American Honey, Russian Bees, and the Work of the AHPA with Steven Coy (405)

American Honey, Russian Bees, and the Work of the AHPA with Steven Coy (405)

 

Tom Groom

Greetings from the North American Honey Bee Expo. My name is Tom Groom. I'm a beekeeper in New Mexico Welcome to Beekeeping Today Podcast.

Jeff Ott

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

Becky Masterman

And I'm Becky Masterman.

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beekeepingtoday. com. Thank you, Tom Groom, for that great opening from the floor of the North American.

American Honey Bee Expo. He said he's from New Mexico. I don't know where in New Mexico.

I like New Mexico. That's a great state. I always thought that would be a great place to keep bees

Becky Masterman

It is a great state, isn't it?

Jeff Ott

You know, I moved from Ohio to um Colorado years ago and my first choice was to move to New Mexico.

Becky Masterman

I don't think that's my first beekeeping state to move to. It seems like it may be a little bit more challenging, but maybe I'm overestimating the challenges. I think I'm gonna stay in Minnesota.

Jeff Ott

Well, thank you, Tom, for that opening. We really appreciate it. Becky, it's October.

It's end of the season. How'd your bees fair this year? Is it everything you hope for we were talking about in February?

Becky Masterman

I know, right? The hopes and dreams of a beekeeper 's year

Jeff Ott

than the reality.

Becky Masterman

I had I had a great year. I what I'm just sad about is the fact that I get to a point where it's like, okay, I'm done doing inspections. I I only can make sure that they have enough food.

I can't dig into the brood nest. I get to a point sometime, it was last month, where I'm like, I no longer can verify the queen is there. because even though I'm I can a hundred percent spot eggs and and brood, but it's sh the broodness has shrunk so much that it's not worth the risk for me to go and to to dig through.

So n that instead I just look at them and go Yep, you look queenright. And so so I I really miss I miss I'm I already miss inspections. But but yeah, it was a good year.

How about you?

Jeff Ott

I struggled with Varroa all year and because I do washes and I monitor the IPM board and just it's amazes me to see the amount of Varroa that the colony Which otherwise seems healthy and is doing well, the amount of Varroa drop that comes off of them is I have to remind myself that you don't want Varroa, but even though you see a lot of Varroa drop, doesn't mean the virus is there. So y there's a whole lot of different things. I don't know.

Becky Masterman

It does.

Jeff Ott

Yeah, I know. I I I play all these logistical games. Yes. And I believe in unicorns and rainbows.

Becky Masterman

I look at one little one little varroa and I'm like

Jeff Ott

Oh, it's depressing. I I have to tell you, I'm putting lipstick on a pig, if you will I don't like it. It just really depresses me. And that's what I struggled with all season. And I tried to keep on top of it and never got ahead of that.

Becky Masterman

And maybe I'm maybe I'm wrong. But I will say that that the Varroa problem is Unfortunately, it can be a location problem. Even if you are kind of doing everything that you can to keep them out or to keep them controlled, you might still have a migration into The the apiary?

Jeff Ott

I 100% agree with you. And I'm I was reevaluating my yard setup this year and and I'm thinking, well my gosh, I really have all these colonies setting too close together. And then I started looking at my records because you know I'm kinda I kinda keep records. And then and I realized, well, the colonies that have the most varroa are at the end of the line of the string of colonies. So it's like, duh I mean, maybe is is it the prevailing wind or they're all drifting towards the last three colonies and that's why they're just packed with

Becky Masterman

Well but the other thing too is is I think an early spring mitigation followed by a early summer mitigation followed by a mid summer mitigation. followed by an early fall mitigation can really be a great recipe. I try that before I move my colonies around.

Jeff Ott

Yeah, okay, so here I'm d airing my dirty laundry. So I was really good early in the spring.

Becky Masterman

But what were you using? Can I judge that?

Jeff Ott

Well yeah, treatment of choice is oxalic acid. So RTU. I was using RTU and also Vaporization.

Becky Masterman

Okay.

Jeff Ott

And VarroxSan.

Becky Masterman

Okay. So depending upon what they came through with or when you bought any new colony, I mean that's It's great to use it if you have a broodless condition, but if you've got anything overwintered, you need, I think, depending upon I look listen to all my modifications, but you really do need a stronger knockdown. I try to I try to get formic acid on all my colonies when when the time is right.

But you also I I make sure that at the end of the season I'm getting an oxalicon so that they're they're coming through spring, hopefully with with fewer mites. But I think that I think the thing is that if what you're doing isn't working Then you need to do something else. And and I I have I've told so many lovely, lovely beekeepers in Minnesota.

I mean, we 'cause we start brooding up in the early spring and we keep on going because we don't have this this the dearth that would slow them down. So I tell them, you know, get a a nice knockdown on in July which is just so and that I use formic acid, but it's just it's it's hard to understand but boy do they look good. And I'm just using I'm just using organic mite treatments, but I'm using them when I can.

So that I I just I want my animal to not have that pressure of the feeding of the mite plus the viruses. And it makes a difference.

Jeff Ott

Hey, does that mean that I get a tool because you answered my question.

Becky Masterman

I think that means that I was really bossy because you didn't even have a question. I just told you stuff.

Jeff Ott

No. I wasn't gonna say a thing. Yeah, that was just that was my

Becky Masterman

Varroa soapbox. So

Jeff Ott

begging for help. Well so speaking of hive tool questions, hive IQ is been a sponsor with us for the last year. And what they do is they provided us with many of their beautiful chrome plated hive tools.

For our listener question segment of this show. So if you have a question about keeping bees and honey bees Send it in. You can leave us a voicemail message on the website.

There's a little microphone icon in the lower right hand corner of your of the window. Or send us an email and if we read your question or listen to your question on the in an episode and answer it, it doesn't need to be a right answer, even if you You bet if we read it, we'll send you a one of these beautiful hive IQ tools in the mail. And we have a question today.

