The Full Story
About MycoBee
,,And into the forest I go to lose my mind and find my soul’’ – John Muir
Mission
When we first started growing mushrooms in 2007, our goal was to produce quality food for ourselves. With every new mushroom we have grown, excitement was growing equally. We did research on requirements how to set up oyster mushroom farm but then it was just a dream for us. We left the idea of mushroom farm behind, but we were still growing oysters at home, deepening our knowledge about fungi kingdom and every year foraging for wild mushrooms. Growing mushrooms became our hobby, we were looking for answers in the forest, observing how mushrooms grow, what conditions they need.
Forest and wildlife were calling us, in 2017 Bees came to our life and first outdoor mushroom growing projects in 2018. The fascinating Nature brought up idea of Forest Gardens, where fungi help the soil, vegetables and other plants to grow, being at the same time pollinators for Bees, giving benefits for us and Nature . We study fungi and their importance for the Nature and Humans everyday.
Our main goal to raise ecological awareness of how to improve our soil, gardens, woodlands with the help of fungi, providing delicious local mushrooms at the same time.
Our mushroom company, MycoBee Ltd was established in 2019 with two co- founders and mushroom enthusiasts, Bea Herliczka and Mario Brzozowski.
We knew then, our future is to work with mushrooms. Mushrooms are our future!
In the past two years we were providing fresh and dried mushrooms at local farmers markets.
We quickly realised, not everyone can afford local food. In the past two years we were supporting as many people as we could with our free fresh produce.
Next we realised, not many people know much about mushrooms and their importance in our life and ecosystem. What makes our heart happy, there is growing interest in growing mushrooms at home or in the garden.
In October 2021 we’ve changed the name from MycoBee Ltd to MycoBee Mushrooms C.I.C. and started building community of people who want to bring positive change to the planet and learn about fungi.
Currently we are working with local charities and communities to build small community mushroom farms where people can learn more about fungi world and how to grow own mushrooms; cheap and sustainable way.
We are committed to research on mushroom compost, myco-remendation, sound science using mushrooms, mushroom leather.
We provide high quality service and information based on our own experiences and research and we continue to improve our services building strong local communities who support well-being, sustainability and Our Planet.
We are Mushroom People, Together We Can Change The Planet!
Vision
Our vision is to create opportunities for people to run community Mushroom Farms and Forest Gardens to improve soil health and reverse the damage we created to our planet. We strongly believe small local Mushroom Farming is the future of farming. We are sharing with people our own experiences with cultivating mushrooms. We are working with charities and communities around Scotland to bring local people top shelf gourmet mushrooms affordable to everyone, opportunities for connect with others and Nature and to learn vital craft as mushroom cultivation is. Spent mushroom compost makes perfect soil fertiliser and better crops for our garden improving soil quality.
MEET THE FOUNDERS
Beata Herliczka
Bea is the co-founder of Mycobee Mushrooms and Managing Director. She is fascinated about Fungi world, fungiculture and mycology. Bea comes from Poland, where wild mushrooms are big part of the diet and foraging is national tradition. Bea has been foraging for edible mushrooms since 1984. Farming vegetables and fruits were everyday normal life for Bea. She has been studied Biology & Chemistry at High School and Civil Engineering at Wroclaw University of Environmental and Life Sciences, she is also certified Mycotherapist with Mykotroph Institute in Germany. Bea first came across cultivated fungi when she was a teenager, her best friend's father was growing oyster mushrooms in his basement.
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'' My best friend was always giving me fresh oysters as they were growing more than they could consume. Since then thoughts of growing mushrooms were with me.''
Bea is working on guides how to grow mushrooms and ID cards with wild fungi species. She is photographing fungi and collecting samples. MycoBee Fungi Library contains over 300 Scottish fungi species.
Mario Brzozowski
Mario is the co- founder of Mycobee Mushrooms and Production Director. Mushrooms and Forest always fascinated him. Mario's dream visions are Forest Gardens where people grow and share food together, where everyone can come and harvest own food directly from the Nature.
Mario's survival and technical skills from National service at 1 PSK,
one of six special forces units in Poland, are priceless addition on our farm. Mario has been growing vegetables and herbs since childhood. Mario comes from Poland, where growing own food and foraging for mushrooms and herbs was part of his daily duties. He has huge heart for growing mushrooms, experimenting with new growing techniques and fungi species. Mario has been volunteering in Planetary Healing Community Woodland for many years helping with maintenance of the woodland.
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This is the man of many talents, from building sheds, beehives, wooden mushrooms to micro- carvings in gemstones.
Mario has been keeping bees for over two years before mushrooms took over his life since 2019.
