How To Get Started With Bees in 2024, Part 2 of 4 (S6, E37)

S6, E37 - How To Get Started With Bees in 2024, Part 2 of 4

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

Becky Masterman: I'm Becky Masterman.

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[music]

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Jeff: Hey, everybody, welcome back to the show. Becky and Jim are here to help us with the "How to Get Started with Bees Part 2, 2024." The original series came out on  Beekeeping Today Podcast with Kim, Jim, and I in February of 2020. We had a four-part series. The first part was how to get started, talking about hive types, stings, and those early questions.

The second part we talked about was basically what is a honey bee, the honey bee lifecycle, whether is worker, queen, drone. We talked about some of the other basics, including just the different races of bees, and how to order bees. When we were looking at this again, we thought, "Well, there are some additional things that beginning beekeepers might want to learn about." That's what we're going to talk about today, and that's why we're calling this an attachment or addendum.

Becky: I like attachment. I think we can go there. We want to attach ourselves to that first series.

Jim Tew: Okay, I vote for attachment too, so let's go with attachment.

Jeff: Attachment. I'm not comfortable with that, but that's fine. One of the things that beginning beekeepers need to understand is the amount of time it takes to be a beekeeper. I think maybe that's a good place to start because sometimes the glossy pictures, the advertisements, the happy people working with bees, and the videos don't really talk much about how much time it takes these days to keep a colony of bees healthy and into the following years of keeping bees.

Becky: It's not just the time it takes to manage a colony, but we can also talk about the fact that it takes a lot of time to become a really good beekeeper. It's not the first season or the second season, but right around the third, fourth, or fifth season, then it gets a little bit easier. Hopefully, the listeners have a lot of the next few years blocked off on their calendar in order to devote to learning how to keep bees, but let's get back to how long it takes as far as inspections and what your season looks like. That's different, right? Depending upon where you are. I've got a shorter season here in Minnesota.

Jim: I agree with everything that's been said to this point. The issue is always in the details.

[laughter]

When you say, "How long do you have to commit to keeping bees?" Do you mean actually opening a beehive, looking for the condition of the queen, because if you look at the bigger picture, we're going to suggest in a few minutes that people read books and watch videos, so how much time outside of the hive that pertains to beekeeping are you going to add to beekeeping? The actual beehive part, opening, smoking, pulling frames out is direct and straightforward, but everything else is a time commitment that you choose how much you want to put to it.

Becky: It's a committed relationship. I've got my husband, and then I've got my bees, and both take a lot of time. [laughs]

Jeff: In that order?

Becky: Let's see.

Jim: Moving on along, Jeff.

[laughter]

Jeff: It depends on the day.

Becky: It depends upon the season, right, so there's a priority, because, in the spring, you need to be able to be a little bit flexible because you might need to get out to see your bees. I don't know about you, but I'm constantly watching the weather. I'm always looking for the right temperature to be able to get out to do what I need to do with the colonies. I think listeners should understand that when you decide to become a beekeeper, you can't say, "Okay, every Saturday, I'm going to devote to managing bees," because it's going to rain, it's going to be cold, it's going to be unseasonably windy, so we have to really be flexible.

Jeff: Let's start with the first season of a beekeeping year is spring, summer, then fall, and then winter. Spring is a time of increasingly more time spent with the bees. January, you start thinking about it more. February your heart starts beating a little bit more and you start looking for your equipment and start looking for that hive tool. Then come March or so, this is all regionally dictated because it depends on where in the country you are, but typically, by March, you've ordered your bees, you're ready to start thinking about this, and it just increases then and through the rest of the year. How much time does it take? Seasonality does play big into how much time you're spending with your bees.

Jim: Can we reduce this to a core entity? How long does it take to work, to maintain, to keep one hive of bees? That way, if I have 10 hives of bees or 200 hives of bees, I can have an idea, but it depends on the season, doesn't it? If I'm trying to keep one hive of bees, what would I spend per week? What would you guess per week in the spring that you two spend on a single hive of bees so that we'll have some idea of what we'll spend on 10 hives of bees? Are you in it for two hours? Are you in it for 15 minutes? How much time do you need to allocate?

