The North American Honey Bee Expo with Kamon Reynolds (S6, E14)

S6, E14 - The North American Honey Bee Expo with Kamon Reynolds

Jim Gross: Hi, it's Jim Gross. I'm from Nantucket. Been a beekeeper for 30 years. Welcome to the Beekeeping Today Podcast.

[music]

Jeff Ott: Welcome to Beekeeping Today Podcast, your source for beekeeping news, information, and entertainment presented by Betterbee. I'm Jeff Ott.

Kim Flottum: I'm Kim Flottum.

Global Patties: Hey, Jeff and Kim. Today's sponsor is Global Patties. They're a family-operated business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honeybees. It's a good time to think about honeybee nutrition. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will ensure that they produce strong and healthy colonies by increasing food production and overall honey flow. Now is a great time to consider what type of patty is right for your area and your honeybees. Global offers a variety of standard patties as well as custom patties to meet your needs. No matter where you are, Global is ready to serve you out of their manufacturing plants in Airdrie, Alberta, and in Butte, Montana, or from distribution depots across the continent. Visit them today at www.globalpatties.com.

Jeff: Thank you, Sherry. A quick shout-out to all of our sponsors whose support allows us to bring you this podcast each week without resorting to a fee-based subscription. We don't want that and we know you don't either. Be sure to check out all of our content on our website. There you can read up on our guests, read our blog on the various aspects, and observations about beekeeping, search for, download, and listen to over 200 past episodes, read episode transcripts, leave comments and feedback on each show, and check on podcast specials from our sponsors. You can find it all at www.beekeepingtoday.podcast.com. Hey everybody, welcome to the show. Kim is out this week. He misses being here, so send him a note. He'd enjoy hearing from you.

Hey, a quick shout-out and thanks to Jim Gross from Nantucket for that opening. We have a great show set for you. Coming up is beekeeper, YouTube influencer, and conference show organizer, Kamon Reynolds. Kamon is here to talk about the new North American Honey Bee Expo scheduled for January 2024. That's coming up in just a moment. Do you have your honey extracted yet? Well, if you're like me, the supers may have been pulled, but the honey is not quite extracted. I have it all stacked and safely stored in the honey house, and I keep waiting for those little elves to extract it for me. I keep checking every morning, but they haven't. If it's going to get done, I need to get out there and do it. This week's the official start of fall. So long summer of 2023.

As the leaves turn and the temperatures drop, it's tempting to think that beekeeping takes a seasonal hiatus, but that couldn't be further from the truth. In fact, the fall and winter are golden opportunities for beekeepers to expand their knowledge, hone their skills, and network with fellow enthusiasts. Why is it so essential for beekeepers to stay engaged during the offseason? Well, let's start with the bees themselves. As we know, honey bee colonies are complex, dynamic organisms, and understanding their biology, behavior, and needs is an ongoing journey. By continuing your self-education, you're better equipped to make informed decisions about hive management and ensure your colonies thrive, but where can you find this valuable knowledge? One fantastic resource is regional and national beekeeping conferences.

These gatherings bring together experts, researchers, and beekeepers from all walks of life, creating the melting pot of beekeeping wisdom. Regional conferences, which often occur in the fall offer a more intimate setting. They're an ideal place to learn about local beekeeping challenges and solutions tailored to your specific region. You'll also have the chance to meet fellow beekeepers from your area, exchange ideas, and build a local support network. National conferences typically held during the winter months take things to the next level. They attract renowned speakers and researchers offering deep dives into the latest beekeeping science and innovations. These events are like crash courses in beekeeping excellence and they're not to be missed.

The benefits of attending conferences extend far beyond the lectures. They provide a unique opportunity to meet face-to-face with beekeepers you may only know from online forums or social media, or podcasts. Building these connections can be invaluable, as you'll be able to tap into a vast pool of experience and knowledge when you encounter challenges in your beekeeping journey. Now, I understand that not everyone can make it to a conference whether due to distance, time, or other commitments, but fear not. Technology can come to the rescue. Many conferences now offer virtual attendance options, allowing you to participate from the comfort of your home, so there's no excuse to miss out on this valuable learning opportunity. Remember, beekeeping is a lifelong learning adventure.

