Bee-Peeves (289)

289 - Bee-Peeves

Oxfordshire Beekeepers Association: Welcome to the podcast. We'd like to welcome you to the Oxfordshire Beekeepers Association. After two weeks of terrible weather, we finally have a wonderful sun and the bees are as happy as we are. We're here at the Oxford Beekeepers Association apiary where we teach how to care and manage bees. We're about half a mile away from Blenheim Palace. Welcome to the podcast.

[applause]

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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Hey, thanks Oxford Beekeepers Association there in the UK. Thank you for that great opening. We appreciate it. For our listeners who were listening to Andy Pedley two weeks ago, that's Andy's beekeepers' group and you might have recognized his voice right there at the end.

Becky: Isn't that fantastic that we twisted his arm a little bit and he got a whole bunch of beekeepers in the UK to do an opener for us.

Jeff: The fun thing is we didn't really need to twist his arm. He sent it after he heard the opening. It's fun. It's fun. That's what those listener openers are all about. It's a beekeeping community.

Becky: That's true. I was trying to just maybe intimidate some of the beekeepers out there and just get them to do that recording and send it in. I was trying to be intimidating, Jeff. Did it not work?

Jeff: You've done a pretty good job there in Minnesota.

Becky: Oh, come on.

Jeff: I think we have three up there listed for Minnesota now. I think we've got some states out there that have no listeners. We need to get all the states represented and all the countries around the world where we have listeners.

Becky: We could do a whole episode where we just read off the states where we need listener openers.

Jeff: Oh, we could do that.

Becky: That's all. We could just read the states and then we could move on to the countries. That's great content.

Jeff: That's good arm twisting. You don't collect loan bets or do loan bets, do you?

Becky: I don't. I don't. I think that that was the extent of how intimidating I can get.

Jeff: Becky, it's the end of July. The summer is pretty much, well, let's say two-thirds of the way over. What's going on in your bee yard?

Becky: What's going on in my bee yard is the same thing that's going on in everybody's bee yards. Not only is the summer almost over, but winter bees are beginning to see their life. I always think of that transition into August as the colonies are raising the winter bees, meaning that we need to keep them as free from mites as possible. I like to do a little extra lifting, get those supers off and get a mite treatment on sooner than we used to do so that those winter bees are going to be raised as free from Varroa and viruses as possible.

Jeff: Yes, that is so important. I'll tell you, it's something that I have to purposely remember every season is that the preparations for winter begin in earnest as soon as I pull the honey. I'm sorry, I'll repeat this again. I learned my primary beekeeping skills and those are the ones that stick longest. They're the ones you learn first. My wintering habits are from pre-Varroa time and it's been a struggle to get that to stick in my head. My bees have paid the price. I'm only repeating this not only for our listeners' benefit, but to further castigate myself and make myself take care of them as soon as the honey's pulled.

Becky: I think you said it so well, is that you learn how to keep bees a certain way. So many of our listeners have learned how to keep bees with this great pressure of Varroa and they're still probably struggling a little bit or a lot. It's hard for us to shift. If we think about something like the biology of winter bees and how important it is because they can live 200 days, they're the bees that are getting us through the winter, it helps us maybe frame that Varroa management priority a little bit better because we want healthy winter bees. Because I don't remember ever thinking about winter bees when I first started keeping bees.

Jeff: Oh, yes. When I first started keeping bees, we didn't think about the term winter bees. Did not exist. It's a cool thought now. It's duh, obviously, but there's data, there's science that backs it up biologically or the bees have changed for the winter. They're just not the same bees and we know more about it. That's important to respond as beekeepers to help our bees the best we can.

Becky: It's great to think about winter in July and August, right?

Jeff: Only someone from Minnesota can say that. I'm sorry. Hey, Becky, we have coming up Dr. Jim, too. You know Jim, our podcasting friend from Honey Bee Obscura. We've invited him on today to talk about those little nagging peeves about keeping bees.

Becky: Yes. You're talking about bee peeves.

Jeff: Say that five times real quick.

Becky: I can't. That was it. That one time. Just record it and use it and just cut it and cut and paste throughout the rest of the episode, please.

Jeff: We'll loop it.

Becky: Loop it. Yes.

Jeff: All right. Hey, listeners, we'll be back with Jim in just a moment. First, a quick word from our sponsors.

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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 this big virtual Beekeeping Today Podcast table is a good friend and nearly a former neighbor, Dr. Jim Tew of Honey Bee Obscura.

Dr. Jim Tew: Thank you for having me here. I look forward to it, been anticipating this for weeks.