Becky was describing the right weather, no rain, warm weather, whatever. Are you just learning? Because I've always encouraged people who don't know bees from anything else, go out there and spend some time with your bees. Bad day to do it, shouldn't have done it, but you're learning, damaged your queen, all those things are okay for the first two, three years, but by then you should have learned something.

It can be as quickly as just a few minutes. If you have a pinpoint thing you're looking for, if you want to see the condition of a queen that you just installed three weeks ago, what's the brood pattern look like? That's a 10 minute, 15 minute job. Going to take longer to light the smoker than it is to actually look at the frame you're looking for. If though, however, you decide to change out that deep hive body and you got to take all 10 frames out, then you're looking at a 45-minute job, breaking propolis loose, scraping bees crushing them. It really is hard to put a point on it.

People ask all the time, "How much money and how much time am I committing to this project?" before they consider starting it. It's not an easy answer.

Jeff: I've always hesitated using the comparison of honey bees as being livestock, but in many ways, each colony is a large dog you have to take care of. It takes a lot of time and commitment to properly care for it. I think, yes, you have to consider what you're doing. Sometimes preparing to go into the hive takes longer than, like you said, getting into the hive, lighting the smoker. Sometimes if it's just a 10-minute job, you can get away with just a poorly lit smoker and a couple of puffs of faint blue smoke, if that much.

Jim: Yes. Right, and some bad language.

[laughter]

That won't tell you how this story is going to end. Of course, you're going to be surprised at how defensive the bees are and how fast your smoker went out.

Jeff: Doesn't that also change? Because in the springtime you can almost go in right without anything.

Jim: It really does.

Jeff: The bees are just like, "Okay, we'll just keep going here. Do what you need to do." You do that same colony in September, at least around here in September, it's just like Katy bar the door because they are coming at you.

Jim: Jekyll and Hyde beekeeping. That same colony that was kittens in the springtime is trying to kill you now. You think "What happened? It's got to be a bad queen." No. What happened was the bees' attitude toward you being in the colony. You're exactly right, Jeff.

Becky: They need to defend themselves in the fall, not just from the beekeeper but from wasps and--

Jim: Their doorbell's being rung by all kinds of things, not just the cockamamie beekeeper there who's trying to break in.

Becky: Even being able to sneak in without smoke, because we've all done it, that takes years of understanding how to get in and out of a hive and be as careful, gentle, flow as possible, and be able to get away with it, if that's the right way to phrase it. Smoke is a beekeeper's best friend when you're learning how to manage bees because it gives you that little bit of a cloak of invisibility.

Jim: I don't want to get off the subject, but just the right amount of smoke because I have seen new beekeepers that had everybody in 35 feet coughing and gagging.

[laughter]

The smoke is therapeutically applied. You don't just fog the whole hive with that unless you've just really got an attitude with your own beehive. A little dab will do you in most cases.

Jeff: I always feel like when you're talking about all the smoke and everything, you're looking at me, Jim, but I think that's just the way the cameras are set up.

Jim: No, it's just a camera angle. I never would--

Becky: Wait, now you're pointing at him. [laughs]

Jim: I never would accuse you of anything like that.

Jeff: Yes. Why are you winking like that?

Becky: [laughs]

Jim: I'm about to crack up crying here.

[laughter]

This is such a sad subject we've wandered over into. I don't like smoke. Let's just get off the subject for a second. I do wish that some clever person would come up with something that I could use besides that smelly smoker. I don't think is particularly healthy for me or the bees to breathe that. If you try to go in without smoke, you're going to be back under your truck, you and your dog both, trying to get away from those irate bees. I know, you can use misted sugar syrup and all that kind of thing, but if you try that with that big colony that Jeff you talked about in September, they're going to kill you. They're going to really come out for you.

We're just stuck with smoke, but I wish there would be something, some secret procedure, magnetic fields, or something yet undetermined that would let the bees-- rob them, figuratively speaking, and feel good about it. Anyway, I'm done with that. We shouldn't get off the subject. It's not part of our agenda.