Becky Masterman

We do. We have we have a little bit of queen drama from Lori. Lori Caraway in I think Lori is in Washington.

Lori has a saga and and it was that she started she with her husband they started out with with two packages this year and they found that one of the packages tried to swarm about six weeks after installation and they prevented it by splitting that package into four separate nucs with queen cells And then it looks like they had another queen issue later in the season, and they found a queen cell in September. And they didn't want to tear it down. They wanted to and so instead they moved it into another nuc box.

And so J so Jeff, I'm counting at this point and I don't know if it's true, but I'm counting seven colonies from those two packages. But but it's a it's a good question 'cause the what I do a lot of times and and I don't know if Larry heard this, but if I f If I see a colony that's going to swarm, sometimes I will just divide it into nucs. But depending upon when you do that, it sounded like Lori did that early in the season, but depending upon when you do that you would have to if she was letting those queens emerge, there's a really good chance if if you went from one to four that and not all of them are going to mate, right?

So you might be looking for the successful mating and then recombining those queenright colonies with the colonies that did not mate successfully. And so so it's a little bit of a maneuver in order to make sure that you keep queenright colonies that can make it through the winter. But it sounds like when Lori moved that queen out of the colony that that she found in the fall.

into another nuc, I think that's where where maybe I would have done this was advice Marla Spivak gives beekeepers I would have maybe let the bees take control of that situation and listen to the bees because that that could have been a supercedure And instead of making two colonies in the fall where it's really hard to then get them both through the winter, I would have either let them try to requeen themselves if there's enough time to do it successfully Or I would have combined that colony with another queenright colony if I determined that it wasn't queenright. So that's the part that's missing in Lori 's question is was it queenright? And if it was, I would assume they weren't going to swarm.

I would assume that they were just replacing their queen. Oh boy, that was a long question and answer. What do you what do you think?

What do you think? It it sounds like we need a little bit more information to know exactly what those those colonies look like.

Jeff Ott

I tend to default and let the bees sort it out themselves. because they have a better sense of what's going on. If they're replacing a queen or a queen cell or something and they're doing it, I'm not gonna be able to interpret why.

If they sense a reason to do that, then I leave it to them and unless there's overriding reason why I can't wait for them to do it, then I might jump in. But uh usually I like uh what you said, Marla Spivek's advice. Listen to the bees.

Becky Masterman

Listen to the bees. And and at this point though, depending upon your location, a fall queen issue is hard to solve. And so so getting that colony queenright is is really important.

And a fall nuc is hard to get through the winter too. So it looks like They've got a few challenges ahead of them. I think actually there would have been six colonies if they hadn't recombined all of them.

But that's a lot for one package to be able to make it through the winter. So so hopefully they 're going to go through the winter with at least two strong colonies and then they're going to survive and then they can they can split to four next spring.

Jeff Ott

Thank you, Lori. Coming up, we have Steven Coy returning to the show. He's joining us from Mississippi. Steven is president of the American Honey Producers Association, and he's been with us before talking about Russian bees. I look forward to talking to them about both coming up.

Becky Masterman

I can't wait.

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Jeff Ott

Hey everybody, welcome back. Sitting around this great big virtual beekeeping today podcast table. Sitting down in Mississippi is Steven Coy and Becky's and St. Paul, Minnesota, and I'm out in Olympia. Steven, welcome back to Beekeeping Today podcast.

Steven Coy

Well thanks, Jeff and Becky. It's great to be here. I'm glad you asked me to come back.

Becky Masterman

We're looking forward to talking with you.

Jeff Ott

We talked briefly in the hallways at the tri -states meeting in Fargo this last last when was that? July, I think, and that was that was fun to see up there. Steve, for those listeners who don't know you, can you give us a little bit about yourself and your interest in bees? How you why you may be here today

Steven Coy

So I'm a uh third generation beekeeper. My grandfather started keeping bees uh when I was just a little bitty kid. And so I basically grew up in the bee business.

I've been uh had my own Company here for about 12 years. Member of the Russian Honeybee Breeders Association. And so I raise and sell Russian Russian queens and and nucs.

I'm pretty active in the American Honey Producers Association. I'm like sure the current president.

Becky Masterman

That's pretty active. That's about as active as you can get.

Steven Coy

Like I said, I grew up in a commercial beekeeping operation. I got a couple of college degrees, but I've always been drawn back to keeping bees, making honey, and I and I love producing queens. This industry It needs a lot of it needs a lot of help. It needs a lot of work.

Becky Masterman

I'm gonna interrupt you. You said you have a couple of of college degrees, but you're an entomologist, aren't you?

Steven Coy

Um yeah. Well yes, uh

Jeff Ott

Yes. Well that's cool.

Becky Masterman

I think that's fantastic.

Jeff Ott

It is. It really is. Well, Steven, you mentioned that you were had some activity with the American honey producers. Can you tell us Our listeners, what is the American Honey Producers and let's talk about that?

Steven Coy

Yeah, so the American Honey Producers Association is the national organization that represents commercial beekeepers. Of course, we we welcome all beekeepers, hobbyists, sideliners. We mainly focus on the needs of uh the commercial industry.

And we do a lot of lobbying in Washington, D.C. for uh legislation and regulations and stuff to try to help the industry. That's a that's a really tall thing, tall order. That's a hard thing to to really accomplish anything substantial with it, but we we work you have to work at it all the time to do that.

We have an annual convention. This year it's gonna be in Reno. Actually this year we're it's a joint convention with the California State Beekeepers Association.

Normally we just have an annual convention in in December. It's when our normal convention is and then we rotate around like out west in the south, maybe towards the uh east coast a little bit. So we're trying to try to make it so that beekeepers from all parts of the United States can come join our associate join our meeting when it when it is close by.

