Beekeeping Today Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Charlotte Ekker Wiggins and A Beekeepers Diary (S3, E55) Jun 14, 2021

Show notes

Charlotte Ekker Wiggins, author of two books about beekeeping and beekeepers, is our guest today. Her first book, Bee Club Basics, Or How To Start A Bee Club, dealt with managing teachers mentors, students, classes and the basics of organizing a start-up beekeeping organization. Her second book, just recently released is A Beekeeper's Diary. Self Guide To Keeping Bees. [Late breaking news! "A Beekeeper's Diary" just won a Bronze Award in the Home & Garden Category from the Independent Publisher Book Awards! Congratulations Charlotte!]

This is a beginner's book, certainly. But it is different than any you have looked at in the past. When confronted with a task for the first time, she will offer several perspectives on how to accomplish it. Which is the right one, well, IT DEPENDS, doesn't it? So, the reader finds where she fits in on this and accomplishes the task the best way for her. There are almost always several correct answers.

She also uses checklists a lot. These are always handy and with them she often uses blank pages so you can write your own list, or make notes on something, or make a question for later.

Why do you want to keep bees, anyway? A good question right at the beginning. And start with Langstroth equipment because there is so much written about it, and so much information on it. You can graduate to other equipment when you get the basic biology stuff behind you.

There are a host of "Good To Know" tips, which cover whatever topic the chapter is covering but from a somewhat different perspective. For instance, Buying used equipment – good or bad, and why?

Check out both of Charlotte's books. They are different enough from what you have that it will be worth your time.

Links and websites mentioned in this podcast:

Charlotte's Website - http://www.charlotteekkerwiggins.com
Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com

______________

Calling all craft food and drink makers! Entry period for the 12th annual Good Food Awards is open now thru June 30th, and we're accepting entries from 18 different categories of food and drink, including honey. Entries are $78 a piece to help cover logistics, and entrants can add on the option to receive judge feedback from the Blind Tasting in August for $15. Head over to goodfoodfdn.org for all the details and use code BEEKEEPING at checkout for $10 off. We look forward to seeing your entries soon!

Click here for Submission Information
Click here for Rules & Regulations
Click here for Honey Category details

______________

We welcome Betterbee as sponsor of today's episode. BetterBee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, BetterBee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com

Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com

This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode!

We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum.

_______________

We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: questions@beekeepingtodaypodcast.com

Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com

Thank you for listening!

Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong"; Musicalman, "Epilogue". Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott

Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

The National Honey Board with Margaret Lombard & Catherine Barry (S3, E54) Jun 07, 2021

Show notes

In this episode, we talk with Margaret Lombard (CEO) and Catherine Barry (Dir. of Marketing) from the National Honey Board. The NHB is an organization designed with the express purpose of marketing honey. There are 10 Board Members, consisting of Honey Packers, Honey Importers, beekeepers and Sioux Honey who handle more than 250,000 pounds of honey/year and who pay a penny and a half/per pound for every pound over that amount. They have USDA Oversight, and are involved in almost anything and everything honey.

They have an incredible web page at www.Honey.com that has a wealth of information on:

Honey bee research they fund working with Project Apis m,
A Honey Locator, where you can find a local source of honey,
A press kit with honey info, fun facts, press releases from the Board, and
A host of visual material for news organizations to use.

There's also the NHB Store, where beekeepers can get a lot of free promotional material including brochures, magnets, educational material, material for teachers and more.

The research they do on honey includes the nutritional value of honey, who are honey consumers, who uses honey in retail including consumers, cosmetics, and other uses. Retail sales of honey are declining a bit, excluding the past year+ during the pandemic, but honey use in ingredients is rapidly increasing in a variety of products.

The NHB is also looking at the sustainability of beekeeping, working with the HBHC, the Almond Board, and UC Davis, bringing all this together to form a Bee Health Collective, which you can find on their web page. If that is not enough, know they are working on developing an updated Standard Of Identity for honey.

