minutes or so because that's when all of the active stuff in garlic becomes most active is after it's been exposed to air for 10, 15 minutes. And then I take some of that raw crushed garlic clove.

Mike Everly (48:37)
Mmm.

Okay.

Jessica (48:52)
And I put it in my spoon of honey, which is maybe a half a teaspoon of honey, but you could use a little bit more if you wanted to. And I just take that all together and it helps me to have raw garlic, which is most beneficial form of garlic for so many different reasons. This is what kind of my immune immunity remedy, but it's also great for your gut as well. And when you're pairing it

Mike Everly (48:57)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jessica (49:22)
with this honey, you're just adding to that medicinal, you're bumping it up and leveling it up with adding the garlic to it and I actually chew it and I am using it in my mouth because our mouth has a microbiome as well and garlic is like a prebiotic and I know that the honey is also has antibacterial properties that help.

Mike Everly (49:33)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jessica (49:47)
balance out the mouth microbiome as well as the gut microbiome. So, you know, you're just getting all of that goodness. So that's one way that I take it like a handful of times per week. And other than that, I just take a little spoon of it at night and it's kind of like dessert.

Mike Everly (49:50)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah. Well, the other thing that as you were describing that I want to mention as a really valuable use case is for any type of sinus infection. And actually this branches into the topic that we wrote an article on and have some links to research on cystic fibrosis. So we learned years ago and my business partner, Sean, put

put neon to it, that if you take some manuka honey and dissolve it with your saline solution for a neti pot or a nasal syringe, if you've ever irrigated your sinuses. So if you have a cold, if your sinuses are getting infected, manuka honey can help clear up a sinus infection incredibly well and incredibly quickly.

A couple of times a day with a sinus rinse, can, you know, like I haven't had an antibiotic for something like that, like in forever. So it's super helpful at clearing up bacterial infections in your, you know, in your sinus, in your sinus cavity. And the thing that attracted researchers for cystic fibrosis to Manuka honey was they

you know, cystic fibrosis is a condition where your lungs, you know, and I, I'm going to describe this poorly because it's been a long time since I wrote that article and did that research, but basically your, your lungs, don't stay as clear as they need to the, the, they develop mucus in them more easily. And that, is a, environment that is, very hospitable to bacterial infection.

And that's the high risk with cystic fibrosis patients. So what these researchers are looking at is most bacterial infections that make it to your lungs start in your sinuses and then they migrate down. So their research was around if we could use Manuka honey as a rinse and use it either in response to...

an infection or maybe more importantly, just use it prophylactically. Use it every day as a preventive because you're creating this inhospitable environment in your sinuses for bacterial infection. If we can prevent the infection from ever getting up here, then it can't make its way down, you know, into your lungs. So that's the nature of, know, of that research. And I know that condition is super serious. And

You know, I'd love to find a way. I've tried to get information to the cystic fibrosis foundation. They probably, you know, figured that this sounds like an odd, you know, an odd solution. But if anybody's listening to this, please, please, please go to our website, do a quick search on cystic fibrosis, find the article and then read the paper yourself. What we always try to do in these articles is say, look,

We're not doctors. We're not telling you this is going to do this, that, or that. What we are trying to do is curate the science that's out there, tell you what we're reading about, what we're seeing, what the studies are finding, and then give you links to those studies so you can go look at that research yourself.

Jessica (53:31)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Everly (53:48)
And what we try to do in those articles is not be prescriptive, hey, if you take Manuka honey for this, it's gonna cure that or fix that or do that. But we more try to lay out the science that's there, what that science is telling us, what the researchers found, and then indicating this might be helpful.

for this condition. And then we give you all the links to those papers. So you can pull those papers up, read them yourself. We've done that for a short article on cystic fibrosis, on cold and flu, on cancer, on skincare, on oral care, on wound care. kind of, yeah, search on topic of interest and then dig in and do your own research.

And we're trying to be the most informative site out there for Manuka honey. I think we're doing a reasonable job at that. We've been working hard at it for a long time.

Jessica (54:47)
an excellent resource. I'll second that. So please do visit their website because it is a fountain of so much information. And it seems as though the scientific research, you have a little graph that shows like how it's increased over the years. It seems as though there's a lot going on and, you know, look like there was a spike in 2020 around COVID.

Mike Everly (55:09)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jessica (55:17)
probably researching more about viral, how it works against viruses and maybe even they were probably looking into how it was working with COVID. But yeah, it seems as though it's just continuing to be something that's of interest in the research and hopefully that is going to.

Mike Everly (55:25)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Jessica (55:40)
keep progressing and moving forward, at this time, it's just a wonderful resource. And yeah, I always say be your own detective and question everything and find answers and then bring this information to your healthcare provider.

Mike Everly (55:50)
Mm-hmm.

Jessica (55:57)
and make decisions with your healthcare provider, whether it's your, you know, Western medicine, allopathic doctor or your naturopath or your acupuncturist or whoever it is that you're making medical decisions with. It's just something to add to your, that you bring to them if you're on a path of trying to heal something and find a way to maybe take less medicine and less prescriptions or just feel better.

Mike Everly (55:57)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jessica (56:25)
So yeah, it's always a I think wonderful thing to Do your own research and you have it all laid out so beautifully. So why not use that? Resource it's right there. It saves a lot of time having to look it all up yourself and It's not your research. It's not something you've paid to have done You're just pulling it from all of the sources that you that are legitimately just on the internet and you're guiding

to those resources. It's not as though it's all been paid for by you.