We do a lot of advocacy for on legislative stuff. I mean we do a lot of work for the Farm Bill. We've done a lot of work over the years for the ELAP program, the emergency livestock assistance program, and we work closely with the FSA to help improve that where we can.

Make it more user-friendly. We've introduced legislation over the years. Most recently, we've introduced the Honey Integrity Act.

We got uh Representative Stuby and Senator Tupperville. So we we spend a lot of a lot of time and money lobbying on efforts for the industry

Becky Masterman

I would guess the AHPA is the biggest advocate for honey honey bees or beekeepers as far as the dollar amount that you put into it, as far as investing in a lobbyist and Oh

Steven Coy

and all of the work

Becky Masterman

you do. That's I I think it's I think that's safe to say.

Steven Coy

Well, yeah, we have a we have a full time lobbyist. And we we are also currently maintaining uh anti-dumping orders against India, Vietnam, Brazil. in Argentina and we engage a a law firm to help with that. So yeah, we spend a lot of we spend a lot of of our members' money on legal fees and efforts to Change regulations improve the honey prices. You know, it doesn't always doesn't always go the way you want it, but uh we're at least we're out there trying

Jeff Ott

The Honey Integrity Act sounds interesting. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Steven Coy

There is no current standard of identity for honey in the United States. multiple states, I think there's about 33 states that have their own definition of what honey is, but at the federal level, FDA does not have a standard. And so when honey is imported into the United States, the only thing that the federal government, the customs and and border protection can do is test it for country of origin.

And then they look at the paperwork to see if the paperwork is accurate. Does it say that it's honey when it's actually rice syrup or something else? And so there's no legal standard that they can test it against.

So if they find a shipment of stuff that's actual that's that's not real honey. There's no way that they can there's no legal standard to to measure it by. And and the Honey Integrity Act would would would essentially get FDA to either create or adopt a standard.

So until we have something that we can measure it by that we we don't know, you know, we can't take anybody to the government can't take anybody to sk sue them over.

Jeff Ott

And that's not what you're asking for, what HPA is is asking for is not unheard of, right? There's other countries around the world, Europe has a honey standard that's law that

Steven Coy

they have some new they have some new standards. I'm not comp completely familiar with what they are. I think they called it their breakfast initiative.

But they have some new new standards that go along with labeling and and quality and authenticity of of the actual honey. So And there's there's standards for most everything else. I mean there's standards for gasoline.

You know, there and there's standards for for a lot of other foods out there, but there's nothing there's no there's standards for milk production, but there's no standards for honey. Production. And and FDA sells us, well nobody's ever died from honey, so it's not that big of issue.

But it's not it's not a health issue. The standard is not a health issue. The standard is a is an economic adulteration issue.

So about 700 million pounds of honey is consumed in the United States. We're getting close to that number. Over 500 million pounds of that is imported.

And and the majority of that comes from two or three countries and w we don't have any standard to measure how how the quality or the authenticity of what that honey is. We don't know if it's real honey or not. And that's what that's what we need in this industry.

Jeff Ott

And that's important not only for the commercial beekeepers who are producing thousands and thousands of pounds of honey. But even for your backyard beekeeper or your small sideliner beekeeper, they're competing against those prices as well that you see on the store shelf that comes in from Brazil or comes in from one of the countries that might be dumping honey in the United States too, correct?

Steven Coy

Yeah, just a few months ago honey from Vietnam was coming in here and and it was it was leaving the dock at Vietnam at sixty-one cents a pound And, you know, if you're a if you're a commercial beekeeper, you definitely can't produce it for anywhere near that. And hobbyists can't either. I mean, you know, these guys They like to do this because they get some sort of enjoyment out of it, whether they they want to pollinate their gardens or whether they want honey to eat themselves.

Or whether they just want to help help save the bees. But they've got a lot of money invested in this and they they need to get some of that money back and they're competing against this cheap honey and the biggest problem is with the consumer in general is that the consumer it wouldn't take much for the consumer to leave to lose their complete confidence in what they're buying because they don't know if it's honey or not. If you if you know your beekeeper, then you can be a lot more assured that what you're buying is a authentic product.

And what you buy off the grocery store shelf a lot of times doesn't come from from a beekeeper.

Jeff Ott

The little convenience pack at the the diner that says honey on it is not really necessarily honey.

Steven Coy

Right. Oh that's yeah. Those portion packs, those are terrible.

Becky Masterman

I think it's it's important to note that the honey production in the United States has going has been going down over the last couple of decades. But honey production in some of these other countries that are increasing their exports is jumping up and that's hard to explain, right? There are there are countries out there where you can't explain their production.

Steven Coy

That's correct. There are countries out there I might get in trouble, I believe it's Vietnam, that if you look you look in one part of the records of the reporting where they have X number of colonies And then you look at how much honey they export, and they export more honey than they are able to produce based on the number of colonies they have. So, I mean, and there's video I've seen video from from people in the European Union that have gone over to Asia and they have videos of these huge factories where they quote unquote make honey.

I don't know what goes in the front, but what comes out the back is is supposedly is what they call honey. My brother was on a cruise ship some time ago and he was talking to one of the guys who works on a cruise ship and he was from somewhere over there in Thailand or Vietnam or somewhere and he said, Hey You uh so you're a beekeeper also you take your you take your honey to the factory and get more honey. So they they take they take two barrels and they bring back ten barrels.

Becky Masterman

No

Steven Coy

because they're doing they're doing I don't know, there's a There's the the long list of things they do with it, they blend it, they create these custom syrups that are designed to evade the the the current testing models. It's pretty uh pretty depressing when you if you really get into know all the details about it.

Jeff Ott

Well, if your livelihood depends on being able to sell honey at a living wage or a living price, it would be depressing. It would be very upsetting to see that honey is beef s shipped put on a ship at sixty cents a pound. I produce honey and I'm I'm probably paying my initial costs are probably ten dollars a pound just the amount of money I put into a single colony just to produce a pound of honey.