Becky: Okay, I feel bad now because I really have been looking forward to it and I've been so excited that you're going to join us, Jim. Thank you for being here.

Jim: I'll try not to wear out welcome.

Becky: Any excuse we have to get you to join a podcast episode, I'm all for it.

Jim: Thank you.

Becky: we're making up excuses at this point, so welcome.

Jeff: For full disclosure, Jim, you were the very first instructor I had in keeping bees in Ohio way back, I think it was probably '89, '88 at Ohio State and you had, was it a week-long, weekend-long, four-day long beekeeping class. You taught us how to dissect the bees and Dave Heilman was there and it was quite an experience.

Jim: I'm glad to hear it was quite an experience. You didn't say it good or bad.

Jeff: Positive experience.

Jim: Positive, okay. Thank you for-- I'm sorry I had to ask for clarification there.

Becky: You did have to ask for that, didn't you?

Jim: My daughter's taught me years ago, if you can't stand the answer, then don't ask the question. I was sitting here wondering, do I ask if it was a positive or negative experience?

Becky: Hey, Jim, he's still here, right?

Jim: He's still here. That's a good sign.

Becky: He's still here. I think you did a great job.

Jim: Yes. I remember Jeff. Sometimes it sticks, most of the time it doesn't. There's all this mass of people who entered my life, stayed for a while and left. Then there's the influential ones who are still here. I could list them, but then I get in trouble for ranking people, so I'm not going to do it.

Jeff: Ranking your children, right? I have a daughter and a son, and I call my daughter my favorite daughter, and my son my favorite son, and I am safe.

Becky: You're safe.

Jim: My policy is the daughter I'm with is my favorite daughter. If I'm with more than one daughter, then we just don't discuss it.

Jeff: All right. All right. Just for clarification also, Jim is the host of Honey Bee Obscura. It's our other podcast where Jim hosts and talks about-- What do you talk about, Jim?

Jim: I talk about all things beekeeping in a plain talk way. Honestly, sometimes week to week, I don't know what I'm going to talk about, but there's always something that motivates me, stimulates me, or inspires me to go to it.

Becky: I'll admit that Jim's the reason why sometimes I'll be like walking down the street listening to a podcast laughing to myself or doing yard work and just start out laughing because the episodes are not just informative, but I'm actually-- I've kept bees and listened to the podcast and done a little bit of laughing. Thank you, Jim.

Jim: You're welcome, but they were not intended to be funny, so I'm not sure how that worked out. What kind of laughing was this? Sarcastic laughing or entertainment laughing? There's different kinds of laughs.

Becky: Oh, I think we could find plenty of evidence. It's definitely education and entertainment.

Jim: I enjoy doing the podcast, Jeff, and I appreciate the work you do to make me sound better than I am and clean up the track so that it comes across educationally. I appreciate that work.

Jeff: It's a great show for our listeners who are unfamiliar with Honey Bee Obscura. It is a short format. You keep them within 20 minutes, isn't that correct?

Jim: Usually very close to 20 minutes.

Jeff: It's a commute. It's a drive to the grocery store or drive to the grocery store and back. It's a deep dive into one topic, beekeeping.

Jim: Others would say it's not a serious waste of time, so that could be worded that way, too. It's just 20 minutes. I enjoy doing it. I'm developing my own program. I enjoy it very much. It does make me learn. It makes me formulate thoughts, and I find it to be quite helpful just for me as a beekeeper to put things into action.

Jeff: We know a lot of your listeners really appreciate the stories and the information you convey in each episode.

Jim: Thank you.

Jeff: Thank you for being here. The reason we're here today is to talk about those little things about beekeeping. We talk about the big things in beekeeping. We talk about the Varroa mites. We might talk about, I don't know, vaccines. We might talk about the topic du jour. No one really ever spends much time with those little nagging things that bug us about beekeeping. If you're out there working in the bee hut or out in the bee yard or in the honey house, there's always those little things that you say, oh God, I wish someone would come up with a better way of blah. What are those little nagging peeves, as we're calling them? What are those? That's today's discussion.

Jim: It's lighthearted at times. At other times, it's outright annoying. It really depends on how sticky the floor is as to whether or not it's lighthearted or annoying.

Jeff: Your tolerance level for stickiness is a measurement.

Jim: Yes. Let me just start with that one. The sound that your shoes make when you walk across the kitchen floor and you've got a real mess to clean up later on.

Becky: Yes, despite all the efforts to not have that happen.