Jeff: I do want to say in all seriousness though, we're talking about opening a hive without smoke. That is contingent on so many different things. Becky did properly state that it really depends, and you have to know when to do that because it depends on the weather, it depends on the time of year, it depends on the race of bees, it depends on the size of the colony. There are so many factors that go into it. That's why I always cringe when you see these YouTube videos of people in flip-flops and shorts working with bees.

Becky: Oh-oh.

Jeff: That sets the expectations so poorly.

Becky: [laughs] I will tell you though, but I did listen to your first episode, at the University of Minnesota we are all about going gloveless. It is a very different approach to beekeeping. I have a set of gloves in the car, but I'm a strong advocate of going gloveless. I'm not a commercial beekeeper though either. I get why you don't like the misrepresentation of flip-flops and T-shirts. Is that what you said?

Jeff: Flip-flops. Yes. No veil with T-shirts, shorts.

Becky: I'm a tank-top, flip-flop person. I'm also very comfortable if I get stung a lot if something goes wrong. If you're starting out, you can't do that. You need to be able to be very careful. I think that there is something to be said for being able to sneak in and out of a colony with smoke and do it very carefully. We call it gentle beekeeping at the University of Minnesota. We're going to have to add another episode to this if we keep going.

Jeff: No, this is important. This is an important discussion because we're setting expectations. You have two different philosophies here. Becky is talking also about this from working with a group of experienced beekeepers who can help you understand what's going on in your hive, tell you when it's good to examine that hive with minimal protection, and not someone who's never opened a beehive before and opening it without understanding all the other factors that tie into protecting yourself and enjoying the hobby.

Becky: Respect their ability to defend themselves.

Jeff: [laughs] Yes.

Jim: Since we're down the rabbit hole here, I'm actually okay with people not being really properly dressed. I'd like for you to be experienced. You've got to be able to take a sting or two or five. If you're going to be one of those beekeepers who just takes a few minutes to step to the edge of the yard and beat yourself half to death, then you probably should not be the beekeeper who's not trying to use smoke.

The thing I would like to encourage people to do is, even though you're not using smoke and-- I don't use gloves. They're always in the truck. I have them close by, but gloves really make me clumsy. I do try to always put a veil on. Even if I don't tie it off, do something to protect my nose and my eyes. I wear eyeglasses. I thought, "Well, that's good protection," until the day, just a couple of years ago, that a bee dropped out of the sky and just by a random chance went in the space between my glasses and my eyes and then was bouncing around and was trapped behind my glasses.

That can motivate you now team members here. You're young again. You can leap tall buildings, you don't care if you never find those glasses again, but you have got to get that bee right away from your eyelid right there. You should have some eye protection because, of course, it could be a serious spang if one happens to really get close there. No smoke, I'm okay with that occasionally. No gloves, I'm okay with that routinely. Becky doesn't wear shoes when she works bees.

Becky: [laughs]

Jim: That's interesting. I usually have shoes on, but I do usually drape a veil over my head.

Becky: I actually usually wear rubber boots because of all the ticks. I'm just saying that there are some pictures of me out there where I happen to be not properly dressed. Properly footed, I guess.

Jim: [laughs]

Becky: Hey, have we taken a break here?

Jeff: No. Thank you, Becky. Let's take a quick break and we'll hear from our great friends at Betterbee.

[music]

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Jeff: We certainly went down a rabbit hole. During the break, we are back up in the daylight.

Jim: We're all set.

Jeff: We've talked a lot about the way that a beekeeper can get off track. Not just the three of us beekeepers getting off track, but beekeepers can get off track, especially the importance of understanding your bees and how long it takes. It's a thing that you have to work at to learn how to do. It really depends on the season, the time of year, and your goals for your visit. One of the things that can really help you with all of this is by a beekeeper joining a local organization and finding other beekeepers and talking with beekeepers in their region, in their city, in their small town or big city, to talk to them about what they are doing with their bees.