Steven Coy

Yeah, well it's kinda like it's kinda like going fishing. I used to own a boat and I didn't own a boat because that was the cheapest way to get speckled trout. I owned a boat because I love to go fishing, but You know, if you're a if you like walleye, the cheapest way to eat walleye is to just go buy it and eat it.

And then you're gonna be able to get your money out of. But you're not doing it. Most people don't do it just to eat the honey.

They do it for other other reasons. And

Jeff Ott

you said that there are other farm bill type programs that the honey producers working on that are helping beekeepers?

Steven Coy

Yeah, so we've worked a lot with the the ELAP program, the emergency livestock assistance program. They put that into effect. I believe it was in 2008 farm bill.

And so every every every time a farm bill comes around, there's an opportunity to make improvements or change some of that. Congress failed to pass a farm bill last year, but they did put in that big beautiful bill, a lot of farm bill related stuff, and we were able to get into that a reduction of the payment. So the ELAP program They got some convoluted mathematical formula on how they calculate this, but basically if you keep up with how many beehives you have and how many of them die.

from CCD we're still the government's still stuck on the CCD but die from unknown causes then then they will pay you a portion of they will pay you some money per colony on that. And they were paying at one point if twenty percent of your colonies died, they paid on everything above no. They paid on everything above twenty percent. And then they raised it to twenty two percent.

And then they raised it to twenty four percent. And they kept raising it up and they they fac they actually told us, well, we really think it should be 40%. It's like, well, the whole point of this program is because bees are dying.

for unknown reasons. And if you raise it to 40%, then nobody's beekeepers get no help. So we were able to get it reduced down permanently to 15%.

So now if you have I can't do these numbers in my head, if you had a hundred beehives and fifteen and and twenty of them die, that's a twenty percent loss, they will pay you for five of those. They're not gonna pay you for the first 15 % that die. Everything over that, they'll pay you some of that.

And and there's a lot of controversy out there within the industry about people cheating and people Doing all kinds of nefarious stuff and you know, cheaters are gonna cheat. You can't eliminate all the all the bad actors out of the group. The Honey Producers Association, we want you to do it the right way.

We want you to follow the rules. If you've got problems. There's third party people to help, help you solve those problems.

This is something that's really it unfortunately it has been supporting many of the beekeepers in this industry because honey prices have been so low. Honey prices This year honey prices are up around the two twenty, two two fifty range. It just depends on who you talk to and You know, who's buying and selling.

But honey prices have jumped up this year because of a couple different things. One of it is the shortage that you mentioned, Becky We're looking at we're looking at three consecutive years of the lowest honey production on record. I've heard estimates of below a hundred million pounds This year.

Becky Masterman

Are you kidding me?

Steven Coy

That's what some people are saying. I'm not smart enough to to know how to estimate it, but

Becky Masterman

that's for everybody, that is a huge, huge deal because we were at two hundred and fifty million. Thirty years ago?

Steven Coy

Uh I think ninety

Becky Masterman

two thirty-five?

Steven Coy

Ninety-two or ninety-five, I think, was the peak in in modern history, uh like two hundred and fifty-four million pounds.

Becky Masterman

I want to just uh take a step back for the for the ELAP and and bigger picture, this is a a protection for farmers and beekeepers are farmers. And and also it's a s situation where commercial beekeepers the problem with it and it's kind of the farmer issue is that you might have three or four good years in a row and then all of a sudden C really, really high losses. And if if there wasn't this safety net for protection, then we would have fewer operations being able to support all the pollination services out there that are needed.

Steven Coy

That's right. You could have average above average years for for several years and then you end up with a uh fifty, sixty percent loss of all your colonies. It's going to take you about three years to recover to get back to where you were.

And and that's if you have good years after that. If you happen to have two bad years in a row, which some people do, It just makes it really tough. Yeah, you know, the whole farm economy is based on on government subsidies.

And I mean that's just the reality of the way things work. And this is the only this is the only thing that the beekeepers have.

Becky Masterman

We've been tackling some pretty serious information. Why don't we wrap up this section by by talking about something that's always going to be positive, which would be the joint convention for the the California and the American Honey Producers Associations. Who's going to be there? Can you tell us anything exciting? Any breaking news?

Steven Coy

Anybody, everybody that's anybody should be there. I mean we should all be there.

Becky Masterman

We're not gonna be there.

Steven Coy

You're not gonna be there. That's a shame. Uh I'm I'm excited that we're gonna have this joint convention with the California State Beekeepers Association and uh American Honey Producers.

It's gonna be in Reno, Nevada on November the 16th through the 19th. It's it's gonna be a huge a huge meeting. I think we had over fifty people send in applications to present.

I think we got about forty-two or more presenters. I know Maggie Gill from is she from the UK?

Becky Masterman

She's from the UK.

Steven Coy

Yes. She's one of the world experts on Tropilaelaps mite. She's gonna be there.

She's gonna be one of the keynote speakers. Who else here? I don't I don't there's a big long list.

We're gonna have Izzy Hill will be there to talk about the the new regulatory consortium that Pam has has put together. a stakeholder couple of stakeholder discussions about different things. We're gonna talk about an update from APIS on the uh yellow-legged hornet and other problems.

There's gonna be a couple of let's see what am I environmental oh environmental DNA as a diagnostic tool. Man, there's some really cool stuff coming out. It's kind of scary.

There's some new information about the new pollen patties are gonna come out. Talk about that. We'll have USDA area wide approach.

They're they're working on doing some larger scale Research projects, which we've been trying to get 'em to do for many years, is to look at long term long term project. Look at colonies multiple seasons over multiple areas as to just focusing on like, well these bees died. I don't know why they died, but they died.