It is safe to say that almost everything you know about honey today, you know because of the research and/or messaging from The National Honey Board.

Listen today!

Links and websites mentioned in this podcast:

The National Honey Board - https://honey.com
Honey Locator - https://honey.com/honey-locator

Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com

______________

_______________

We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: questions@beekeepingtodaypodcast.com

Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com

Thank you for listening!

Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong"; Musicalman, "Epilogue". Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott

Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

The Art of the Bee & Honey Bee Genetics with Dr. Rob Page (S3, E53) May 31, 2021

Show notes

Today, we invite Dr. Robert E. Page, Jr. to the podcast to talk about his research on honey bee genetics and his new book, The Art Of The Bee. Shaping the environment from Landscapes to Societies.

Rob is an Emeritus professor at both Arizona State University and The University of California, Davis. He has published hundreds of research papers, and he is the author of two other books. And he is the recipient of numerous awards, fellowships and recognitions from institutions around the world.

Rob Page is a geneticist and has studied the workings of honey bee genetics his whole career. He has perfected instrumental insemination of queen honey bees, studied the physiology and anatomy of natural mating of a honey bee drone and a queen, and the distribution of millions of sperm cells inside a queen when on a mating flight and hooks up with multiple drones. His work at selecting for certain behaviors is extraordinary as is his ability to organize and define his works of science, graduate level leadership and University organization.

All of this comes into play in this book. The way honey bees actively groom their environment to fit their needs, paint their colony lives to best fit their environment, and still more about the evolution of social life in a honey bee society.

Best of all, it is written in a style that is almost unscientific. It is down home in style and entertaining in content. He explains in detail the parallels between a honey bee society and our human society.

Listen today as Dr. Page talks about all this and more!

Links and websites mentioned in this podcast:

Art of the Bee YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@artofthebee
Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com

______________

_______________

We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: questions@beekeepingtodaypodcast.com

Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com

Thank you for listening!

Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong"; Musicalman, "Epilogue". Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott

Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

Hive Types - Part 5: The Future of Hives - The HyperHyve with Mike James (S3, 52) May 24, 2021

Show notes

This is without doubt, the most technologically advanced, commercially available, honey bee hive monitoring system developed so far.

Mike James has a background in home automation and when he started keeping bees not all that long ago, a first thought was supporting his package bees with some insulation. And, to no one's surprise, his insulated package colonies took off faster than those in his regular hive boxes. So, he developed an insulating technique using a polycarbonate foam sprayed on the inside of his boxes, moving them from a R-0.75 value to an R-6 value. The walls are about 1.75" thick, and the box is about 10% heavier than his old boxes, but the behavior changes he saw were pretty conclusive. But how to monitor?

So, he began adding devices built into the hive itself. The floor became a both a scale that would transmit weight changes to your cell phone or computer, and a heating device, that can heat the internal temperature of the hive to about 103F to kill varroa but not bees. Temperature and CO2 are monitored, plus there's a GPS device, an accelerometer to tell if the hive is moving, and an organic compound sensing device that will tell you what's coming into the hive that maybe shouldn't be coming into your hive. And all of this is powered by 2 solar panels on the roof.

The boxes interlock with busses, therefore the monitoring is maintained no matter how high the tower gets, so all the boxes are talking to each other. There are two doors on the front that can be automatically opened and closed, and the built-in queen excluder also contains both the temperature and humidity monitors so you can see exactly what's going on right in the brood nest.

The cover with its two solar panels sits on top and is 3 inches thick for maximum insulation, plus there are some ventilation ports that can be adjusted. The frames inside are just the same you have now, but there is no inner cover.

All these devices talk to each other, the data is plotted on your computer, and activities and changes are noted. So that this hive, by measuring all these variables, learns and can tell what will be in the future because of what it can measure now. Machine learning will be the next beekeeper. The future is here, now.

Listen to Mike explain the HyperHyve in this episode of Beekeeping Today Podcast!

Links and websites mentioned in this podcast:

HyperHyve website - www.hyperhyve.com

Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com

______________

_______________

We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: questions@beekeepingtodaypodcast.com

Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com

Thank you for listening!

Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong"; Musicalman, "Epilogue". Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott

Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

Hive Types - Part 4: AZ Hives with Paul Longwell (S3, E51) May 17, 2021

Show notes

In Part 4 of our 5-part series on hive types other than the standard Langstroth, we talk with Paul Longwell about the AZ Hive. Paul has been keeping bees for quite a few years. He's a Master Beekeeper and has bees in Langstroth hives, top bar hives and has a shed with his AZ Hives. AZ hives, if you're not familiar with them were developed in Slovenia, which has a long history with bees and beekeeping.

Basically, AZ hives are in a small shed that the beekeeper goes into to work the bees. To work these hives, they are opened from the back, not the top, and the back is inside the shed. Bees exit from the opening on the outside, and there's a double door that opens in the trailer, a screen closest to the bees, and a solid door to seal the hive.

Frames are parallel to the long side of the hive, like a book case, and can be removed by sliding them out of the door in the back. Like Langstroth hives, they can be 2 or more boxes high, with the brood on the bottom and honey above. The boxes, and thus the frames are larger than Lang frames, and they don't hang on a rabbet, but rather sit on a very narrow metal support and beekeepers simply slide them out of the box to examine.

Because the entire hive isn't opened, very little smoke is needed and beesuits are rare. Bees that fly when a frame is examined will leave the inside of the shed through a bee escape in the ceiling that offers the only light. The shed can be standalone (like Paul's) or it can be on a trailer so it can be moved around. It is completely enclosed so it can be warmed by a small heater and a beekeeper can examine the bees at night, using a red light, or even in the winter, with the heater on.

Links and websites mentioned in this podcast:

PNW AZ Hives Facebook Group - https://www.facebook.com/groups/1384979521682962
AZ Hives North America - https://azhivesnorthamerica.com

Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com

______________

_______________

We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: questions@beekeepingtodaypodcast.com

Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com

Thank you for listening!

Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong"; Musicalman, "Epilogue". Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott

Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

Hive Types - Part 3: Long Hives with Tina Sebestyen (S3, E50) May 10, 2021

Show notes

In Part Three of our five-part Hive Types Series, we talk with Colorado Master Beekeeper and columnist Tina Sebestyen about the Long or Horizontal Langstroth. Horizontal hives are very much like the traditional Langstroth hives, which are vertical stacks of boxes, except horizontal hives are only one box high and about three boxes long. The very best thing about horizontal hives is that you never have to lift a very heavy box off the top of a hive to get to what's below that box. Essentially, no lifting for the beekeeper.

Horizontal hives, using 30 frames, can have the front door on either or both ends, or in the middle. If there is just one opening, it should be on the end, so the bees build their nest a frame or two of honey right next to the entrance, behind that some of the bee bread, then the brood next, and at the end away from the front door will be the honey. Not up, but back.

Burlap can be used instead of inner covers, using 4 or 5 pieces laid on top of the top bars. The bees will stick some of this to the top bars with propolis, but also leave passageways so they can go over the top of the frames. This very much resembles what a nest in a tree would be like. Propolis is good.

Tina explains there are additional advantages for the beekeeper: You use much less equipment. It's all in one box. No more supers in the garage, with frames, feeders and the like. Plus, swarm control gets a lot easier, especially if you have entrances on both ends. If you find swarm cells in the brood area, simply find the queen, move her to the other end with some brood and bees, and move the divider board from the very end to the middle, open the second entrance and you're set. You've made a split without using any more equipment.

Tina has written several articles on horizontal hive keeping for Bee Culture magazine (starting with the February 2020 issue), has loads of info on her web page and is in the process of writing a book on the topic.

She shares it all in this podcast. Listen today!

Links and websites mentioned in this podcast:

Tina's Website - https://beequest.buzz/
Follow Tina on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/bee.longing/

Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com

______________

_______________

We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: questions@beekeepingtodaypodcast.com

Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com

Thank you for listening!

Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong"; Musicalman, "Epilogue". Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott

Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

Hive Types - Part 2: Top Bar Hives with Christy Hemenway (S3, E49) May 03, 2021

Show notes

We continue with our five-part series on hive types other than the standard Langstroth, with Christy Hemenway. Christy has been working with top bar hives for just over 14 years now and has developed a good sense of how they work.

She started out liking them because – It's all about the wax – clean wax was important to her and top bar hives produce clean wax. No foundation to fuss with and no contaminants to worry about, so it's perfect for cut comb honey, or the crush and drain method of harvesting liquid honey.

But there's a lot more. NO heavy lifting is a definite plus with these hives, because all you ever have to lift is a single frame at a time.

The top bars are set such that they snuggle up next to each other, so no openings in the top of the hive when you open a top bar hive, which keeps the bees inside, not flitting around, giving you a hard time. And, because they are beveled on the bottom, there is actually more surface for the bees to attach the comb than if just a straight wooden stick. There are a few tricks to learn when handling top bar hive frames, but overall, pretty straight forward with lifting and turning and rolling frames.

The only downside she sees is that these hives won't produce a ton of honey for you and they are a tad more difficult to move around than a Langstroth, but they are perfect for a smaller scale backyard beekeeper who worries more about the bees than the honey.

In a lot of ways, these are very different from a Langstroth hive, but again, if it's good for the bees, it's probably not so good for the beekeeper. Which would you prefer?

Links and websites mentioned in this podcast:

Gold Star Honey Bees - https://www.goldstarhoneybees.com
Christy's Amazon Books Author's Page - https://www.amazon.com/Christy-Hemenway/e/B008C8BNAS

Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com

______________

_______________

We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: questions@beekeepingtodaypodcast.com

Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com

Thank you for listening!

Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong"; Musicalman, "Epilogue". Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott

Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

Hive Types - Part 1: Flow Hive with Stuart Anderson (S3, E48) Apr 26, 2021

Show notes

This week, we start our multi-part series on hive types other than the standard Langstroth. We start with the Flow Hive.

In this episode, we talk with Stewart Anderson, who, with his son Cedar imagined and then created the Flow Hive, certainly the most cosmic jump in the technology of honey harvesting developed since the first mechanical honey extractor conceived by Major Franz Elder von Hruschka in 1865.

It started on a hot summer day 16 years ago when Cedar had spent a long day cranking his extractor harvesting his honey crop. Cranky bees, humid tropical weather and lots of work made Cedar ask his dad if there was some way to harvest honey without having to open a hive. So that evening they spent a couple of hours trying to figure out the equation that would change honey harvesting forever.

They actually figured out that to make that happen they needed to make the honey flow vertically in the hive to be collected at the bottom, somehow. That simple discovery had to overcome opening ripe honey cells, dealing with the cappings, reclosing the cell, removing the now disrupted capping wax, and seeing if the bees would reuse the cells. Or even abscond.

Their website photos show how they made that work and work well, with plastic frames inside the Langstroth deep hive body that could be offset with a crank on the outside of the box, offsetting the cells in the frame so the honey drained to a pipe below, to empty into honey bottles outside. Harvesting honey without opening the hive.

But getting there took them a score of years, figuring out how to manufacture the frames needed, to make them fit, how to make it all fit, and how to market this. Their first intentions were to make this a tool for commercial beekeepers in their home country of Australia. But it turns out, it was the perfect tool for the hobby market, and, to their surprise, these customers wanted the whole hive, not just the deep super with all the gadgets inside. Life then got interesting for them.

Listen as Stu talk with us about his and more!

Links and websites mentioned in this podcast:

Flow Hive - https://www.honeyflow.com
Kim's Book on Cicadas by Gene Kritsky - https://smile.amazon.com/dp/0867271736/

Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com

______________

_______________

We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: questions@beekeepingtodaypodcast.com

Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com

Thank you for listening!

Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong"; Musicalman, "Epilogue". Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott

Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

Dr. Samuel Ramsey - Varroa & Tropilaelaps Updates and More! (S3, E47) Apr 19, 2021

Show notes

Dr. Sam Ramsey is back with us again, looking at all sorts of questions than bother beekeepers, and working with smart kids and science!

Sammy hasn't not let any grass grow under his feet since he was forced to return home from his research in Thailand studying Tropilaelaps mites (Tropilaelaps clareae and T. mercedesae) so we are ready if and when they arrive in the US. It turns out there is a very clever way to identify which species of Tropi-mite, as they call them in Thailand, is infesting a hive. Believe it or not, they actually "melt" the DNA of the creature and can ID them from what's left. That's a big step in the right direction for these nasties.

While in Thailand, he also observed the Giant Asian Hornet, the "murder hornet" we now have poking into in Pacific Northwest. He worked with local beekeepers looking for nests, watching them destroy honey bee colonies and then harvesting the larvae of a destroyed hornet nest for a delicacy food. He also found out why some bees spread water buffalo dung on their hives to keep the hornets away. This is really a mind blower.

Sammy's work on varroa and fat bodies didn't slow down one bit this year. They've uncovered that the female mite harvests certain proteins from the fat body and then funnels them directly into the developing egg without first digesting the protein rich meal. These whole, complete proteins are needed by the embryo to complete development. Now, how can that process be interrupted? That's the million-dollar question. Just imagine if the discovery leads to a control which doesn't involve putting poison into the hive…

When Sammy was here last, he talked about forming his Ramsey Research Foundation, to replace the original "GoFundMe" site. Through the Foundation you can help support the work he's involved in - heading back to Thailand in the fall, working more with Giant Hornets, and finding out how to quit putting poison in our beehives. Check out the Foundation, and see if you, or better your beekeeping group, can help make this a better world for us, our bees, and beekeepers everywhere.

Links and websites mentioned in this podcast:

Ramsey Research Foundation - https://www.ramseyresearchfoundation.org
Sammy's Website - https://www.drsammy.online

Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com

______________

_______________

We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: questions@beekeepingtodaypodcast.com

Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com

Thank you for listening!

Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong"; Musicalman, "Epilogue". Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott

Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

The Climate Change Impact on Bees & Floral Sources with Dr. Christina Grozinger (S3, E46) Apr 12, 2021

Show notes

In this episode, we talk with Dr. Christina Grozinger, from Penn State's Department of Entomology. Her recent research and paper of climate changes impact on honey bee survival and plant growing season has confirmed many suspicions on the long term impact these changes have on all bees, both native and honey bees.

Climate change, growing degree days, too warm, too wet, not wet enough, too cold, not enough nectar, last summer's weather, winter temperatures – all of these environmental experiences have some effect on honey bee behavior. But this research at Penn State indicates, interestingly, that the temperature last summer is the best predictor of that colony making it through to the winter and into the next season.

In the northeast US the changing climate shows warmer winters, more intense precipitation in the winter and spring, and longer growing seasons with higher maximum temperatures. These changes are affecting the success of populations of both wild bees, and those we keep in hives. Bees are experiencing habitat loss and climate change simultaneously, plus greater exposure to the bad sides of agriculture.

So, Penn State has started several projects, looking at these variables and surprisingly, found that, yes, varroa is still the greatest problem beekeepers have with their bees, but that doesn't explain why the abundance and diversity of wild bees is declining at the same time.

Listen today as Christina discusses the important findings of this research and on Penn State's continuing projects investigating the questions they're exploring. And there are many ways you can participate!

Links and websites mentioned in this podcast:

Beescape.Org - https://beescape.org
Bee Informed Partnership - https://beeinformed.org
Kim's Book Review, Pollination: The Enduring Relationship between Plant and Pollinator by Timothy Walker - https://www.amazon.com/dp/069120375X/

Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com

______________

_______________

We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: questions@beekeepingtodaypodcast.com

Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com

Thank you for listening!

Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong"; Musicalman, "Epilogue". Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott

Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected