Local high schooler and beekeeper Ishika Anand aims to spread awareness about the importance of pollinators in the community through her business and her presentations.
The Los Altos High School sophomore is not only the owner of Ishika’s Backyard Honey – she also leads talks about bees. She is scheduled to lead a free presentation 2-3 p.m. Saturday at the Los Altos Library.
Anand said she started her beekeeping journey five years ago when she and her family discovered a beehive in their backyard. Although she was scared at first, her fear slowly morphed into curiosity after a volunteer from a local bee guild inspired her to adopt the hive.
“It took some convincing,” Anand said. “The beekeeper was very passionate about it, and when you hear about something you’re skeptical about from a passionate person, it makes you want to do it. So, talking to someone who’s really experienced and has a love for the subject really convinced us. And it was like, why not have this cool thing? You only live once.”
Anand added that the time commitment to beekeeping is minimal, as bees are able to sustain themselves well.
“They’re just this big family,” Anand said. “They feed themselves, they protect themselves, they do everything. That’s one of the greatest things about being a beekeeper.”
As a visual learner, Anand said she acquired beekeeping skills mostly through hands-on work with the bees, with the help of other beekeepers and the internet. She added that the biggest way she learns is by doing, making mistakes and figuring it out from there.
“The more experience you have, the easier it gets,” Anand said. “It’s cool to see how they behave. It’s fun to see how they behave and communicate with each other, with the way that they dance and vibrate. It’s just so cool, there’s no real way for me to describe it.”
Anand harvests and sells honey and lip products using beeswax, combining her passion for engineering with her love for bees. Her most recent invention is a centrifuge, which makes the process of removing honey from the honeycomb more efficient.
“My passion is also in engineering,” Anand said. “That’s one of the things that I connect my beekeeping to and I’ve learned a lot about that. My centrifuge was really the epitome of an engineer’s project with trial and failure.”
Anand’s father, Anand Govind, said that he helps his daughter find materials to help her create these devices. Anand is a part of the Santa Clara Valley Bee Guild, and said she often wants to recreate certain tools that she discovers there.
Govind noted that while Anand comes up with the ideas, he talks to her about what could work using the materials around the house. He added that as Anand has grown up, she’s become more confident in her creativity.
“She’s grown into thinking about how to create a brand and market her products,” Govind said. “She’s become more confident and self-assured, and better at thinking creatively about how to be an entrepreneur and use different ways to promote her business and her idea.”
Anand added that to her, beekeeping is more about spreading awareness about the importance of pollinators rather than the money. She explained that bees are an integral part of the environment and human sustainability, an idea that she emphasizes during her presentations to the community.
“The business was really my way of raising awareness about pollinators and bees,” Anand said. “It’s my way of reaching out to people in the community and telling them, ‘Bees are a thing.’ They’re so important to so many ecosystems – to our planet as a whole.”
Even though Govind isn’t involved with the bees hands-on, he recognizes their importance to both Anand and the ecosystem. Although he was scared of the bees at first, Govind said he grew to appreciate them for helping humans without hurting the environment in the process.
“When you see the bees work tirelessly every day, they are like role model citizens for the community,” Govind said. “They work hard to produce something that tastes good, has health benefits and they do it without leaving an environmental footprint. In the same way, we should work hard to leave little environmental impact but create a positive impact in the community around us.”
Ishika’s Backyard Honey sells three sizes of honey, ranging in price from $4-10, along with a lip product.
For more information on Anand’s talk at the Los Altos Library, 13 S. San Antonio Road, call (408) 948-7683 or visitsites.google.com/view/ishikasbackyardhoney.