Well I can I'm not very smart, but I can figure that one out. But you know, they didn't die from what happened to 'em two weeks ago. They died from something that happened to them two months ago probably We're gonna have uh you know several USDA scientists, uh we've got quite a few industry companies uh gonna give gonna give informational talks.

Uh Dr. Jeff Pettis will be there. Unfortunately, with uh with Reno in November, the weather can be really iffy and it was kind of It's kind of a seemed like a big challenge to schedule a golf tournament. So we're gonna have a we're gonna have our little golf outing.

It's gonna be at a a simulator, a four-base simulator. Yeah, top golf simulator thing. not the official top golf, but inside so that we uh stay in stay inside and don't have to worry about the weather.

Becky Masterman

If anybody can go It really is a game changer to have a lot of commercial beekeepers in an audience because their questions are based on a lot of experience and a lot of numbers. The presenters are great, but it's the audience too. It's it's really up to level in game because of the fact that it's a a lot of larger businesses with a a bigger perspective.

Steven Coy

We had close to four hundred people at our convention in Tampa last year, and I expect we'll have close to six hundred people or more, and the majority of them will be commercial beekeepers. I know this the I have never been to a California state meeting, but they tell me that it's almost as big as as any of the national meetings on its own. And so since we're combining together, I think it'll be it'll be great.

Jeff Ott

That sounds great.

Becky Masterman

Good for you.

Steven Coy

One of the big things that I hope we get to talk a lot about at the convention is beekeepers promoting American honey. So there's been some interest over the last several months about But we need to start doing something to promote our own honey. And the uh American Honey Producers Association is working with the California State Beekeepers Association.

The North Dakota Beekeepers Association and the American Beekeeping Federation. No particular order in that, except that's just how they popped in my head. But we're working together to figure out some sort of strategy, plan, an idea on how we as an industry can market American honey.

And I'm hoping that we can have an announcement about that at that time. So we're we're we're working hard to figure that out and there seems to be some excitement, some desire within the industry to Market American honey, talk about how great it is, and when you buy American honey, you're not just supporting individual beekeepers, you're supporting our food security because, you know, we as you know, we pollinate over a hundred crops. we support the specialty crop industry.

Now the numbers that they always throw out as well it's a twenty billion dollar industry. Well I think that's the farm gate value. But the specialty crop industry is like a seventy five billion dollar industry.

You know, that's that's the total value, and maybe even higher than that. And they couldn't do that without commercial beekeepers who pollinate those hundred plus crops. So if we can educate the consumer to buy American honey because it supports our food security, and you know, it's it's real honey.

It comes from America, it comes from American beekeepers, you're supporting it. We're supporting families and farms and our food security and you get good quality product. That's what we that's what we're trying to do.

Jeff Ott

I think that's a great way to wrap up this segment of today's show with the American Honey Producers Association is promoting American honey and the quality that it represents. Hey, let's take this opportunity for a quick break and we'll be right back with our guest Steven Coy.

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Becky Masterman

Welcome back everybody. After that great conversation about the AHPA and the fact that you are president of the AHPA and uh a lot of your time is going towards that organization. Let's talk about where the rest of your time is going Which is your own beekeeping operation. Oh yeah.

Jeff Ott

Oh oh yeah.

Becky Masterman

Remember that

Steven Coy

some days Right. Um yeah, I spend it's a it's a twenty four seven, three sixty five labor of love. I keep bees I live in South Mississippi.

I'm about forty-five miles or so from the Gulf And most of my honey production is down along the Gulf Coast. And then in the summer I run bees up to central Mississippi and make some honey up there a little bit. But I got started in Russian honey bees way back working for my dad back around 2000.

We started using them and you know I love 'em. They're great. Everybody's got their own personal preference and and You know, there is no one single best bee ever, but for me, I like the Russian honey bees.

They work they work core they work well for what I do and I've learned to to to manage them as as good as anybody can, I think But uh I've got about a I run about a 1800 hive operation and I sell queens and nucs and a little bit of honey, plodding along, trying to do a little bit better every year, but uh sometimes that's hard to do.

Becky Masterman

So y you said your your dad opted in in about two thousand and it was just prior to that that the Russian program was started by the USDA. So he must have been an early adopter of of Russian the Russian stock?

Steven Coy

He was real good friends with mister Hubert Tubbs from from here in Mississippi. And Hubert was one of the cooperators with Doctor Rinderer and the the Baton Rouge Lab. And so my dad would you know, this was in uh mid nineties, my dad would talk to Hubert two, three times a week on the phone and and he Hubert was always telling him how great the Russian bees were.

In 2000, we bought a couple of Breeder Queens from the uh one of the other cooperators, Charlie Harper, and then we bought some beer breeder queens from uh a guy up in Midwest United States. We grafted about I think I grafted about five thousand we we made about five thousand colonies off those other bees, the Italian type stock, and we made about two or three thousand off of the Russians. And that winter most of those Italians died through the winter.

They starved death they starved to death on us. This is a lot of what happened. And but the Russians didn't. And in fact, we had one colony, we had one yard that we pulled the honey off of in November.

This is up in in Arkansas. We lived in Arkansas at the time. We pulled honey off of 'em in November and we probably went back and fed 'em one time or maybe not, but we Essentially forgot about 'em and when you go back to 'em in February, they just kinda got lost in the shuffle.

Don't remember exact numbers, but like if we kept fifty-six hives in the yard, two or three died. That's all. Between November and February, two or three hives died.

Everything else was great. And those Italians that we died, like uh, you know thirty five hundred out of five thousand died. So my dad was like, hey, we're gonna go with we're gonna go with Russians.

We h we n he knew that the pesticide treadmill that agricultural runs on is really not a long term solution. He thought the genetics was a long term solution. And so I've been using Russian bees ever since.

Becky Masterman

And so that pesticide treadmill that you're referring to is is specifically Varroa?

Steven Coy

Well, yeah, for for for for bees, yeah.