Jim: Put down a tarp, and then the next sound you hear is the tarp sticking to your feet when you walk across the floor. You're thinking, yes, let's teach beekeepers how to handle this. This is enjoyable.

Jeff: What I don't like is when that happens, it's not so much of the noise. It's stopping and not wanting to turn around and look at my tracks across the floor behind me because I don't know what else came in with me on the floor. If I came in from the bee yard, if I came in from the honey house, and I walk across the tile or walk across the carpet.

Jim: That's unnerving. Didn't you have horses at one time?

Jeff: Yes.

Jim: This could have been a messy floor.

Jeff: We're talking about bees.

Jim: Oh, we'll stick the bees then. Okay. Because I was thinking, I don't want any of your honey anytime soon.

Jeff: Just a couple of weeks ago, we had an episode on honey house cleanliness. No horses involved, I promise.

Jim: Can I take this one step further?

Jeff: Please.

Becky: I try to eat honey, at breakfast and on various foods, and I have tried everything not to get to be sticky. I can't use a knife. I can't use the squeeze bear because the honey granulates. One of my tics is that I just can't find a good way to handle honey. No offense to the plastic manufacturing companies, but I want to go back to glass because I can microwave glass and you can heat it on the stove and you can re-liquefy it. I'll tell you the truth, frequently the path of least resistance is just to scoop out a big glob of granulated honey and eat it, grittiness and all. It's just sugar crystals. I have a hard time. My [unintelligible 00:15:32] argument here is that I have a difficult time telling others how to neatly and cleanly eat honey without having to lick your fingers after you do it.

Jeff: Or looking down the front of your shirt and seeing that one drop.

Jim: Oh, I don't want to do that, no. It's always a clean shirt when that happens, too. It can't be a shirt that I've worn six times already. No, it's the clean shirt.

Jeff: Absolutely, the one you just put on. Becky, what about you? What's on your list?

Becky: I have something that's-- Oh, I don't know if this has ever happened to you, but this has happened to me. Running out of smoker fuel and then you have to go foraging for fuel or you have to gently get into your bees without it. That smoker fuel, I don't know. I don't know what you use for smoker fuel. Does that ever happen to you?

Jim: For smoker fuel, I use anything I can set fire to at the moment. It has pretty much been my working doctrine. I do have other plans, but--

Becky: Right. If the supply gets low and I haven't gotten to the store, then I end up collecting leaves and small twigs and I spend more time on my knees collecting burnable items than actually in the bees.

Jim: I don't want to make this too negative, but while I'm foraging for leaves, I also wonder if I'm foraging for ticks and for poison ivy and other things that I'm scrounging for because at the moment I probably have a beehive open and I'm losing control. I'm trying to find this burnable material just as quickly as I can. I've realized in the past that there was some poison ivy mixed in that as you ripped up whatever to get it going.

Becky: Did it kill mites? I wonder if that's my question. Do you think that poison ivy in the fire did anything to kill those mites?

Jim: I did not think to check that. That would really be interesting, wouldn't it?

Becky: I just use aspen animal bedding most of the time unless I run out. When you put in a concoction of different things and you don't know what they are and then you light it on fire, I always worry a little bit about if that has any impact on the bees or me.

Jeff: I had never really considered it. To your original point, yes, it has happened on a weekly basis. I guess that's frequently.

Jim: That's frequent. Yes.

Jeff: Yes, it's frequent.

Jim: That's 52 times a year in theory.

Becky: Wait.

Jeff: Reach around for the smoker because you're in the middle of a hive and you've been concentrating on counting frames or looking for the queen or something like that and you realize that they're starting to get a little testy or you start to see the little heads pop up and a couple of them bouncing off a hand just to warn you. You go to reach for that smoker and it's like, oh, and you rattle it and it's like two marbles in the can. Yes, that is a pet peeve. That is good.

Jim: I'm wondering what you say. What words do you say when you reach around with bees bumping you and stinging you and clearly going to be coming for you and your smoker is out? Do you say anything at that moment that the beekeepers might find useful that would help them get through their own moments? Hello? Hello, are we getting cut off?

Jeff: Yes, I think what I usually say that might help our listeners is I should keep a bag of burnable material along with me so I can quickly jump into it and fill my smoker. Honestly, that's not what I say.

Jim: Smokers are tough. They can take a lot of throwing. I can tell you that from experience.

Becky: I'm going to ask both of you. I keep my smoker fuel in a dog food container so it stays dry if it's exposed to the outside. How do you guys store your smoker fuel when it's in stock?

