Photo: Tristan Williams
Allison Wickham grew up as “an outdoor farm kid, covered in dirt and bug bites,” she says. Now she is a CEO, proudly wearing her corporate merch: a T-shirt saying “Pollinat(or) Else.” As founder, owner, and queen bee at Siller Pollinator Company, Wickham’s mission is supporting pollinator populations. While many people know about the threats to honey bees, Wickham points out that there are 399 other species of bees in our area—and that butterflies and moths, beetles and wasps, even bats and birds can also act as pollinators. About 80 percent of plants benefit from pollinators, and Siller aims to help people help each kind.
Wickham, who has graduate training and career experience in agriculture, says half of Siller’s business is hive management for people in the Charlottesville area who want to keep bees, either to pollinate their crops or to help the environment. The other half of its revenue comes from installing pollinator habitats; one large customer sector is the solar industry, which often seeks to aid conservation and build goodwill by planting native species on its farms (“it’s all the rage,” says Wickham).
Siller offers educational programs for small-scale beekeepers who want to put a hive or two on their property, and the company also has a store supplying all things bee. Wickham and her team of three certainly stay busy: “Our phone rings off the hook. It’s exhausting and sweaty work, but worth it,” says the former farm kid.