Becky Masterman

Mm-hmm. Right, right, right. Do you find you have to intervene for Varroa or do you find that the genetics are good enough in order to not have to? Because everybody's getting really excited now.

Steven Coy

Yeah. Well well, I do treat. I I do treat my bees.

We do as part of the breeding program, which Can be a whole nother whole nother topic of discussion here. But as part of the breeding program, I do I do run bees that that get no treatment And that's how we make the selection process. But in my operation, I do treat.

And it's more complicated than Varroa. You know, Tom, Tom Render in that group. in the I think that might have even been like 89, 88, or 89, but I know all through the nineties they were they were doing research looking and doing research on Varroa resistance.

And the Russian honey bees are resistant to varroa. I mean there's twenty-five years, there's more than twenty-five years of research, and they consistently had half as many Varroa, and sometimes even less. That they actually did one research project with us in Arkansas.

They got all the way to the end, they're ready to do the the final assessment, and they couldn't find enough mites And so they're like, wait a minute, we can't find enough mites in these Russian colonies that the statistics aren't gonna work. And so they scrapped the whole project. They scrapped the whole project because there wasn't enough mites to figure out what the statistics were on it.

But mites are not the problem anymore. Mites are part of the problem. And so just because you have a colony that's resistant to mites, doesn't mean that they're not going to die from something.

My personal view is in the commercial beekeeping world, very few bees die from too many mites. They die from something that a few mites are carrying. viruses, I I or whatever.

I don't know. I mean I've talked to I've talked to a couple of scientists and I was like, look, there's gotta be something that these farmers are spraying. That causes viruses to spike.

He's like, oh yeah, some of these fungicides we know cause viruses to spike So, you know, I'm I guess I'm kind of off out here into crazy land, but you know, at one time I can remember way back when you did an ether roll. And you if you if you ether roll more than fifteen mites, oh you need to treat. And and we all finally figured out how inaccurate an ether roll was.

Yeah, then they're like, well if you got five mites on a sticky board you should treat. And then if you got five mites in an alcohol wash, and then it's three mites in an alcohol wash. And now it's one mite in an alcohol wash.

So So having high numbers of mites is not the only problem with mites. And so having resistant mite-resistant stock doesn't solve all of the issues that we deal with in beekeeping today

Becky Masterman

I I think everybody goes to mites because it's the one really effective way to exposure to a virus. Right. But it's also it's also if if If it's a multiple multitude of viruses that are impacting the health, then how do we mitigate that? And mites are just that. Easy.

Steven Coy

Yes. Yes. We have to control mites and fewer mites results in in healthier bees, generally But I think that that science did us a disservice by continuing by by waiting so long to identify that it's not just the mites Because it affects policy. It's not just to how beekeepers, I mean it affects decisions beekeepers make, whether you're a hobbyist or commercials, but it also affects policy at the federal and state and federal level Because they think, oh well all we gotta do is kill the mites and that solves the problem. No. No. It's way more complicated than that.

Becky Masterman

We also also have a a weird situation, although not necessarily weird with an introduced pest, but we have a uh an era where we could we could withstand a lot of of might pressure until it actually killed our animal to an era now where a little bit of mite pressure might transmit a virus that will kill our animal. And so we have this whole it's been over thirty years or thirty years of wait, shoot, it's been forty years of forty years of Varroa, thirty-nine years of Varroa, and it turns out that whatever we did in this time has gotten us to the point where a little bit of Varroa pressure can be a lot deadly. It's really hard to put all that together because it brings beekeepers to a crisis point every single year.

Steven Coy

Russian honey bees were the first successful resistance stock. They weren't the first, but they were the first successful stock. And a lot of people just like, eh.

They're too they're too hard to deal with. We don't like them. They don't make honey.

They don't we can't pollinate with them that. Okay, so now just let's like you described Becky, we're at the point where just a few mites in the colony will result in the colony death and now we have I don't know how many five or six different resistance stocks out there. Some are better than others.

We're learners, but we're slow learners as an industry. You know, we should have we should have adopted this resistance stock thing years ago, of course. Scientists keep telling us, hey, it's gonna get it's gonna get easier.

I mean, one of the first things that I remember talking about with Dr. Rinderer was marker-assisted breeding. We are so close. We're we're just like, we're right, we're we're we're we're actually of we're almost there.

We're almost there. And that's the next step that that the Russian association is gonna start working towards. is utilizing that.

Becky Masterman

We've been talking a little bit about about Russian bees and it's really clear why you you have not only put them in your operation but have become a breeder. But can you just give our listeners some of the the characteristics that have really sold these bees to you. What what do you love about Russian bees?

Steven Coy

Oh, it's kind of a love-hate relationship.

Becky Masterman

We'll start with love. Let's start with love.

Steven Coy

They are resistant to mites. They're resistant to small hive beetles. They are resistant to American foulbrood.

I have never seen American foulbrood in a Russian colony. Depending on where you live, you know, I lived way down in South Mississippi, so small hive beetles are a problem. The certain times of year, but they would be a bigger problem if I didn't have Russian colonies.

Russian colonies Again, I live in the south, so I don't have to deal with a harsh winter, but Russian colonies will survive the winters up north a lot better than Italian bees will. They don't eat very much honey they don't produce huge brood nests in the fall that you have to worry about starving to death before You know, y I know some people have issues where they're like, I can't well, there was a guy on Facebook the other day, a big commercial guy up in Canada. He was upset because he had twelve frames of brood.

in his colonies, ten to twelve frames of breed in his colonies, and he's like, they're gonna starve to death. I'm not gonna be able to feed 'em enough to get it before the weather turns cold. You don't have that kind of issue with with Russian bees.

They're honey they're great honey producers. They they make as much or more honey than any other colony sitting right there beside it.

Jeff Ott

Are they quick to build up in the spring?

Steven Coy

They are slow to start, but quick to build up, yes. Yes. Yeah.