Fall and winter offer a perfect chance to invest in your skills and expertise. Whether you choose to attend a regional conference, go virtual at a national event, or simply immerse yourself in a good beekeeping book, such as written by Kim Flottum or one of our visiting authors, keeping your education alive during the offseason will pay dividends in the health and success of your colonies. Speaking of conferences, I hope to see you at the upcoming Washington State Beekeeping Association's meeting in Olympia, Washington, October 7th, and 8th. Let's get to our talk with Kamon Reynolds, but first, a quick word from our friends at Strong Microbials

[music]

StrongMicrobials: Strong Microbials presents an exciting new product. SuperFuel, the probiotic fondant that serves as nectar on demand for our honeybees. SuperFuel is powered by three remarkable bacteria known as bacilli, supporting bees in breaking down complex substances for easy digestion and nutrient absorption. This special energy source provides all the essential amino acids, nutrients, polyphenols, and bioflavonoids just like natural flower nectar. Vital for the bees' nutrition and overall health, SuperFuel is the optimal feed for dearth periods over winter survival or whenever supplemental feeding is needed. The big plus is the patties do not get hive beetle larvae so it offers all bioavailable nutrients without any waste. Visit strongmicrobials.com now to discover more about SuperFuel and get your probiotic fondant today.

Jeff: While you're at the Strong Microbials site, make sure you click on and subscribe to The Hive, their regular newsletter full of interesting beekeeping facts and product updates. Hey everybody, welcome back to the show. Sitting across the virtual Beekeeping Today Podcast table right now is beekeeper Kamon Reynolds. Kamon, welcome back to the show. Glad to have you here.

Kamon Reynolds: Well, it's an awesome thing to be back with you, Jeff. Thanks so much for having me.

Jeff: For the few beekeepers who may be listening and who don't know who you are, or know the name, but really don't know who you are, can you tell us a little bit about your background and how you got into bees?

Kamon: Absolutely. How a lot of people know me right now is for my YouTube channel and the few other things we do. I run a conference but backing up further into, I started when I was 14 years old. I'm in my mid-30s now. I saw an observation hive in Middle Tennessee and that's where I still live, is here in North Middle Tennessee. I was really blown away watching the bees bring in the pollen. Then I saw another observation hive at a little festival where they were making sorghum and this gentleman and his wife had a small sideline operation about 15, 25 hives, and they had two flavors of honey that they produce. One was more black locust-like and the other one was more of a tulip poplar, late spring honey. After seeing the bees do that work and tasting real honey for the first time, I was blown away not only by the flavor, but just how the bees work, and I just love being outdoors. I've always wanted to do work outdoors, and something as fascinating as bees, I'll never be bored. It's a great thing.

Just right off the bat, I want to say anyone who's out there who's doing something, maybe they feel like it's insignificant in their mind, but I don't know where I'd be if it wasn't for those observation hives, and that small sideline operation. This is my livelihood. I absolutely love being in the beekeeping world. Had I not been introduced by the older couple that showed me what they were doing, I might not be here, so I'm really thankful to them.

Jeff: That's great. The exposure that we can give to young people as beekeepers, the exposure to the honey bees, to honey, to that part of the environment is incredible and may have long-lasting impacts as it did with you.

Kamon: Yes, definitely. My wife keeps bees with me as well. I met her in my late teens. She was already into a lot of different outdoorsy-type stuff. She got into bees a few years before we got married and then the dowry was really nice. We harvested at least 120 pounds off of her best colony that year we got married and some bee equipment. She has been really impacting the bee world I think quite a bit. I'm the one that ends up doing the talking because she doesn't like this kind of thing. I've begged her to do it because she's really smart and gifted with grafting and splitting bees and so much more. Heck, I've got a 60-frame Cowen extraction line and she's the one that wired it all in because I don't know how to do that.

One of my other skills besides talking and doing some bee work is I am a 10 out of 10 when it comes to holding the flashlight at the right angle when she needs to do that wiring.

Laura's a big part of the business. She was the one that encouraged me to get into the YouTube space. I told her that was a poor idea. It worked out pretty well and it just has blown my mind on how many people that I've been exposed to. It's been truly a big blessing for myself because I just want to learn more about bees and be more involved as much as I can. Now I'm able to learn from so many people at an accelerated rate and then share what I learn and hopefully help people out with our YouTube channel. That's just my name, Kamon Reynolds. You can type in Kamon Reynolds' Pollen Patties, Kamon Reynolds' Small Hive Beetles and it'll come up with different things that we've tried that work for us. That's really what this is all about, is giving back and try to help the beekeeping world as much as possible and bring it up to 2023.

