North Coast Living & The Best Bees Company
Posted
January 25, 2022
North Coast Living And The Best Bees Company Team Up To Bring Honeybee Hives To Apartment Buildings In Western US.
Boston, MA — North Coast, a professional multifamily asset management and acquisition firm with properties throughout the western US, has established a pollinator program in partnership with The Best Bees Company, a managed beekeeping services provider named one of the fastest growing companies last year by Inc. Magazine.
North Coast’s pollinator program joins their solar and EV initiatives, extensive water reduction efforts and several other sustainability programs for its residents in California, Oregon, Colorado, Texas and Washington. North Coast selected The Best Bees Company because their scientific approach contributes to this wider commitment to sustainability.
At North Coast, we are always working to find innovative ways to positively impact our environment. We saw contributing to the Best Bees network as a great way to put our aspirations into practice. So far, we have installed honeybee colonies throughout our portfolio with plans to expand our program in 2022.
— Blake Hayunga, COO North Coast & Virtú Investments
North Coast’s beehives do more than pollinate local flowers and make honey. Each of the honeybee hives is part of Best Bees’ unique nationwide network. The data are collected and analyzed at scale, enabling scientists to work on critical experiments like creating pollinator vaccines to combat disease, identifying sources of declining populations and analyzing which plants are most beneficial to honey production. The Best Bees Company partners with world renowned researchers at institutions like MIT, NASA, National Geographic and Harvard University to complete research aimed at population stability and improved health for these keystone creatures.
Since 2021, North Coast has added honeybee hives at its apartment buildings to both contribute to sustainability initiatives and engage residents.
According to Corie Reeser, director of impact programming at North Coast, "Pollinators are a critical part of healthy eco systems. We’ve repurposed grass landscaping, revamped unused amenity space, put hive boxes on the roof of a 12-story building and found all sorts of creative ways to host our honeybees. We’ve even started enhancing our community gardens as an extension of this movement. Then, of course, our residents love getting honey at the end of the year. This project has been a personal highlight and one of the most fun parts of our impact programs so far."
The Best Bees Company’s beekeepers install beehive boxes at each site, bring a colony to live in the hive, and maintain and monitor the honeybees over the entirety of the year. At the end of the season, the beekeepers harvest the honey and deliver it in individualized jars to each community for both residents and employees to enjoy.
“By sponsoring these hives, North Coast joins a growing list of companies dedicated to making an outsized impact on their sustainability initiatives,” said Noah Wilson-Rich, Ph.D., co-founder and CEO of The Best Bees Company. “Our partnerships with real estate companies form the backbone of our vital pollinator research aimed at improved honeybee health and survival.”
About The Best Bees Company
The Best Bees Company installs and maintains beehives on commercial, institutional, and residential properties in cities across the US, from Boston to LA. Founded in 2010 by Noah Wilson-Rich, Ph.D., the Certified LGBTBE® company takes an innovative, science-based approach to beekeeping that helps companies measure the impact of their sustainability initiatives. Through partnerships with institutions like Harvard Business School, national commercial real estate companies like Beacon Capital Partners, and citizen scientists around the world, The Best Bees Company is scaling the science of pollinators and improving bee health one beehive at a time.
About North Coast Living
North Coast Living, headquartered in Carlsbad, CA is the property management arm of real estate investment firm, Virtú Investments. North Coast Living became its own brand in 2019 but has been operating at the site level since the company’s founding in 1997. With more than 24,000 units over two decades of experience, North Coast uses innovative programs, sustainability practices and an inclusive company culture to consistently deliver a high-level living experience for residents.