And and and that's that's kind of the one of the downfalls of them. A lot of times they'll just kinda be behind your quote unquote Italian colony by ten to fourteen days. But once they get going, they'll they'll crank out the brood because They are super responsive to the environment.

And that is both a blessing and a curse. If there's pollen, if there's pollen and nectar coming in, they're gonna be brooding up, laying eggs. Making honey, they're doing great.

But once that s slows down or stops, they stop raising brood. And and that's part of their way that they manage mites. There's a whole host of ways that they can deal with mites.

But but but did I cover the the goods the good and the bad part? I mean

Becky Masterman

You did such a great job with you barely hit the bad part. And I know that this is controversial, but but they have a reputation for being a a tad defensive and I've I've heard from people who truly love them that they don't see it and that they're able to select four gentle Russian colonies, but I I'm curious what your take on it is.

Steven Coy

So that's probably the biggest that's the one of the biggest complaints. The the two biggest complaints for while they were never adopted in the commercial scale was they're not great at at having a large colony size in on February first for pollinating almonds and and the defensive behavior. most of uh the defensive behavior that that that is the perception of that is real.

I have some data from Garrett's Dr. Garrett Slater when he was working in in North Dakota, that he looked at seventeen different commercial bee operations in North Dakota. He only looked at one that had Russian colonies And he he s ranked all all seventeen colon all seventeen operations he ranked their B's on aggressive behavior. And I believe I'm not gonna get these numbers exactly right.

I believe the average The average for the non-Russian was like ranked at five on an aggressive scale And it's this is this crazy scale. Becky, you you can understand. I think they should change this because it's the way they it's the way they do Africanized bees and it goes from like Like four to four to fourteen or something.

Becky Masterman

Okay.

Steven Coy

I don't know. It's not a zero it's not a it's not a one to five or a zero to ten or whatever.

Becky Masterman

Easy to understand.

Steven Coy

No, it's not.

Becky Masterman

put their twist out.

Jeff Ott

It's a logarithmic type scale.

Steven Coy

Something. But but the the Italian colonies, for just sake of the discussion, they scored a five. And the higher you go, the more and the higher you go, the more aggressive you get.

Okay, but they had some that scored like ten. Okay? But the Russians scored six.

Okay, so they were a little bit more aggressive, sting prone than defensive, let's call them defensive. Defensive. Yeah, well, because it's yeah, look So they're just

Becky Masterman

what they're doing. That's why they're defending their own.

Steven Coy

Their defense is not always but it's not always stinging. They're a little bit more, but but they're they weren't as bad as some, and they weren't as gentle as some. You know, I mean there's a famous guy who he likes to put videos out there of him bare uh barefoot in his bee yard with with no veil on, rolling bees around his hand.

Okay, my bees don't do that. But but my bees are resistant to mites already. I'm not trying to get them resistant to mites.

You know, he's been working on that for a few years. Mine are already there. So, but they do they do these, they they headbutt you if you're wearing a veil.

If you're wearing a veil and no gloves, they bounce off your veil, but they don't typically sting your hands.

Becky Masterman

Oh interesting. Wait, all of do all of them go for your I mean, do do like if you go from colony to colony, or does it take a little while and then you find a colony that might decide to be a little bit more defensive?

Steven Coy

That's a pretty general thing, is they're pretty much all these kind of bumpy you know, you know, and I suspect I do suspect if you didn't have a veil on that yeah, they'd they'd tag you in the face, but But you know, with a veil they're just gonna bumping they they're just flying like I was with somebody the other day and they were complaining about all these mean bees. I was like, what do you mean? How many times have you been stung? Well, I haven't been stung at all Well wait a minute, well they do well they're just flying around.

Becky Masterman

That's point taken. I I think it's interesting because I it come this time of year when the nectar stops flowing. I'm fine if my girls are a little defensive because I want them to be able to protect themselves.

Steven Coy

Yeah. So actually I believe it was, I'm gonna get her name wrong, is it Liz? I think it was Liz Walsh, Dr. Liz Walsh from Baton Rouge, did a study a couple of years ago looking at Aggressive behavior, defensive behavior, defensive

Becky Masterman

behavior.

Steven Coy

Defensive behavior. Words have meanings, just use the right words. Defensive behavior in Russians and Italians.

And they starved they starved them from pollen. They withheld pollen from 'em. And both Russians and both Italians got more defensive when there was a pollen shortage.

Now the Russians went a little bit higher, they got a little bit, you know, a little bit more excited about it. But after like two weeks they of no pollen, they calmed down. Like, okay, this is the new this is the new normal again.

So so all colonies should have some defensive behavior around pollen stores, nectar stores, weather issues and stuff. I mean, you know I had a I had a breeder colony one time that I went out there and and pulled my frames to graft off of and it was a beautiful sunshiny day. I was like, wow, this is great.

I don't need a veil or anything. I don't even need a smoker. And so the next day, two days later, I went out there to pull things again.

I had to go back in and get my veil and my smoker. But it was overcast and cloudy. I mean it was heavily overcast and cloudy.

And so I got to notice in the that colony was super responsive. to the weather conditions. On a sunshiny day they were great to deal with.

On a on a rainy overcast day, they weren't very nice at all.

Becky Masterman

You said something to me in January that has really stuck with me and I thought it was just so brilliant and it wasn't a way I was thinking when it came to trying out different stock. But I I had just kind of mentioned that somebody was saying, you know, try try a different stock next to each other and and see how they compare. And you just said No, put them all in the same put put your stock in the same yard and let the stock work for you. Do you remember telling me that?

Steven Coy

Oh I remember I remember that conversation. Yeah, that was up at the at the B Expo thing, right?

Becky Masterman

Yeah, it was at the bee Expo. And if you could just if you could just uh share with the listeners just a I I I mean I I've you've said it once already, but it it was just so eye-opening to me as far as if you're a beekeeper trying stock.