Jim: I'm trying to think. Jeff, did I do a podcast on that or did I write an article on that? I can't remember which one, but I use heavy-duty galvanized cans that I stumbled into at a garage sale. These things probably caused environmental contamination everywhere they were made. They're heavy-duty. I have one that I keep the fuel in, and I use a fuel that I shouldn't be using. I use bedding. I use cedar bedding, the animal bedding that I buy at the farm supply stores. It's always dry. Then I put the lit smoker in the other can, and that way I don't set fire to my bee yard back there.

Jeff: I use a combination of things. I use wood shavings, pine shavings from a wood shop in a town nearby, a bee supply company, and they make their own bee equipment. They have bags of wood shavings, and that's my primary source. Here, one of the things we have in abundance are pine cones. If I'm someplace where I can find pine cones, I get grocery bags of those and pick those up because those are a handy size. You can pick four or five and drop them inside the smoker like you're loading an old musket rifle. They burn really well. They have a clean smoke. In Ohio, I used to love the staghorn sumac, the seed pods. Those burn really well. I always try to keep a bag or a can or something. Today, I took a bag that I got in some order, a Ziploc bag, a big thing, and I just took that out and keep that with my bee supply, and I keep that topped off.

Jim: I don't want this to turn into why do I hate my smoker session, but hating my smoker and hating smoke and using smoke and the headache of smoke is my number one, number two, number three, number four, and number five pet peeve. It's just constant with keeping the smoker lit. Don't burn yourself. Don't start a fire in the bee yard that you've asked somebody else to let me put bees there. My clothes smell like I've been to a barbecue. My truck smells that way. This thing develops tar and rosin remnants on it, needs to be scraped. Yet we've used this technique for thousands of years, and no one has come up with anything any better. There it is. It's not going away, and I hate using it.

I don't think we should be breathing all that smoke. I don't think my bees should be breathing that smoke, but I can't come up with anything any better. Those are my top five pet peeves. I'm kidding, I got plenty of peeves. The smoker, its side effects are always lingering with me. Sometimes I will not go to the bee yard because I just don't want to get my clothes all smelled up. I'll be going somewhere else, and I don't want to shower and change clothes. Then you do something really stupid, and you say, well, maybe I can just crack the top, do what I got to do, and then the next thing you know you're trying to get to the emergency room to get this eye treated or something. I'm talking too much. Somebody else talk for a while.

Jeff: Hey, well, I think this is a great opportunity to take a quick break, and we'll be right back.

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Becky: Welcome back, everybody. I have to agree with you, Jim, because the whole planning your shower after you manage bees is so critical because you show up at an event and you smell like everybody's asking where the campfire is. That's a big pet, wait, bee peeve. Here's another thing that has actually nothing to do, well, it has something to do with bees, but it's more to do with the beekeeper. I don't know if any of your significant others have ever said to you, okay, about how long is that going to take you? I'll be headed out in the bee truck. I'm going to go visit a certain number of hives and my husband will say, when do you think you're going to be back? I'm like, I have no idea.

That's how I answer now because it could be the fastest inspection or I could get in there and I could need another two hours from what I thought. I can't estimate how long it's going to take me when I'm off to do inspections because you never know what you're going to find when you get into those hives. Has that happened to you?

Jeff: Yes, no, I will say that for the bee yard, that hasn't come up as an issue, quite honestly.

Jim: Jeff says it's not always an issue for him. I just basically got my grandson stung to high heaven and back because I didn't realize that those boxes were so full of bees. The only thing my grandson had seen was two six-frame nukes and he thought those were beehives. I suddenly exposed him to 70,000 bees and I reduced him to a whimpering mess almost. I didn't realize the bees were that big. You talk about the smoker, I'm usually had to recharge that smoker twice because these bees are coming after us. We weren't dressed heavy enough. I told him that we'll just be out here for a few minutes. All I want to do is see if this new swarm has a queen. What the new swarm had was four deeps of bees.

I didn't know that they'd build up that much. What was supposed to be a quick 20-minute teaching moment with my grandson turned into me struggling to get that beehive back together and then go find my grandson. He was gone.

Becky: He was gone, wait, like he was--

Jim: He left the area.

Becky: He left the area. He has not left beekeeping though, correct?

Jim: No, he has not. I don't think so. He's still got two beehives he better manage. When that came up with me though, Becky, it's trying to drive out to a bee yard and then to realize that you've left all the inner covers at home or there's something that you didn't load up and then you think, well, I'll get it the next time. I have made through all the years, so many mistakes with frames left out, top outer covers glued down because I didn't take out inner covers. You're in a hurry. There's rain coming. I want to be back. This shouldn't take too much time and I misallocate everything.