Mike Everly (57:01)
No, no. In fact, I'll just point out, so our source is PubMed, so the National Institute of Health's database. And this is all peer-reviewed scientific journals and papers. if you just Google, if you just search, not Google, search in PubMed, Manuka honey, you get like 650 hits that come back. And right now, there's 50 or 60 papers being published every year. So literally, a new one's coming out.

on average every week. So, and these are typically academic researchers all over the world looking for natural approaches or approaches that will help deal with things like antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria and the difficulty traditional medicine is having in fighting various things. So yeah, it's quite interesting to just peruse all the things going on out there.

Jessica (57:32)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it's amazing what Mother Nature has already provided for us, right? When it comes to everything that we need is an answer in nature. And so thank you for sharing your experience and your wisdom and for telling us all about the product and how it's sourced because I think for a lot of people that's becoming very important to know that the sourcing is not harming land.

Mike Everly (58:04)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jessica (58:27)
and not harming the people and in fact helping to better the land and better people's livelihood and their income because that's another important layer that I look for in sustainably sourced products is that the people who are part of the process are also being treated with respect and good working conditions and fair wages and so you you guys are the real deal.

Mike Everly (58:54)
Mm-hmm.

Jessica (58:56)
You're the whole package. And I will also kind of speaking of package, attest to the packaging being impeccably plastic free. It's beautiful. And I ordered the three.

jars because I just felt like well one shipment is better than three separate shipments and when I run out I don't have to think about it and it does save you a little bit of money to buy in bulk as well so your website is beesandtrees.com and you can order and it will be at your doorstep within a week. You're not in my guide yet because I haven't updated it but

Mike Everly (59:22)
Mm-hmm.

Jessica (59:42)
you know, I found you after my guide was finalized, but it will be in the updated version for the new year because I definitely want to share you in our resource. And also I think that you have an Instagram that people can maybe follow and learn a little bit more they are interested in whatever new news that you have to share, what's your Instagram?

Mike Everly (59:49)
Okay, great.

Yeah, I knew you were just about to ask me that. I think it's bees and trees manuka. But it might be manuka honey bees and trees. that's terrible. I should know it off the top of my head. Sorry, sorry.

Jessica (1:00:21)
Okay, well, that's actually good because okay, we can look it up right now. Because you know, if you're not doing your own media, that's nice. You think it's maybe when you

Mike Everly (1:00:31)
We definitely have help.

Jessica (1:00:34)
yeah, here it is. It's bees and trees manuka.

Mike Everly (1:00:38)
Bees and trees, Manuka. That's what I was thinking. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, no, we actually have been putting a lot of effort into our Instagram presence and our Instagram page. We've started our YouTube channel and we're starting to focus that on that more. So, yeah, we're trying to look for every avenue to directly connect with consumers because, you you're not going to find us in big box retailers. Not now, not ever.

Jessica (1:00:41)
Yep.

Mike Everly (1:01:07)
And you'll find us in some small independent stores and those are listed on our website, but you're not going to ever find us in a big box retailer. So we've got to build these relationships one-on-one. So you're dealing with real people on this end and we know that there's a real person whose health is important to them on the other end of every customer order. you know, that's what we're here for really.

Jessica (1:01:22)
Mm-hmm.

very clear that you're here to serve the consumer and supporting businesses like yours, I think, is well worth while. Instead of just not knowing who you're supporting, grabbing whatever's on the store shelf, I think more and more lately, you really have to find businesses like yours that are owned by real people and who care and who are doing the right thing for the environment and for their customers. So thank you for that.

Mike Everly (1:01:52)
Mm.

Jessica (1:02:05)
I know that you're going to join us on our health masterclass and that's going to come out in the spring. And you'll be telling us about more of the medicinal uses for manuka honey that you've.

Mike Everly (1:02:13)
Mm-hmm.

Jessica (1:02:24)
gathered from all of the scientific research papers. And again, you won't be telling people what to do, but just informing them about all of the different beautiful uses that Manuka Honey has for therapeutic kind of health benefits. So I'm excited for that. And yeah, so thank you so much, Mike, for joining us and for sharing your time and your energy and your stories.

Mike Everly (1:02:50)
Thank you, Jessica. I really appreciate you having me on and getting a chance to talk about something that I'm so passionate about. So I appreciate it.

Jessica (1:02:59)
course, yes, and you can tell that this is near and dear to your heart. And just so amazing to see when people get to do work that they are passionate about and that's meaningful and kind of fulfills your purpose. And also I wanted to say that if you haven't yet grabbed my sustainable living guide and you're listening, I do offer a free.

guide that helps you find businesses like Bees and Trees and products that are made and sourced sustainably where people are also paid fair wages and also packaged in a way that is not detrimental to the planet. So no packaging or materials that are plastic and also companies that are

mindfully shipping without plastic as well. So I've done all the research to cut through the green washing and to find those few and far between products that are truly doing all of the right things such as bees and trees. And they're all in one place, easy to access so that you don't have to pull your hair out going through hours of research just to find one product that's actually truly sustainably made, sourced, and packaged. And that can be found on livelightly.eco.

ECO and it's under the tab for guide. You can up for the newsletter and it will come right to your inbox. you for listening.