It’s the holiday season, and Jeff, Becky, and special guest Jim Tew from the Honey Bee Obscura Podcast are here to reflect on the year in beekeeping. From an unusually early spring to memorable moments with bees and family, they share personal...
It’s the holiday season, and Jeff, Becky, and special guest Jim Tew from the Honey Bee Obscura Podcast are here to reflect on the year in beekeeping. From an unusually early spring to memorable moments with bees and family, they share personal stories and highlights from 2024.
Jim recounts adventures in the bee yard with his grandson Will, while Becky reflects on adapting to changing weather patterns to keep her colonies thriving. Together, they celebrate the joys and challenges of beekeeping, look back on their favorite podcast episodes, and express heartfelt gratitude to their loyal listeners.
Whether you’re reminiscing about your own beekeeping year or looking for inspiration to carry into the next season, this lighthearted episode will leave you smiling. Happy holidays to you and your bees!
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Copyright © 2024 by Growing Planet Media, LLC
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We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments in the show notes of this episode or: questions@beekeepingtodaypodcast.com
Thank you for listening!
Podcast music: Be Strong by Young Presidents; Epilogue by Musicalman; Faraday by BeGun; Walking in Paris by Studio Le Bus; A Fresh New Start by Pete Morse; Wedding Day by Boomer; Christmas Avenue by Immersive Music; Red Jack Blues by Daniel Hart; Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott.
Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC
Copyright © 2024 by Growing Planet Media, LLC
[music]
Helen Weinstein: Beekeeping Today, the podcast, Jeff Ott and Becky Masterman bringing all the news and science, info, and beekeeping trends.
I'm not Mariah Carey and that is true.
These holiday wishes are just for you.
What more do we need?
Because all and all we want for Christmas is bees. Oh, baby.
Jeff Ott: Welcome to Beekeeping Today podcast presented by Betterbee, your source for beekeeping news, information, and entertainment. I'm Jeff Ott.
Becky Masterman: I'm Becky Masterman.
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[music]
Jeff: Ho, ho, ho. Thank you, Helen Weinstein, of North Carolina, for that wonderful holiday musical opening to the Beekeeping Today podcast. Wonderful.
Becky: She actually put words to music. She wrote a song to another tune, put it to music, sang it, performed it for us. That is a listener really going to extremes to support our listener opening. Jim, are you asking for listener openers because I bet you're a little jealous right now.
Dr. James Tew: No, I am. I was going to try to sing one myself and I did some dry runs and it just didn't get off the ground.
Jeff: Yes, look at the time. Wait a minute, Jim.
Jim: Yes, look at the time. It's already over.
[laughter]
Jeff: Thank you, folks. I do want to welcome everybody to our special 2024 holiday special of BeekeepingToday podcast. We've invited our good friend, Dr. James Tew from Honey Bee Obscura Podcast to join us to celebrate the holidays. Jim, welcome to the show.
Jim: Thank you very kindly. I'm always anxious to be invited, but I find that I rarely am. I'll read between the lines.
Jeff: Oh, wow.
Becky: Wow.
Becky: I was going to say, Jim, I hear you every week, but it's actually nice to be able to see your face. Let me reevaluate that. Let's see.
Jim: Yes, reevaluate that. The years are passing by. In fact, when I cut those soundtracks, I'll turn my camera off so I won't have to look at myself.
Becky: Okay, we've made the note. Next time, connect with Jim earlier. Maybe for every major holiday, Jim. What do you think?
Jim: I'll do my best. Wait, how many major holidays are we talking here? Not one a week, right?
Jeff: It'd be nice if it was every week.
Jim: No, I'm happy to be here. I like to visit with the whole group.
Jeff: We're happy to have you here. 2024 was a very eventful year for so many beekeepers. We had all the storms in the southeast. Boy, we had all the weather challenges. What did you two feel about the year 2024?
Becky: 2024 for my beekeeping season just started so early because of the early spring. The mite management season started so early because of the early spring. The honey harvesting season, can you guess it? Started so early because of the early spring.
[laughter]
Becky: It was just really reading the weather, reading the bees, and knowing that everything we've done before, if I had waited until the fruit trees bloomed to divide my bees, I would have been in big trouble. It was really a lesson in, I guess, reading your bees.
Jim: Listen to Dr. Masterman. Don't listen to me because I basically have come a full cycle back to being a hobby backyard beekeeper with questions and explorations. 2024 was that for me. It was just spending time with my bees and watching swarms and trying to understand the difference between scouts and robbers and just having a good time and then coming back and painfully putting people through the episodes on the Honeybee Obscura events that I needed to get done once a week.