Jim: That makes perfect sense to me. We seem to mention this mentor-teacher-student relationship every time because it is that critical. Could we actually learn beekeeping without any other involvement? I think we would not really progress very far, or take a lot longer. I completely agree. Find someone local. Becky is in Minnesota, I'm in Ohio. I have an ancestry from Florida and Alabama. It's a different world there. Different climate. When I'm sitting here in Ohio telling someone in some other warm state how to run their operation, they've already gone through fruit bloom in most cases and have swarming issues and I'm still telling them how to get through the winter.

It really is useful for newer people to be in the shadow of someone who's done it before.

Becky: Even just tips and tricks as far as when the nectar flow is because that has a major influence on whether or not you're going to keep your bees from swarming and be prepared with equipment. There's just such great information that's local that you can't get anywhere else.

Jeff: I know that people try to lean on social media such as Facebook. I'll pick on Facebook, not because I'm anti-Facebook, but because everyone uses it a lot. They post a picture and say, "This is going on my bees, what's going on?" It's really hard to do any diagnosis when you're standing on top of them whether alone from someone's picture. The best thing you're going to get is some guesses.

It really helps to have someone from a local organization or from your bee club is what we're talking about, or a mentor, or a bee buddy, somebody that knows bees to come out there and look at your bees to see what you're experiencing, to smell what you're smelling, to hear what you're hearing, and observe what you're observing to help diagnose what's going on with your bees. I think that's so important. I will put it up there as the top one or two or top three things to help a beekeeper become successful and get into their second season, is having that resource available to them.

Becky: Well said. I think so much of beekeeping is learning what normal looks like, so then when something does go wrong, you have a frame of reference. Normal, even as far as colony growth, it's very different, depending upon where you are in the country. It's something that [crosstalk] --

Jeff: Time of year.

Becky: Time of year. If you can find that support through a mentor, it's going to make a huge difference. We talked about it before, but even finding somebody to lead you through their colonies for a season before you invest in your own is a great way to figure out if you're ready and if it's something that you can't wait to do or if you might want to rethink the financial investment that you make to get into beekeeping.

Jim: Jeff, you said a bit ago this list of things that were going on, calling someone, mentors help for whatever. I'd like to add that a mentor is usually much more expeditious. If you've got a problem and you take time with your phone to capture a video and you go in and you upload that to the YouTube channel and you post it, and then like phishing, you wait to see who's going to read it, and not just read it or watch it, but respond.

All this time your beekeeping hive clock is ticking. If you really had a problem that was meaningful, well, what would it be, a day or a two-day, three-day turnaround before you really get a multitude of opinions? It'd just be so nice to be able to call that poor put-upon person that you have called [laughter] over and over again and say, what is going on with this? Have them say, that's happening all over right now. Whatever.

It's often for the new beekeeper while they're waiting because they used to send me pictures. I was on a trip somewhere and I didn't check my mail for eight days and you see some dire picture. By then, if they didn't resolve it, it resolved itself. I want to say that a mentor in many cases is more timely response than any of either of our modern communication systems because he's there. He or she, smelling, seeing, feeling, looking. You just can't get all of that data into even a podcast and certainly even into a video that you posted on YouTube or whatever.

Becky: Even if the mentor is not there, but they're local and you can give them a call, they can save you time by telling you what the next step is so that you don't have to, like you said, go home. How many times somebody you've been helping, have they told you, for example, that they thought they were queenless and you said to them, "Did you put a frame of eggs and larvae from your other colony into the middle of the brood nest so that you can see what happens," and they said, "No"? That means they've got to go back out to that colony, light that smoker, get back into it. I think what you said, the efficiency of it is just so important and can make your beekeeping journey so much more enjoyable.

Jim: The mentor feels so good when you call and say something like, "Whoa, what is happening? My bees are attacking and killing my drones." You know the season of the year. You can say on the phone, "Hey, chill, everything's all right, this is a normal procedure, so worry about something else." That mentor can perform a triage on when you should jump into a different gear or when you should just go ahead and continue with your dinner plans. Obviously, I'm in favor of a good mentor.

Jeff: You can also take a class. I've seen some garden centers even offer beekeeping classes. Take a class. I think that's so valuable. We're talking before we started recording, one of my very first classes I ever took, Jim, I'm sure you don't remember, but it was a beekeeping class there at the Ohio State University there in Wooster with you. Just a wonderful experience, having, again, all that hands-on experience, looking inside the hive, seeing all that. Take a class, first, second, third year, even if you're had many years of experience as a beekeeper, take advanced courses, learning is so important for beekeeping, especially now with everything that's happening within our industry.

Jim: That's correct. Things are changing. Becky, early on, you said that one of the continuity things in beekeeping was that bee biology is rigid. In this discussion we're having now is the same biology as a discussion we had several years ago when we laid these first tapes down, these first audio tapes. It's that bee biology is really nicely rigid and is dependable. That helps a lot.

Becky: It's this beautiful, complex framework that every beekeeper needs to learn. There's all that bee math that you need to know. How many days from egg to adult, for a worker, for a drone, for a queen? There are all these different components that, as I said earlier also, it takes a long time to be able to get the information and then put it together and then look at your hive and have that aha moment. Having it in a class where you can sit down, have a teacher explain it to you, where you can get into a hive, have a teacher show it to you, I think it really is a great way to set the framework for the beekeeping journey people are going to start.

Jeff: Even dissecting bees to understand anatomy is so valuable.

Jim: Did you do that in Jim's class?

Jeff: Yes, we did.

Becky: That's fantastic.

Jim: Thank heavens. Where was I? Was I there?

[laughter]

Becky: I'm impressed.

Jim: I had better eyes and better physical dexterity then, obviously.

Jeff: Dave was there doing that. I don't recall, but yes, it was there in Wooster. Absolutely. Books. Books are another great resource. I know books is old school. Books are old school.

[laughter]

Becky: So is grammar, I guess.

[laughter]

Jim: Can you write in cursive, Jeff?

Becky: I'm teasing.

Jeff: Yes, I can write cursive.

[laughter]

Becky: Jeff is excellent with grammar. Just read the blogs. Very good.

Jeff: Thank you, Becky. I will ask and I'll just go around a virtual table here. Becky, what's your favorite bee book?

Becky: I'm going to go back to the one that I started with, which was Mark Winston's honey bee biology book, published in '87, I think. It's so beautifully written. There are more books out there now, but that's my historic book.

Jeff: Jim, what about you?

Jim: I'm caught off guard. I can get the author's name back. After you get through all the basic books, when you're 122 years old, the way I am, when I started, there was only three books that were common.

Jeff: ABC.

Jim: ABC, the  Hive and the Honey-Bee, and a book called  Beekeeping by Eckert and Shaw that had a West Coast attitude to it. If you have those three books, then you've got the library. I digested and absorbed all that and I came across the book by Ribbands, R-I-B-B-A-N-D-S. This is the part you've surprised me now because I can't hop up and run get the book, but that was the book that took me to the second grade after I finally graduated from the first grade in beekeeping because it took all of those foundational blocks that I accumulated and it gave me a more advanced look at it.

Becky: The Behaviour and Social Life of Honeybees.

Jim: Thank you, Becky, for looking that up for me while I was chatting.  The Behaviour and Social Life of Honeybees by Ribbands. That book's been reprinted. It's funny, I made this discussion several years ago at a bee meeting and one of the book vendors said, "What did you say in there? Everyone has come running out wanting to buy Ribbands' book. I've only had 3 copies of it, but I've taken 12 orders for others." It's just a bee book of the time. It's a compilation of the science of the day into a hardback book. That book was very helpful into opening new doors, more advanced doors than what I've been accustomed to in the beginning books. Jeff, what's yours?

Jeff: The first bee book that I read-- I know I've told the story many times about the first observation hive I made with my dad down in the basement-- was a book called  The Queen and I by Edward Weiss. It's a fictional book, but it's about bees. It was my first book that I bought, probably borrowed it long-term from the library.

[laughter]

This one I actually got later in life, but it was signed by Edward Weiss. It's a really good book. It's a step-by-step instruction guide for beginning beekeepers. That was my first book. After that, I have many more books now that I go to. That was one of the first books I read from cover to cover on bees.