Steven Coy

Yeah, I don't know exactly what I said, but but I get calls and emails frequently about people who are like, hey, I'm gonna buy your stock, I'm gonna improve I'm gonna improve my stock with your Russian bees. I'm like, if that's what you want to do, great. But if you really want to look at what Russian bees can do, you put them all in one yard together because if you don't And I don't completely understand how this works.

But mites drift. I mean at some level I do, but but then others uh that like how do the mites drift? But If you put Russian colonies if you put five colonies of of Russians and five Italians, non Russians in a yard together, you'll have more mites in those Russian colonies than you do if you just have five Russian colonies together.

So you don't get to see the benefit of what they do because those other those other colonies are are polluting everything with with mites and their diseases and everything else. You know as a scientist, Becky, that it that if you want to know what your how good a colony does, you need to put it in a couple different locations. But when you start moving stuff around and blending stuff together, you you introduce things in there that you can't measure or can't you you don't understand what's going on.

I don't know. I I I must have had some profound moment back in January that I've since it has escaped me.

Becky Masterman

No no no. You're you're you're saying it, but but it's really you've got the colony level genetics And we all understand that, but you're you're literally saying take that to the apiary level and and control your apiary level genetics so that you can minimize the invasion of of mites. And it's let's just blame the drones. Let's just admit it.

They they've got that high drifting rate. But but it but it's it's it's really well said and And I don't know of any studies that have looked at it, but it was interesting because you said it very in defense of Russian stock. Let them do their job.

Let them let them do their job. And if you're going to Use a stock, re-queen the whole apiary with Russian stock.

Steven Coy

Yeah, yeah. I mean my dad always told me that the three most important things to a successful beekeeper is location, location, location. And and there's a you can apply that to a lot of different aspects of running a bee operation, but you know, a successful a successful colony, successful yard, a lot of times comes down to to just the location.

And with the Russian bees, early on, there was always time reports about, oh well, I had this colony in the in the barn that's been there for five years and it must be resistant or This this colony's been in the tree. There's there's been bees in that tree for fifteen years and and then so they have to be resistant to varylamites and stuff. Well, it's it's the location.

It's because they're isolated. They're not getting so And because every time you go get one of those hives and you put it in a bee yard, it dies. It dies from varroa or dies from the effects of varroa.

And so yes, if you want to know exactly how good Russians are, you have to keep Russians together. You you you because otherwise you just dilute the thing. And that's just like if you're gonna Breed, this is just my personal opinion that if you're going to take Russian stock and you're gonna improve your stock, yes, but if you're gonna take your stock and bring it in, you can't improve You can't improve my Russian stock with your stock because every time you anytime you graft, you're going to get at best half of what you started with.

Right? Or whatever. I mean, you know, like VSH is a

Becky Masterman

Varroa sensitive hygiene.

Steven Coy

Yes, Varroa sensitive hygiene. Yes. Yes.

Russian honey bees have it. This the the the the Paul Line II lines have it, but they don't have it in the same spot on their genome. It's in a different place.

And so it's a different combination. So if you take if you take if you're if i if that's all you're looking at, then you're missing some of the benefits of Russian bees because you can take a Russian bee and a VSH bee and you can cross them and but you don't get twice as much VSH You're gonna get half as much Russian and you're probably gonna get the same amount of VSH. All this all this applies with no matter what line you're running.

If you if you want to know how good your bees are, don't mix them with somebody else's bees. Keep them Keep them together so you can see what what they're doing.

Becky Masterman

That's why there's a Russian Honeybee Breeders Association and is it Russian Honeybee Breeders Association?

Steven Coy

Russian Honeybee Breeders Association

Becky Masterman

So that's why that exists and there's a website with uh contact information for different producers.

Steven Coy

Yes.

Becky Masterman

We can leave it there.

Jeff Ott

We'll leave it there.

Steven Coy

Is that a good place to leave it?

Jeff Ott

Yes, it is. Steve, we really appreciate having you here counting it up. This will be your sixth time on the podcast.

And uh you're always a wealth of information about the Russian honey bees, the American honey producers. And just your experience and knowledge. It benefits everybody to talk to you.

So thank you for being here today.

Steven Coy

Well I appreciate you having me and letting me ramble on and give my opinions about a lot of things.

Becky Masterman

Thank you so much, Steven.

Jeff Ott

So you really enjoyed having your Russian bees uh this year. I remember we talked about it in the springtime. They did really good by the end of the year.

Becky Masterman

They're beautiful colonies. I don't have mite issues in those colonies. They made honey And they were pretty nice to me.

I'm pretty gentle in those colonies. I don't trigger a lot of defensive behavior when I'm in a colony, so only one gives me a few stings, but It's not consequential. It's not enough for me to need to remove that queen or re-queen or anything like that.

So I I have been very, very happy with them, yes.

Jeff Ott

And Stevens work with uh American Honey producers, a lot of the hobbyists will say, Well, they're you know, he said it's for commercial, but really the work that the American honey producers are doing Benefits all beekeepers, regardless of your level or your focus. It is a very necessary work, and I'm glad they're there doing it

Becky Masterman

Yeah, that's well said. And and I think that people don't know that that, you know, you get you become president of one of these national organizations and you're traveling to DC, you're traveling to all of these meetings. He was at the the Tri State.

You're not doing it on the dime of the organization. You were just taking that on, that extra expense of of travel. you're taking um the time I mean it's the ultimate volunteer job and these beekeepers are working hard because they're they're doing a lot of work just to run their operations and then when they take on that position of Leadership.

It's it's really a big deal.

Jeff Ott

And that about wraps it up for this episode of Beekeeping Today. Before we go, be sure to follow us and leave us a five-star rating on Apple Podcast or wherever you stream the show. Even better, write a quick review to help other beekeepers discover what you enjoy.

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