I live now from week to week, not so much a traditional beekeeper as I used to be. Even though I have all the experiences and I feel all the pain and even though I feel the guilt right now of my bees probably not being suited for winter and winter's here. That was what I've done. I've kept busy trying to teach and learn some new technology that was foreign to me for the most part. I wish I could say, "Oh, I did great things. I made splits and divides. I did something of my own." No, I didn't do any of that anymore. Used to do more of it, but I've had a good year for the most part.
Jeff: Oh, great. Looking at your year from my perspective, Honeybee Obscure, my most memorable or my favorite episodes are the ones where you've invited your grandson Will to start his beekeeping journey. Those are really fun.
Jim: Thank you for saying that. I'll certainly tell him that. He gets all pumped up. He's gone from a head full of hair and looking like a human dust mop to basically having his head shaved now. He looks all bulked up and testosteroney. He's had a good time. I don't know where his life is going in relation to my life. He may be going to school near me or he may not, but I enjoy having him around. Working with Will is like putting toothpaste back in a tube. You really don't have much control over him at all on when he's going to be there, how he's going to react. When he's got the web running and the microphones are going, he has a good, clear stentorian diction voice. He has confidence totally unearned. I like working with him.
Jeff: They're fun. I will tell you that it was also fun as an editor of your podcast, the episode where you opened the bees and things got on hand and he had to leave the yard and the way you had the sound set up-- You were in one location. He was in the house. He was getting bees dusted off of him and he was disrobing and all of that flutter was going on while you were calmly describing what was going on out in the yard. [laughs]
Jim: Yes. I was hearing that. See, he was wearing an FM mic. He was all over the yard like a dog with a bee in his ear. I told him to step out of the shot. Things are in control. Will kept saying to the whole world, "This is out of control, Grandpa. This is out of control." I said, "Will, this is not out of control. It's just more bees than you've ever seen in your life right here in one box." Yes, they are punching our lights out, but we've got to get it under control because we are the beekeepers. You can't run away from this and call the fire department."
The next thing I knew he and his FM mic were down at the house. His mother was telling him to get away from her. So Much for mothering.
[laughter]
Jim: He said, "I must have been stung eight times." That's not exactly a record, but that one-- I'm sorry, listeners, if you're hearing this, that one never came to fruition. I couldn't use it. Too wild, too crazy.
Jeff: It seems to me we used a little bit of it, but--
Becky: I think a little bit of it broke through. I'll tell you I mostly listened to podcasts when I was in the bee yard and there were many times where I was managing my bees and I would just start laughing all by myself because I was listening to Honey Bee Obscura and I was so entertained, Jim.
Jim: You're both very kind for saying that. I should have called it Honey Bee Desperation. That would have been a more apropos topic for it because it is plain talk beekeeping. We're talking about this too much, but I enjoy doing it. It's really given me a focus now, late in my career, late in my life. I feel like I'm not being terribly outdated, but I like doing it. I guess I'd probably do it if nobody listened, but it's just better to have listeners, isn't it?
Jeff: Yes, it is.
Becky: You have loyal listeners who send you love letters each week. I'm a little jealous.
Jim: I might tell you how expensive that is. Each of those letters probably cost me $38. No. For those people who write me, I'm being sarcastic and trying to be funny. I appreciate people writing me, even though I often can't write them back or unable to write back. I have the best of intentions, listeners. Please know that.
Jeff: Hey, let's take this quick opportunity to take a break. We'll be right back after these words from our great sponsors.
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Becky: Welcome back, everybody. I know that after Jeff and I record episodes, we almost always say, "That was so fun. That was the best episode ever." We love what we do. I'm going to ask a very serious question, favorite episode of last year?
Jeff: This is the holidays.
Becky: I know, but favorite episode. I'm not saying that there aren't lots of favorites. I don't even know what I'm going to say. I'm going to make you guys go first. Do you have an episode that you're like, "You know what? That was just amazing. That was so much fun."?
Jeff: It's like saying which of your children is your favorite. It's just hard to do.
Becky: Is this too hard?
Jeff: It's impossible.
Jim: Let me go first. You see, I'm dealing with Kim so I have to say which ones do I like that I did or had a visitor with or which one did Kim do. We just did one that I liked with Kim in the bookshop. That was Kim's idea. I liked that one. Kim was still here in my mind. I was there the other day we played that tape. I liked that one. For personal reasons, not always for content reasons, I liked that one. That was Kim's suggestion. That's what he wanted to do. He set up the storyline. That's my favorite.
Jeff: As I recall, that's nearly one of the last ones he did too with you.
Jim: Yes.
Jeff: Wow. That's a good one.
Jim: Then if you let Kim go, then I don't really have a favorite. I don't have that feeling you're talking about, Becky. When I log off, I think, "You are one dumb guy. I can't believe that you just spent 20 minutes talking about that. I hope Jeff can clean this up. Good. Send it. Put it in Dropbox and it's gone." If you see anything positive in that, let me know. That's pretty much the feeling that I have.
Becky: Jim, is your smoker half full?
Jim: No, it's half empty. Most of my fuel is burned out.
Becky: I was going to say, is it half empty and wet inside, so there's not going to get a fire going and all that fun stuff?
Jim: I've tried that before. I've tried to burn inflammable baby clothes that you bought in a rag box. You can't set fire to fire retardant cloth I found out after I had a whole box of rags in the yard. Why are we talking about that? I never dreamed that would come up. Back to you guys. You talk.
Becky: Oh, yes. That's exciting.
Jim: You two talk.
Becky: Yes, I don't know the answer to that. Jeff?
Jeff: I enjoy all of them, obviously. I like our How to Get Started series that we continued last year.
Becky: Oh, that's such a good answer.
Jeff: It's not just one, but it was a series. I tend to like the series that we do because we can go more in-depth and we can focus on different things at different times. Taking a peek forward, looking forward to 2025, we have some fun series coming up. I'll stick with the series and leave it at that. Those were fun.
Becky: That's good because then I can just pick the Habitat series because I got four guests.
Jeff: [laughs] Cheater.
Becky: Thank you. That was your idea. It really is. It's such an honor to interview these beekeepers and beekeeping suppliers and scientists. It's really fun.
Jeff: It's the holiday season, time for reflection and giving thanks as we did around Thanksgiving. Anything that you guys, as we come to the end of our holiday special here, you want to give special thanks for to our listeners, to the bees? Anything comes to mind?
Jim: That was one and two. My first thought was, "I've got to have bees." I just have to have bees in my life, even though I torment them and given the chance, they torment me. Then, beyond that relationship, it's the listeners, the people who put up with me rambling, sometimes desperately and struggling with sentence structure and whatever, and my clicking that I do in my voice that Jeff always points out every time.
Jeff: Listeners don't hear the clicking, Jim.
Jim: Oh, you took the click out?
Jeff: Yes, I take the clicks out.
Jim: I'll put some clicks in now.
[laughter]
Jim: Leave those in so they know what they sound like.
Jeff: [laughs] Okay.
Jim: I deeply-- When somebody listens to what I'm saying or reads an article I've written, there's nothing more valuable in their lives and their time. I always appreciate that first and foremost. I'm doing this because I want to do it and I'm doing the best I can for people. I deeply appreciate them tolerating me.
Becky: We should have made him go last because I don't think I can say anything better than that. [laughs] Jim, that was so beautifully said. I think that's true. We love recording. We love talking to people. If nobody was listening, it would really change the game. Every time somebody sends a message and says, "That was really interesting." Or, "Thanks a lot.", I really appreciate it. Again, the only thing I'll add is thank you, Jeff, so much because you do so much to put it all together and to make both me and to make Jim sound better.
I don't know if I click, but if I click-- Anyway, you do so much to make us sound better and to make it easier. I know you're not doing it for us. You're making it easier for the listener to listen to each episode. I know that Jim and I greatly appreciate it.
Jim: Yes.
Jeff: Thank you both. It's fun. Looking back at the season and the last-- What is it? Seven, eight years now? It's just the ability to share not only my limited experience but the wealth and world of information available from other beekeepers who want to share it with our listeners and be a part of that process and facilitating that is a true joy. I appreciate both of your contributions to the process. Thanks. That brings us to the end of our time, folks. We wanted to bring you a special and short holiday special.
We hope that you, your family, your bees all have a wonderful holiday season. We look forward to talking to you next time. Thank you for joining us. Merry Christmas. Happy holidays.
[music]
Jeff: That about wraps it up for this episode. Before we go, I want to encourage our listeners to follow us and rate us five stars on Apple Podcast 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 tab along the top of any web page.
We want to thank Betterbee and our regular longtime sponsors, Global Patties, Strong Microbials, and 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 and comments on our website. We'd love to hear from you. Thanks a lot, everybody.
[music]
[00:19:45] [END OF AUDIO]
PhD, Cohost, Author
Dr. James E. Tew is an Emeritus Faculty member at The Ohio State University. Jim is also retired from the Alabama Cooperative Extension System. During his forty-eight years of bee work, Jim has taught classes, provided extension services, and conducted research on honey bees and honey bee behavior.
He contributes monthly articles to national beekeeping publications and has written: Beekeeping Principles, Wisdom for Beekeepers, The Beekeeper’s Problem Solver, and Backyard Beekeeping. He has a chapter in The Hive and the Honey Bee and was a co-author of ABC and XYZ of Bee Culture. He is a frequent speaker at state and national meetings and has traveled internationally to observe beekeeping techniques.
Jim produces a YouTube beekeeping channel, is a cohost with Kim Flottum on the Honey Bee Obscura podcast, and has always kept bee colonies of his own.