Thanks to Bees & Lemonade, This Austin, TX Teen is Now a Multi-Millionaire

Inspired by a couple of bee stings when she was just four-years-old, Mikaila Ulmer, of Austin, TX, became fascinated with bees; and eventually turned her lemonade stand into a bee-sweetened, multi-million dollar business.

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Of course, it wasn't just bees and lemonade that made now 17-year-old Mikaila's business so successful, hard work and ingenuity played important rolls as well.

Her little idea from more than 10 years ago continues to grow and grow...by more than 500 percent since the company’s humble Austin, Texas-based beginnings. Today, the award-winning, ready-to-drink Me & the Bees Lemonades in five refreshing flavors is buzzing off the shelves of Whole Foods Market, The Fresh Market, World Market, H-E-B stores across Texas and Kroger stores in Houston. It is also available at a growing number of restaurants, food trailers and natural food delivery companies.

According to her website, it was with the encouragement of her family that she set out to make a product for the Acton Children’s Business Fair and Austin Lemonade Day. And that's when she got the idea to use her Great Grandmother's special recipe for flaxseed lemonade that she got out of her family's 1940s cookbook.

In fact her brand of lemonade scored her an $11 million deal with Whole Foods back in 2016, before she was even an teenager.

So you're probably wondering what bees have to do with lemonade and earning a million dollars. Well, it was actually after her fateful bee stings that she and her mother began researching bees, which is how she learned of their importance to the ecosystem and what would happen if they were to become extinct.

That served as the inspiration for her secret ingredient, “I decided to give her beloved lemonade a new twist by adding honey from bees, instead of only sugar."

Since she first began her business she has been "donating a percentage of the profits to local and international organizations fighting hard to save the honeybees. That is why she touts: “Buy a Bottle…Save a Bee.”

There ya go, folks. Two bee stings, a few major retailers, a stop on Shark Tank, and a name change, Mikaila is now a multi-millionaire and she can't even vote yet. Seems simple enough, right?