Becky: Now that you say that, I absolutely have a hive out there that does not have an inner cover because I've forgotten to bring it out there. Thank you for-- I'm going to put that down on my list. I finally tell my husband, I have no idea. I just have no idea. It turns out if I have all day long to get into the bees, it's going to be the shortest visit ever. If I'm in a rush, yes, it's going to take a little bit longer.

Jeff: It's been easier for me since I've tried not to do everything in the bee yard on the same day and say, I'm going to break it up across several days. That way, if I get nose-deep into one colony, I know that's okay. Maybe I can make it up the next day. I'm often time crunched. I have an hour or so to spend with the bees before something else is coming up. I have to set limits. If I get into the one hive and I say, well, I got to go come back. For me, it's a little bit different. That's why it's difficult for me to answer that question because I have to set the time limit.

Becky: It might be the difference between I'll have to drive 45 minutes to a yard. If you're going to do that, it's just great to get it all done versus having them in your backyard.

Jeff: Yes, and that's a valid point. I have the luxury of having the bees out in the back somewhere on the property. If I forget something to go into the bee yard, and I have done this, I've made five trips back and forth from the shed out to the bee yard. If I was back in Colorado where I did have a long drive to my bee yard, that was very frustrating. That work probably wouldn't get done that day just because of the time involved to load up, drive through the field, get on the road, get to the main road, get into town, get to the house, pick up, what, the excluder or the inner cover. Yes, it just doesn't get done. That's a good point, Becky, that you're dealing with a different situation. It's all location, right?

Becky: All location, there you go. Jeff, you have to share. What's your biggest bee peeve?

Jeff: My biggest bee peeve is I don't like getting stung. I know that that's something I should be used to. It's something that I should, as a beekeeper, welcome, puts hair on the chest, whatever, but I don't like getting stung. It just always shocks me when I do. That's my biggest bee peeve.

Becky: That's fair.

Jeff: Don't look at me. You guys are looking at me, judging me.

Jim: I'm trying to get my arms around this.

Becky: How long have you--first of all, how long?

Jim: How did you become a beekeeper?

Jeff: Yes, I know, I know.

Jim: Will you go develop a warm, loving relationship with them that nobody else could do? I don't like being stung. I have never taken a sting I didn't have to. If I could join in quickly, my peeve along this peeve line is I really dislike stings I'm not expecting. If I'm in my beehive and all of a sudden I'm stung on my hand, that's one thing. If I'm cutting grass, minding my own business, and I've suddenly got a bee in my ear, I do not deal well with that. That happened just yesterday.

Becky: Oh my gosh.

Jeff: I don't like the ones up the pant leg.

Jim: Those are motivational stings. I call those motivational stings.

Jeff: They are motivating. Like you said, the ones on the hands, whatever, around the fingernails, whatever, but up the pant leg and wherever they are up in the pant leg, depending on how high they crawl before they sting you, just always is you learn new words and then you jump and you say something, you look around and say, did anybody see that? That's my biggest bee peeve, and I qualify, and thank you, Jim, is the ones that I don't expect, but in general, the stings.

Jim: It's funny, it's sarcastic, it's insensitive, but I'm always drawn to watch a beekeeper being stung and what they will do to themselves in public. They'll beat themselves severely about the head and neck shamelessly. Somebody else will rush over with a smoker and have everyone gasping for air, and you just watch this and think this is not the action of normal people. This is just not something normal people do. I don't think a lot of people like being stung. We've all seen those reactions, and if I've got a bee up my nose or behind my glasses, I am all business, boy. It's me and that bee right then. None of this academic stuff, I have got to send this bee to heaven right now.

Jeff: I can fortunately say I've never had a bee up my nose or behind my glasses.

Becky: Yes, me too.

Jim: I didn't make that up. I've had both.

Jeff: I know you-- yes.

Jim: The one behind my glasses really spooked me. It took me an hour to find my glasses. I didn't know where they went. I didn't care where they went. I've got to get that bee because the bee was bumping back and forth between my glasses. I had my eye-- of course, I closed it in a fraction of a second. I was stung, but down on my cheek. I'd always told everyone to wear eye protection, and I thought glasses were eye protection. In that one instance, all it did was trap the bee very near me.

Becky: It's a special community we belong to, right?

Jim: Yes. Can I give a peeve that is along the line, but not really on the subject? One of my peeves, and you can see it coming, you can hear it coming. You keep bees? Yes, I do. I've been keeping bees for a long time. Oh, I can't do it. When I get stung, I swell up and I have to take Benadryl. I have to go to the doctor and you have to stand there and say, yes, I have heard this 6,438 times. You cannot become insensitive. Ohio State admonished me firmly. You are not a physician. You do not give medical advice. You talk about bee behavior and biology. Anything else about sting reactions or sting responses, those are medical questions. You have them contact their allergist.

You'd stand there and listen to someone at the grocery store explain to you that they could never do what you do because when they get stung, it really hurts and they swell and they have to take Benadryl or they are going to die.

Becky: I had a good friend beekeeper say once, it is statistically impossible for all of the people who have come up to me and told me that they were allergic to bee venom to actually be allergic to bee venom. The data do not support it.

Jim: It would be a national crisis.

Becky: It would be a national crisis.

Jim: They're good people and they have not been the path that we have taken. It is a surprise. I don't like being stung by a bumblebee or a bald-faced hornet. It's like I'm not even a beekeeper when I'm around those kinds of insects because these are not my bugs. I'm skittish even with the gear on because these are not normal-acting bees. They're different, bigger, louder. I feel it. I feel then what other people are feeling all the time about all stinging insects.

Jeff: What about equipment? Any pet peeves on equipment? You said the smoker. We talked about the smoker. What about the honey house extractors, uncappers?

Jim: One simple one is that the equipment is not exactly universal. It's just close enough to drive you crazy. That's a quick, easy peeve. Maybe make sense from a manufacturing standpoint that you want people to come back to your company for the equipment. I'm certainly agreeable with that. If you mix equipment, buy equipment at an auction, have someone buy you a gift, buy someone else out, you're going to have to deal with that equipment that's very close but not exactly the same. That's a bit of a peeve or a bit of a fact. I don't know which.

Jeff: It is a peeve. I know I've said this before at some point in the podcast. Back in '92, Kim had me do an article on woodenware. I took every manufacturer, woodenware manufacturer at the time, bought a complete hive with frames and a super with frames, and measured every measurable piece of that hive, those frames, to test the variations between if you put, and I'm just choosing these vendors at this point off the top of my head, but if you put a Kelley box on top of a [unintelligible 00:36:12] box with different frames, what's the bee space between the top bar of the bottom box and the frame of the box above? Are there variations in all of the different equipment?

Where would you see [unintelligible 00:36:26] and where wouldn't you see [unintelligible 00:36:28]? That was a very enlightening story. I don't think it's been done recently. Perhaps it has on somebody on YouTube. That is a bee peeve because that creates a lot of extra work for bees and beekeepers when that space isn't quite right.

Jim: It's just the way things are. I like the diversity of multiple companies, but I think that's going to be that way until there's not that multiple diversity, and that wouldn't be good for beekeeping.

Jeff: Where does the manufacturer expect that bee space to be created between the top box and bottom box? Some of them had a little bit of space on top of the top bars and a little bit of space underneath the frames. The other manufacturers had all their space underneath the frame. Boy, you start mix matching boxes of frames and boxes on boxes and not to mention handholds.

Jim: To add to the confusion, I guess this is a peeve, was it a flat metal tin rabbit or was it a raised hive support? Because you had to have the rabbit depth proper to have whichever frame rest you were going to have. If you added the frame spacers, that's just a whole different level of interesting decisions to make. All of those things could result in you violating bee space, which is always entertaining. Honestly, is this a peeve? Bee space is a relative thing. If you don't work that colony frequently and keep it clean, the bees are going to make that thing one solid block. If you don't open a beehive for five years, four years, oh my stars, you'd have to tilt the thing up on its end and use a hammer and drive the frames out from the bottom. You will never, you'll pull the top bars off before you pull the frames up.

Becky: Just a month in a nectar flow can move that colony together.

Jim: This really feels good. I've enjoyed complaining. This has really been cathartic just to sit here and complain with my friends about things in beekeeping we can't do a thing about.

Becky: Wait until we send you the bill.

Jim: Give us one, Becky. Let's see.

Becky: Have you ever been filling a honey bottle with a spigot and overfilled the container?

Jim: I have.

Becky: Isn't that the worst? You waste honey. It's a huge mess. It's user error.

Jim: That's a sub-peeve of the squeak, squeak, squeak sound the floor makes when you're trying to clean that up. There's several peeves mixed in this.

Jeff: It's a pre-peeve.

Jim: Oh, and the worst was the five-gallon can because that was a major spill. Then the other one you didn't like is when you dropped a glass bottle and you couldn't reuse the honey. At least I could feed the spilled honey back through the bees. If you had glass mixed in, of course, the bees could probably sort it out, but I can't sort it out. There's that.

Becky: Right. I think any honey lost, it just feels so wrong because I immediately go to, they worked so hard to give this to us.

Jim: They had to fly around the world and I spilled it.

Becky: One-twelfth of a teaspoon. How many bees? How many bees did I just negate their whole life's work? Yes, any honey spill, especially when filling bottles, that just gets you off your rhythm, major clean up, and again, such a waste.

Jeff: I will share that one of the things I do not enjoy, and I wish there was a better way of doing it that was perfect because there are a lot of different ways of doing it, is just uncapping. If you're a large commercial person and you've got the big Cowen or Cook & Beals or some big industrial type uncapper, that's one thing. For the regular everyday beekeeper, uncapping is a messy, and we're talking about stickiness, but is a messy business. Then you have to come up with a way to deal with the dripping honey from the frames and also the cappings. Is it a business problem? It's probably more than a peeve, but it's a problem that needs to be solved. I don't know if there's a good way of dealing with it for people of less than the commercial size or large sideliner.

Jim: Since we're peeving, I don't think it can be solved.

Becky: I agree.

Jim: I think that uncapping honey is inherently messy. I think it's directly comparable to applying paint. When I start painting, I'm going to be neat. I'm going to put down a drop cloth. I'm not going to spill anything. About halfway through it, I just completely give up. I just paint myself. I paint the floor, get it over with so I can finish the paint job. I do exactly the same thing when I began uncapping. This is going to be a special event. I am not going to make a mess this time. Halfway through it, you realize that you have not done anything. I got the squeak, squeak, squeak. The tarp that I put down is sticking to my feet. Even in my lab, when I had a lab. You've still got the floor to clean up, pressure washing to do. I just think it's inherent. Is that too much of a pessimist?

Jeff: Doorknobs to clean off.

Jim: Yes.

Jeff: I don't know if there's a good way around it. I think it's a challenge for all beekeepers. If any of the listeners have a good process. The whole uncapping process, you're either burning honey with a hot knife because you can't avoid burning it somehow. The wax. How do you keep that-- If you're lucky enough to have some sort of capping perforator or a chain uncapper or whatever, then you've got to deal with all the uncapping bits in the filter and you have to have a process for cleaning. I don't know. All right, Becky, you had another peeve.

Becky: I just thought of this one. It is honey-adjacent. When that end frame in a colony that is just filled with honey fails and you have the top part of the frame pop off and you've got this beautiful, huge resource of food, but now it hangs down because your frame failed. Has that ever happened to you or is it just me?

Jim: I think it's just you because I put my frames together correctly.

Becky: Oh, no.

Jim: I'm kidding.

Becky: That just hurts.

Jim: Even when they're put together correctly, even when you put a nail through the end bar, if that frame is really stuck down and you put enough torque on it, you can still pop it off and break it. Then you think, well, I'll just stick it right back on just the way it came off. No, you won't. You can't put toothpaste back in a tube and you can't put that top part back on that frame again. It will not go.

Becky: Yes. Then you just have to find a way to-- I end up putting that into a deep shell on top and scraping the honey so it starts to fall so the bees will feed on it. It always just feels so wrong.

Jim: My approach would be to just to leave it there and think, I'm going to work on this later.

Becky: That's another solution.

Jim: That's the path of least resistance for me.

Becky: Or in the winter, put it in the bottom box on the end and just hope that they eat it all and you can just get rid of it in the next season.

Jim: Throughout this entire discussion, you two have not looked at these complaints from the view of a senior citizen. Everything is quantified by energy level and strength ability and tolerance of these situations because I can walk away from this whenever I want to. The bees are tough, they can deal with it. Got to change the subject. Don't respond to it because it was rambling, disoriented, and it was indicative of someone who really is a senior citizen. That's gloves. I always have a pair of gloves under the seat of my truck. I don't use gloves unless I just absolutely have to. For a peculiar reason, I'm usually running a camera of some kind or a recorder and I just can't do it with gloves on.

Through the years, I've tried every kind of glove I can come up with. Lineman gloves, just the simple disposable gloves. Nothing works other than beekeeping gloves. They're clumsy. They're hard to use. When I was telling you about me unintentionally abusing my grandson, he had my gloves on and I watched him try to work. That frame you're talking about pulling out, Becky, you can't pull that frame out with those gloves on. If there's bees boiling out and they're mounted up on top, you just got to mess. You're going to kill bees unintentionally. I hate to do it. Then you've got the alarm pheromone and then you're just getting in deeper and deeper here. I just want to put a shout-out to the annoyance of gloves, just like smokers. At times you really have to have them, but most of the time they just make you really clumsy.

Becky: I remember when I started to learn how to keep bees way back in the early nineties and I was told, here are your gloves. I was an awful beekeeper with those things on. For what I had to do in the colonies for doing research, those gloves were ditched, I think the first season. That's why I just prefer gloveless because especially with the size of my hands, it was never a good fit. Now if I'm putting formic acid on or if I, for some reason, don't want to transfer, if I know I'm going into, like at the university, a knowingly infected colony, I'll put on the nitrile gloves, but they do tear and they will only protect you so far from getting stung. I agree with you. Everybody should have a pair of gloves, but oh my gosh, do they ever make you a bad beekeeper in certain circumstances because you just don't have that dexterity? Now, that's not everybody. It is me for sure.

Jim: I understand that. I got to tell you, if I'm working big colonies, I used to work big colonies, and a lot of them, I've got to have gloves on. If I'm working eight colonies, that's one thing. If you're working bees all day, every day, and you've got to get honey off in your commercial or sideline, you've got to wear gloves and have heavy clothes on. You can't fiddle around with the hundreds of stings that you'll pick up during the day.

Becky: I've worked really big colonies and I haven't worn gloves actually to work bees for I can't remember the last time. I've worked big colonies and I've worked mean colonies. You can, if you have the time, get through it. You are going to get stung, but you can minimize it. I'm not telling anybody to do it. You can't be a commercial beekeeper and do it, but you can certainly be a sideliner and do it. It's just a matter of how you're working and how slowly you can work and how many different techniques you can use to get those aggressive defensive bees into a good mood. It can be done. It involves a lot of Nasonov pheromone and maybe moving the colony off to the side so that the foragers get a little confused. They start releasing Nasonov pheromone, but it's not a good way to teach people to keep bees. I'm going to argue with you, Jim. It can be done. I promise.

Jeff: For me, it's always just a matter of what am I doing? If I'm doing big manipulations and pulling honey and stuff, I'll put on the gloves just because I think I just am moving quick and I want to get it done. I use one of those stinky solutions and I don't want any of that on my skin because that'll stay forever. I'll wear gloves then just because for the stickiness factor for the large part. If I'm doing real manipulations, it depends how long I'm going to be in the hive. Sometimes I'll wear the nitrile gloves and sometimes I'll go gloveless. It just really depends on my tolerance that day and the time I'm having. It's all situational.

Jim: Could I offer that you can read the bees reasonably well? If you've got bees just a short time, you can tell, yes, I can do this today. Other days you don't have to be a real experienced beekeeper to know, no, this is not going to be get this particular manipulation done with this big colony day without some protection. They're going to get you for it.

Becky: I think it's also easier to learn how to read bees if you're not 100% protected though. I think we're getting into a whole different conversation, but I think that one of the problems that I see with new beekeepers is that they're so protected that they don't even know they're getting stung. That just causes chaos in the colony. I really like to know if I've done something to offend the bees because then I can proceed more carefully or undo it. It's a good conversation. Oh, we could have this conversation another time.

Jim: It is a good conversation. I've always assumed if I opened a beehive, I had offended the bees. I've never been embraced by bees in a friendly way. I've never once felt like that I was their friend. I have this doting, loving, long-term relationship, but it's a one-sided love affair. They've never reciprocated.

Jeff: They don't fly out and sing kumbaya with you?

Jim: They do not. They fly out, and they're singing, but it's got nothing to do with kumbaya.

Becky: You know what, Jim? This might have something to do with my small hands. It's probably just easier to reach in and grab that frame, depending upon the size of your hands, possibly. Maybe that's why I feel like I have a good relationship with my bees.

Jeff: I think we should end it there. This has been a really enlightening show. I'd really encourage our listeners to write in. Let us know what you think are your bee peeves. We're sitting here at the end of July, so you might have some that you've accumulated over the summer. Jim, thank you for joining us today.

Jim: I was happy to do it. I can complain on a moment's notice.

Jeff: I'll keep that in mind.

Becky: It's much easier to talk about a sticky floor than actually have to clean it up, too, right?

Jim: Just a bit.

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 Podcasts 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, Betterbee, 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 at the leave a comment section under each episode on the website. We'd love to hear from you. Thanks a lot, everybody.

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