I love smokers and I love hive tools and the basics, but we also need to communicate. We have new pests, we have new information. My hope with what we're doing with the YouTube channel and the conference is that we're able to share information quickly so that we all can be better beekeepers for our bees.

Jeff: It's a great segue because I want to come back to your beekeeping operation because I have a lot of questions about what you do and what you produce. You did mention your conference, and you've made a lot of headlines in the internet buzz, if you will on honey bees. What's going on with the conference this year?

Kamon: The conference I'm running is now called the North American Honey Bee Expo. There's a couple of reasons for that, but the main reason I settled with that name for this new conference is we have so many Canadians and other countries that get involved, and especially here in North America, there's a lot of people that are outside the US that come to the event and I wanted, especially the Canadians and the folks down in Mexico to be able to feel like they were included into what I think is a fun party/celebration of beekeeping. That's what we've tried to make it. It's supposed to be fun, it's supposed to be exciting. I don't like going to boring bee conferences myself. Like I said earlier, I don't like being bored.

That's why I'm into bees and beekeepers aren't boring.

We love to talk about bees all day long. It's not really that hard to do. The conference is in Louisville, Kentucky and we're just trying to basically create a world of bees in one spot for everyone to be at a network and learn and to see, especially our massive trade show where folks will be able to look at extractors, just hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of stainless steel and millions of dollars worth of other equipment and be able to see it in person so that they can make informed decisions when they purchase then or in the future. I think that's an important part of our education in this industry as well.

Jeff: What are the dates?

Kamon: It is the 4th, 5th and 6th of January, 2024. It is in Louisville at the Kentucky Expo Center. It's going pretty good right now. I've got almost 1700 beekeepers coming so far and the tickets haven't even been open a month, so that's pretty exciting right there. A lot of energy, we have as of today locked in our 93rd vendor, beekeeping company. How we select our vendors is that they submit a form, they show us their websites, their social media accounts, whatever it is, so we can really ascertain what it is they do because we really try to focus on companies that do really good things for the industry and protect the good vendors that we have so we don't have a lot of undercutting and stuff. Our conference is really centered around the companies here in North America.

Then if they're outside of the US we'll evaluate them a little bit heavier. We have great companies coming from Denmark and Hungary, Australia, New Zealand, I believe we're up to 17 countries coming so far if I remember correctly.

Jeff: The vendors will have all this product available. Is any of it available to buy?

Kamon: Absolutely. That's a great question. Right now the estimate is about 30 semi-loads of product that will be on the sales floor. This trade show is not just for a show and tell, it is about buying there. We have some of the greatest deals if not the greatest deals in beekeeping because I say we, it's really the vendors. They do so much for us and I can't be thankful enough for several of the personalities. We have some great people in the bee company space that are beekeepers themselves and they just eventually graduated into a business as well. It became an extension of their bee operation. We have some great companies that have been with us and have worked with me for many years and they provide everything from bulk boxes to jars to pollen patties, extractors.

I believe we'll have at least nine different companies bringing extractors. I'm not talking one or two, we're talking semi-loads of just stainless steel. You can see it before you buy, but if you already know what you want, you can do a pre-order for, let's say it's HillCo, or Lyson, or Thorne Manufacturing. That's a new USA company in Wisconsin, or it's Dadent or whoever, you can call the companies up, have them bring your 20-frame, 12-frame extractor, your clarifier, bottling tank, whatever it is. The way shipping is these days, you pay for your ticket a lot of times with a purchase like that on the savings from the shipping, and some of these companies will knock off 5 to 10% on top of that for the show special. Our trade show is really interactive, but there's also a lot of vendor deals.

We had over 22,000 pounds of patties brought in so that hobby beekeepers can enjoy the same pricing as professional and commercial beekeepers. We had pollen patties with real pollen in them and Apis Biologix for $1.62 a pound. If you ship that to your door by 10 or 20 pounds, you're paying $4 a pound for that by the time it gets to your house. We really try to bring a service in the trade show as well. It's a lot of fun.

Jeff: It makes you want to really drive there as opposed to fly there. Stuffing an extractor in the overhead probably is-

Kamon: It's frowned upon in most airlines.

Jeff: -frowned upon. I don't know if you get it past TSA. [laughs]

Kamon: We can't do that. One thing that I like to point out that we are really pushing hard this year and I'd like to thank Honeybee Tennessee, it's a non-profit here in Tennessee that's helping us out with this. They helped us in the past with projects like this. We're doing a honey swap. If you come to the conference and you're wanting to swap some honey, you can bring, we recommend half-pound jars or the two-ounce little plastic bear jars. If you're getting on a plane, you have to keep it pretty small. You can't have big-- I think it has to be under 3.4 ounces. You can get the little two-ounce bears and if you're able to drive, you can have bigger ones. I estimate there's going to be anywhere between 7,500 and 10,000 jars of honey swapped this year. That's a lot of fun. There's people who seem to really like that.

Jeff: Will there be a honey show?

Kamon: Yes. There will be a massive honey show. It's hard to tell at this point exactly how big it's going to be, but I'm going to guess there's going to be somewhere between 500 and 600 entries minimum and it's going to take up a lot of square footage. We're really investing a lot into the honey show and the fellas down there in Georgia, I never can get their full names. It's the American Honey Training Show Council if I remember correctly. They do the Welsh judging system and they do a phenomenal job. It's very professional. All of these categories, I think it-- Is it 69 categories we have this year. It is a phenomenal amount of categories to enter in. What I like to say for those who are entering into this, one, please do and tell all your friends, but the other thing is it's a point system.

If you get first place and a blue ribbon in this category and we get our ribbons made here in the USA by the way, we like to really have high-quality stuff, and then maybe you get a lesser ribbon over here, it's a point system, so if you enter in 30 categories and maybe you only end up with three blue ribbons, but you get points in each one of those categories from second or third place, whoever gets the grand champion, the best of show, gets a free ride to the conference the next year and so does the runner up. Also, there are some really nice trophies involved and various stuff. We're still learning more and more and investing more, but our plan is to have the biggest honey show in the United States and then eventually the world because why not?

Jeff: You got to swing for the fences.

Kamon: Sure. [laughs]

Jeff: One of the best honey shows I ever saw was, and maybe they do this every where but they had a table, it was lit from underneath. All the jars of honey were lit from underneath with a frosted piece of glass. It just was so spectacular. Honey shows are always really fun to go and see all the different varieties of honey and all the shades that you only see in a color wheel but when you actually see it in real life on display, it's kind of awe-inspiring really.

Kamon: It is and folks can bring their labels. There's a label competition for your honey jar labels. There's also categories of even poetry. There's quilt categories. There's people that brought cake in last year and desserts that were sweetened with honey and I actually got to try a couple of those and man, it's a good thing they're not-

Jeff: [laughs]

Kamon: -close to me because I'd gained so much weight on some of that stuff.

Jeff: [laughs]

Kamon: It definitely is fascinating and the honey show to me is important because in beekeeping we don't have really anything besides the honey show, I think that showcases all of our talent as beekeepers, but also really showcases how versatile and important honeybees are in just one spot like that because when you see these candles and you see the art that's the encaustic wax art that's also done in these categories that bees are responsible for so much and I think this really paints a nice picture.

Jeff: You have the vendor trade show, you have the honey show that includes all the different facets of honey and wax, it sounds like, wax and candles. Who's going to be there to speak and what can attendees expect to hear?

Kamon: We do have quite a few speakers. I have a couple more on the way. We have several really good ones. We have some researchers like Marla Spivak. I got to meet her in person for the first time just about 10 days ago and she is not only smart, but she's a really sweet person and I'm excited that she agreed to be one of our presenters this year. She's really well known for propolis, but she also does a lot with breeding and honeybees as well. I wasn't aware of that and so that's what I'm anxious to listen to when I get there because I want to listen to some of these people. I just have to put on a costume and a mask so nobody knows it's me.

Jeff: [laughs]

Kamon: Put on a mustache or something like that. Marla's going to be giving us some great stuff. We'll have Cameron Jack with the University of Florida there, giving a lot of research that they've done on different treatments, whether it's oxalic acid, formic. I'm really anxious to see what they've been ironing out down in there and we'll also have one of the gentlemen that works at the honey show, Brutz English presenting on how to do high-level honey show entries and tips and tricks. That's going to be a side thing that we'll have this year. We haven't had things like that in the past. We always focus on nuts and bolts so we'll have literally everything from commercial queen-rearing all the way down to small-scale queen-rearing. If you're just needing 5 to 10 queens, we will have that track as well. We'll have something for everybody from splitting all the way down.

I'm talking to a lady right now about presenting on top bars, trying to get a little bit more unique stuff like that as well but if you're a new beekeeper and this was your first year beekeeping or you're thinking about it, this will work for you too. Some of it will be over your head, but that's okay. Challenging yourself is always good. We definitely have some more intermediate to beginner-level stuff, but we primarily focus on intermediate to advanced because you can go to a bee club or you can watch my YouTube videos and get that beginner stuff. We focus on really, "Here's the tools to be able to take this to a sustainable level, and oh, by the way, here's a trade show where you can see just about everything in beekeeping. Now you can understand what this thing does."

That's what's really cool is the personalities in a trade show because you talk to the owners and a lot of times the designers of these products, and you really can get to be good friends with some of these people and realize who loves beekeeping the most and who's really interested in helping beekeepers the most.

Jeff: Listening to what you were saying and it's so important for a new beekeeper, someone beginning to get into beekeeping, to find someone local who they can learn from and do the hands-on alongside, have someone looking over their shoulder, in my opinion, it's just always helpful to have someone you can call on to come over and take a look or go over and have them help you do your first hive inspection. I think a new beekeeper can read a book or watch YouTube and go out and do it, and that's fine and that's the way many of us have started, but it's more helpful to look over someone's shoulder or have someone there pointing things out to you that you may or may not see.

I do like the idea that you're focusing on the more intermediate to advanced beekeeper because the beekeeper that shows up already knows where this fits in whatever product it is, whatever topic they're learning, they know where to fit that into their operation, and how that applies to a beekeeper say in North Central Tennessee versus West Central Washington. How that all fits in together. I think that's a good way of looking at it.

Kamon: 100%. There's nothing better than having someone to mentor you in the bee yard and that's definitely the best way to learn. If you have someone who can show you like that, you can grow so quickly. Education should be a multi-pronged approach. I love to read. I have a little under 40 beekeeping books and I absolutely love my little library. However, reading all of those books was nowhere good enough to being in a state of understanding and recognizing all the situations in the hive and so the YouTube can help by showing a video and explain some of that into a little bit more detail but still, that's not quite enough and that's why I recommend anyone who's serious about doing beekeeping long-term, first of all, be patient.

There's a growing process, and you're going to lose a hive or two and I've lost some hives this year. It's part of the process but if you learn how to be sustainable and you take the time to get that broad education in person, YouTube, maybe come to a conference like this, it's going to work for you and you can keep your bees alive and sustainable and make your own splits and not have to buy bees every year, and be that guy or girl who's producing a consistent crop of honey. Whether you just want enough honey for gifts or heck, even if you just want bees to be alive so they can pollinate your garden, that's what our conference is about.

It's not about, "Hey, let's turn you into a commercial beekeeper." We have those tracks, but if you're wanting to keep three hives in your backyard just for your garden and for the environment, and what I mean by that is honey bees are going to go pollinate acorns, they're going to pollinate hickory nuts, they're going to pollinate so many plants that produce seeds for finches and so many other birds, that's a really positive net gain for a lot of other creatures just besides humans and honeybees. Our North American Honey Bee Expo is focused on making sure all those bases are covered, and not to be overlooked as the networking opportunities because not everybody maybe wants to network as much as the other, but I think relationships are very important, and having a bee buddy or two never hurt anybody.

What I've taken the most pleasure from in this experience of putting these on is just seeing how many either companies or individuals meet each other at our event and either companies will do business with each other and individuals will-- Some of them even have their own chat groups now and they would've never met otherwise. They ended up sitting at a table and now they have their own chat groups and going through bee problems throughout the year and helping each other out. Some of them have started raising queens and working together. That's what this is all about. We got to take a lesson from the bees. Bees collaborate, they network and they use the strength of the colony to be successful. I think it would be shortsighted to not see what's right in front of us.

Jeff: A person or a beekeeper doesn't have to attend all days of the conference, if they can only show up on Friday or only show up on a Saturday, they can get a lot out of the conference.

Kamon: They can. Friday and Saturday there's a lot of lectures and here's the cool thing. This year all the videos are recorded and they come with the ticket price. There's not a chance that you're going to be able to listen to all of the lectures. There's too many of them going on, and getting a little bit back to the speakers, we'll have some in Virginia, Texas, we have some in Canada, we have one from the UK, one from France, Minnesota, Yukon, California, Wisconsin. We're going to have talks on cold-weather beekeeping, southern beekeeping, some European studies, obviously stuff for small and big scale beekeepers. We have quite a bit to offer there but there's no way that you can go listen to Bob Benny talk about raising queens in one room, listen to how to be a better honey show connoisseur or whatever in one room and then listen to How to Insulate Hives up North of the 60th Parallel with Etienne Tardif. They'll be recorded and then you can listen to them after the conference. The guys that have done work with us in the past, it's very, very nice and professionally recorded. You'll be able to enjoy those long after the event's over.

Jeff: If only you had a podcast that was there recording too that would work out really, really well. Just saying, Kamon.

Kamon: Yes, just saying. I know you're saying it a little tongue-in-cheek. You guys are going to be joining us this year and that's going to be a lot of fun. A little bee came over and buzzed to my ear and said, "Hey, why don't you invite these guys?" I'll tell you a little bit of a secret, Jeff.

Jeff: Okay. Just between us.

Kamon: Just between us, some of the speakers that I've been trying to evaluate because I want to hear them before I ask them out to the conference. I listen to Beekeeping Today podcast to see if they're any good or not. That's one thing that you have to go through the whole rigmarole is making sure that, one, they're available, but also they can't just be knowledgeable. They have to also be able to communicate very well. Your platform, you've brought on so many different people over the years from all different parts of the industry. It really is a nice encyclopedia for me to be able to go through and see what they have. Some of them that I haven't invited are still very good. It's just maybe we already had someone covering their specific topic.

As of right now, you guys are coming and we're really looking forward to having such an awesome podcast there. Folks can see you in action and, I don't know, maybe get to sit in for a second and say, "Hey guys what's up?" There's all kinds of cool things that can happen with podcasts and it makes it very interactive.

Jeff: Yes, we're looking forward to it. Now, the creative possibilities of being there on the floor and I imagine we'll have a booth right there on the floor in the middle of all the action.

Kamon: Oh, you'll be in the middle of the action for sure. You'll just have to make sure that you have plenty of tea or coffee because you'll be using that voice quite a bit. It's a lot of fun to have that much excitement around in beekeeping and there'll be companies that maybe you've wanted to interview and you just say, "Hey guys, come on over this way."

Jeff: I'm hoping to set up next to the coffee stand.

Kamon: What a hard sell right there. Put me on the spot, but hey, you'll have to be in between me and the coffee [laughing]. That's all I've got to say. That's the only thing that keeps me going during these events. It's like three days of solid adrenaline for me and the crash afterwards is so epic. [laughing]

Jeff: You have your boys to keep you going after that. They'll keep you prodding along, won't they?

Kamon: They will. My wife, she's the quiet smart one. She already has someone this year that's going to be-- literally, Chris's only job is to manage me. She's designated him to make sure that I don't get lost and I'm where I'm supposed to be on time and I don't talk too much, which nobody can control that. He's going to do his best, poor guy. It's a lot of fun. The problem of it is I genuinely have a lot of good relationships with these companies and a lot of the individuals who come, there are so many people, it would take us four hours to be able to name them all that have been really important to me. Whether it's our YouTube channel or whether it's this expo, they've just been so fundamental and they're just good people, good beekeepers. I couldn't be more thankful to be in the beekeeping realm because I've done several other jobs in the past and boy, I really like the people in beekeeping.

Jeff: Hey, let's take this quick opportunity to take a quick break and we'll be right back.

Betterbee: Are your bees ready to take on winter? Don't leave them vulnerable to varroa mites. Introducing Api-Bioxal, the ultimate varroa treatment for your honeybees. It's the only oxalic acid on the market that's EPA-approved to safely eliminate those pesky mites. Vaporize it, dribble it, do whatever it takes to ensure your varroa numbers stay low as temperatures drop. Visit betterbee.com/oxalic today to learn more and secure your Api-Bioxal to send your bees into winter strong and healthy.

Jeff: We've talked a lot about the North American Honey Bee Expo. Has there been anything we haven't discussed that you want to let our listeners know about?

Kamon: Just one more thing and that's about our youth program. As I've mentioned already, I got into beekeeping at a young age and I really think it's been a huge advantage to me because I was going through the mistakes in my teens. By the time I was in my 20s, I had a grasp of how to raise queens and split bees and a lot of the fundamentals. That helped me out a lot. That's what this program's really for is to find the young men and women who are out there between the ages I believe-- I'll have to look at it if it's on the website and we'll put a link down below, that is, I believe, 11 to 20 to where they can apply for a sponsorship. What that will do is cover their ticket to the conference. If they're too young to drive themselves, then it will cover their guardian as well.

Then it'll also cover a flat rate hotel expense. We want to be able to help these young men and women be able to come to the event, experience a massive trade show, honey show, learn from the VIPs. We have one or two talks specifically for them, really about sustainability and how they can grow in their hobby or sideline or maybe more, one day operation. We just have a fun time. There's 30 spots of those available and they need to apply between now and the end of September and get that in. All they need to do is on the website, there's a-- it's called the Next Gen Bee Program. Next Gen, like the Next-generation Bee program. They basically just need to send an email, fill out the form, and also we request about a two to six-minute video where they talk a little bit about what they've done with bees and that kind of stuff.

Basically, all we're doing is evaluating who they are and do they really like bees and if so, we'd like to bring them in and give them this experience. I just wanted to put that out there. Outside of that, I think that covers the bases.

Jeff: We'll have links to the expo and also to the Next-gen program. We'll put those in the show notes so folks can look those up. That sounds fantastic, and in all seriousness and all kidding aside, I'm looking forward to the conference. It's been a while since I've been to a full big bee conference, probably post-COVID, all that happiness. I'm looking forward to it and it'll be a good one for sure.

Kamon: It'll be a lot of fun.

Jeff: We're sitting here at the end of August. How has your bee season been?

Kamon: We had a good crop of honey this year. It wasn't exceptional, but it was a good-- If I had to say, this was an average harvest. If I average this every year I would be happy. I can do well as a business like this. It was really concerning at first because it took off the first little push of flow, the autumn olive and some of the earlier stuff did okay, but then we got the black locust, and that got frostbit and so it wasn't so hot and in the middle of the flow, it was coming in but it wasn't coming in good. I was a little concerned there. Then we got a really nice push off of the basswood and it brought us back to an average nice little honey crop this year. That was really nice. The bees did great in spring. We had a really good spring and early summer.

Now we're running into these really hot days where we're getting the upper 90s and the humidity's really hot and this is a tough time of the year, especially in my region. In Tennessee, I think the most overlooked months in beekeeping are late July, August, and September. They're also brutal months. The bees, for a lot of that, don't have any nectar and very little pollen that comes in. What pollen does come in is typically inferior. The colonies naturally decline with that decline in nutrition. They're not as busy and they're a little bit more irritable plus the colonies where there's not any nectar they're robbing. The bees are just more what I like to call chippy. Those hives that were fairly gentle in May, they're not that way anymore.

You smell awful because you've been sweating through your bee suit and it's so hot that your smoker lit itself on fire this time. I stole that from a guy named Steve. He said that on my YouTube channel the other day and I thought that was great. He's like, "It's so hot my smoker lit itself." [laughs]. I thought that was great. It's a rough time of the year, but the mites have to be dealt with. Maybe some of the folks that are listening, they have bees that are really good about expressing some hygienic behavior. I haven't had success with that personally, but we do treat for mites. We got to make sure that our bees are well taken care of. This is the time of the year that typically in August and September we're starting to run out of time to make sure that those mite levels are low so they can start prepping good, strong colonies for winter. That's my primary concern is mites, making sure they have plenty of food and just babying my bees. I'm getting into every hive every other week minimum.

Jeff: How many colonies do you run?

Kamon: We are reducing. We had 300 and I'm trying to gear this down to about 100 colonies. I've been taking it under advisement from my wife for a few years to reduce and the Bee Expo and everything else that we're doing is really starting to take a little bit more of time. My hope is to reduce it down for 2024 to 100 and just do really good with that because there's nothing worse than knowing that you could be doing a great job and you had the experience and you know what it takes to have good bees but then not having the time to execute that and then seeing your bees suffer for your lack of effort and I'm not happy with that. We've reduced this year and I'm hoping in 2024, though, I'm going to hire a guy to help me get back to at least 300 hives again.

Right now I'd say we're probably around 200 hives but I need to do some work. You know how it is. [laughs] Bee math. I say that I'm going to drop down to 100 and we'll talk again come January and I'll be going through winter with 250 or something like that.

Jeff: [laughs] That's for sure. Just all honey production, are you doing any pollination?

Kamon: We've never done any pollination. There's not a lot of it in the state of Tennessee. There is some though and there's other places like Watermelon and Southern Indiana and things but we've always focused on nucleus production and honey. We used to do some queens but really for the amount of effort, it was the least profitable. When you put that much effort into a good queen and you do it right and you let her lay for a full brood cycle and then she's laying these brick patterns, you just don't want to sell her at all. It's really hard to do [laughs]. There's nothing I love more. Honey is great but my favorite part about beekeeping is making a split, pulling about two good frames of brood from a strong colony, pulling a couple of frames of food and dropping my own queen cells in there, and then letting that queen go out, come back mated, and then just start the process over again.

They really are wonderful colonies the next year. I do a lot of requeening like that and also splitting. Those young queens perform really good.

Jeff: Yes, it's fun to see it take off. Kamon, we've talked a lot about the Honey Bee expo, your bee operation and we're coming back around to the end of our time. Is there anything that you'd like to tell us about any of that that we haven't covered yet?

Kamon: My goal is that we see a lot more beekeepers be successful and how they define success really depends on them, but it's really critical that we all learn how to be successful with our bees. That's what the bees want, that's what we want. I just hope that the folks listening understand that it takes time to get to that place and if you're a first or second-year beekeeper, especially if you're in your first year and you lose some colonies this winter, maybe all of your colonies, maybe you only have two. It's a learning process. Bees have a short lifespan and there's just a lot to absorb. Don't rush the learning curve, it's going to happen. Just take your time, accept this is part of learning, and stick with it because I've been there and I remember basically giving up for a year.

In my teens, I'd just keep losing my shirt, I think it was my fourth year in beekeeping and I just said, "You know what? I think I'm done with bees." I was for about six months and then it drove me nuts, I had to get more bees. [laughs] You just can't hardly get away from it sometimes.

Jeff: Then March rolled around and you said, "No, I got to get bees." [laughs].

Kamon: Exactly. At that point though I sat down and said, "Okay, I've got to do something differently because I'm losing about three-quarters of my bees every year and that's not sustainable and it's expensive." Now we're fixing to get married and I got to start figuring some things out. My wife's not going to put up with someone who can't get it figured out. [laughter] Anyhow, I sat down and I started reading a lot about feeding bees and really studying more about the mites and the problems that bees have than just about the bees themselves and know thine enemy. Once I understood the biological reproduction and different things about mites and small hive beetles and also the importance of feeding and how it's okay to feed bees and how much food that they need to have, and also once I learned how to make splits, understanding that bees need that turnaround.

Cows eventually get too old. They don't produce milk good after a while. You've got to get some young genetics in there to continue on that regeneration and for beekeepers we got to realize that we can't expect a colony to just every time last for five years without any work on our part. Splits is so important to sustainability. Splits, know thine enemy, keep those bees fed and just be patient and understand that this is part of the process, don't give up because once you get these things figured out, it can be not only a fun thing that you look forward to each year but for many beekeepers it can be a really nice sideline opportunity to make some side cash and just be a nice pillar of the beekeeping society and just the community in general. That's what I want to leave for you right there. I love talking about bees and if I don't let you go pretty soon, Jeff, we'll be here another two hours long.

Jeff: [laughs] That's fine with me but I'm sure our listeners are saying, "I got to get into the store. I got to hit pause." Kamon, it's been wonderful having you on. I like what you said and if you didn't say, because I don't remember, but education and for any beekeeper to continuously educate themselves whether it be attending conferences, reading books, watching the YouTube videos of knowledgeable and reputable beekeepers, and learn what's going on. There's a lot happening in the world that affects honey bees. Since we're custodians of honey bees and all the colonies we keep in our backyards, it behooves us I believe to be aware of what's happening and can impact the bees in our backyard.

[background music]

Kamon: Absolutely, and maybe listen to that Beekeeping Today podcast you might learn a thing or two there, I've heard.

Jeff: [laughs] Well, I agree with you 100% on that one. [laughs] Kamon-

Kamon: [laughs] Awesome.

Jeff: -I look forward to having you back, I look forward to meeting you in person if not before but at least in January, and good luck this fall.

Kamon: Well, thanks Jeff and we will talk to you guys later.

Jeff: That about wraps it up for this episode. Before we go, I want to encourage our listeners to rate us five stars on Apple Podcasts or wherever you download and stream the show. Even better, write a review and let other beekeepers looking for a new podcast know what you like. You can get there directly from our website by clicking on the reviews along the top of any webpage. We want to thank our regular episode sponsors Global Patties, Strong Microbials, and especially Betterbee for their longtime support of this podcast. Thanks to Northern Bee Books for their generous support. Finally, and most importantly, we want to thank you the Beekeeping Today podcast listener for joining us on this show. Feel free to leave us questions or comments at leave-a-comment section under each episode on the website. We'd love to hear from you. Thanks a lot everybody.

[00:48:04] [END OF AUDIO]