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11-Year-Old's Lemonade Recipe That Saves The Bees Turns Into Million Dollar Business

March 31, 2016

An 11-year-old girl has turned her grandmother's secret lemonade recipe into a national business -- and she is donating ten percent of the proceeds to saving the bees.

Rodolfo Gonzalez / Austin American-Statesman via AP

When Mikaila Ulmer learned about the dwindling bee population and the danger it posed to our food chain, she had to do something to help them.

She decided she could add local honey to her lemonade and sell it, with a portion of her profit going to international groups working to protect the pollinators.

Addressing a panel of potential investors on "Shark Tank" last year, Mikaila pitched BeeSweet. The pitch convinced Fubu CEO Daymond John to invest $60,000 — and the buzz only grew louder from there.

BeeSweet later scored a contract with Whole Foods, which initially agreed to sell the product in regional stores. The news got even better earlier this month at the South by Southwest Festival: While being honored alongside other black innovators, the sixth-grader announced an expanded distribution deal through United Natural Foods, according to NBC BLK. And it's a multimillion-dollar deal at that, TheGrio reports.

Currently, the 11 year-old entrepreneur is busy working on new flavors — and new business ideas for her once-skeptical friends who now are eager to start their own businesses.

"At first, they didn’t believe me," she told NBC News. "Now I am helping my friends start their own businesses."