Close Up: In Bees-Ness A closer look at bees and business

		Bee Hall OfFame Burt'sBees Killerbees Cheeriosbee Spellingbee The BeeGees

Name: Roxanne Quimby,co-founder and president of natural personal care productsmanufacturer, Burt's Bees Inc.

Age: 50

Sixty-five-year-old Burt Shavitz might still be selling honey inpeanut butter jars from his Datsun had then-waitress Roxanne Quimbynot pulled to the side of a rural Maine road one day in 1989 totalk collaboration. The result: a Raleigh, North Carolina, companythat has made a transition from honey and hand-dipped beeswaxcandles to its famous lip balm, perfumed body oil and pet-careproducts. The secret behind Quimby and Shavitz' climb fromwholesale craft fair to sales of $20 million this year? In a word,buzz. Burt's Bees has been the subject of articles in numerousmagazines, from Family Circle to Forbes and most things inbetween.

		Buzz of 1999: virtual Buzz of 2000:reality

Lack Thereof: "Therewas a certain frenzy around the product because it wasn't thatavailable. For one, we were sort of unknown, but also, when we didhave orders, we had difficulty filling them."

		Big Buzz To BigHit Petrock ModelT TheiMac

Guerrilla Marketing:"We did a thing where Burt made per-sonal appearances at someNew York [City] stores. We hired an actor dressed as a bee to giveout free lip balm, we gave out free smoothies, and Burt signedposters and gave away T-shirts. But we can get away with that,whereas it would be ridiculous for Clinique. We have a personalitythat is 'for the people'-anything goes."

		Big Buzz To BigFlop NewCoke BetamaxVCR TheEdsel

Webster's defines "buzz" as "towhisper; to communicate, as tales, in an undertone; to spread, asreport, by whispers, or secretly." The word originated as animitation of the sound a bee makes.

Burt Shavitz was a beekeeper who just happened tobecome famous. Some famous people who just happened to keep beesare Martha Stewart, Aristotle and fictional detective SherlockHolmes.

Should any of the 100,000 other beekeepers in theUnited States decide to start businesses, they have a variety ofproduct lines to choose from-besides honey, candles and skin care,beeswax is used in crayons, floor polish, protective car polishesand threadmaking.

		"The saying"mind your own beeswax" comes from old-fashioned makeup.Women used to use wax to fill in scars left by smallpox. When theweather was warm, the wax would melt."

Contact Source

• Burt's Bees Inc., (800) 849-7112, www.burtsbees.com