Jim: We can do a pretty good job of nailing down books, but if you ask me what is my favorite video channel, I don't have one. I've got nothing that I've really bookmarked that I go back to. The web is so vast that every time I log in, there's something new and different. It always says here, "Click to follow my channel" or "Subscribe here." I don't always do that because I just end up burying myself in announcements and updates on whatever you've agreed to follow.

[laughter]

While I can give you my favorite book, I can't give you my favorite videocast. I can give you my favorite podcast, hint, hint, hint.

Becky: Wait-

Jeff: What is that, Jim?

Becky: -which one is that now?

Jim: That shouldn't be a surprise. What is it called? Somebody help me here. Look it up, Becky.

Becky: I don't know. Is the name obscure?

Jim: Yes, it is. It's maybe something like--

Becky: Honey Bee.

Jim: It is an obscure name.

Becky: Honey Bee what?

Jim: Yes, yes, yes.

Becky: Okay. Somebody has to say it.

Jeff: Yes.

[crosstalk]

Jim, go ahead.

Jim: Let's all say it.

Becky: Oh, we almost said it together.

Hosts: Honey Bee Obscura.

[laughter]

Jim: Where we talk about everything and end up saying nothing.

[laughter]

Becky: I would disagree with that.

Jim: I'm sorry. I could tell that stung too much.

[laughter]

Becky: No, no. There's such a treasure trove of past episodes of  Honey Bee Obscura that those getting into beekeeping can definitely download and binge and they will learn an awful lot about, not just beekeeping, but about beekeepers.

Jim: Thank you for saying that, about the nuances of the lives of beekeepers struggling to keep their charges going.

Jeff: [laughs] We're going to have to wrap this up. We've talked about books and videos. We've passed over bee labs and state extension services. Those are out there as resources beginning beekeepers or any beekeeper should be aware of. Perhaps my go-to website is the Honey Bee Health Coalition. They have a wealth of information that's updated regularly. They have a brand-new Varroa guide. It's really, really good. Not to forget all the local and state universities. They are a great resource, too.

Becky: Yes. That keeps you local and also gets you some of the up-to-date information. If everybody tunes in to their closest state university that has a honey bee program, an extension program, that would be great. Also, we didn't mention the USDA Bee Lab. They have got some good diagnostic information on their websites for diseases and a little bit of interesting information that beekeepers can check out.

Jeff: We'll have the key links in the show notes of this episode, so please check those out. One last resource I want to make sure that we mention for beginning beekeepers-- we say beginning beekeepers, it doesn't mean you have to be a first-year beekeeper. It could be anybody, really, along the way-- are the new veterans and first responder groups that are out there for people wanting to get into beekeeping.

Becky: I'm I was going to name a few because it's so exciting that we can, Mission Beelieve, Heroes for Hives, and also the University of Minnesota has Bee Veterans. All of them are offering various forms of free programming for veterans. Mission Beelieve is including first responders.

Jeff: You can check out our interview.

Becky: Yes. Monica was able to tell us all about what Mission Beelieve is up to right now.

Jeff: I think this brings us to the end of this part 2 of our addendum to the original part 2.

[laughter]

Becky: I think we should remind everybody to follow up and listen to the sister episode, which was the second episode in the first "Getting Started in Beekeeping" series. It will tie in nicely to our conversation we had today.

Jeff: Yes. That was Season 2 Episode 17.

Becky: 17.

Jeff: That would have been in February of 2020. Becky, Jim, thank you for joining us today on this part 2 of the addendum sister of the-- [laughs]

Becky: You know what? In the spirit of honey bees, it is now going to be the sister podcast or sister episode.

Jeff: A sister episode.

Jim: A sister episode. I'll vote for that.

Becky: The colony is filled with sisters, so I'm declaring it. I don't think I have that power, but let's just do it anyway.

Jim: From this day forth [laughter] sister episode.

Becky: To the original series, the sister series. I love it.

Jeff: The sister series. All right. I hope our listeners will join us next week on part 3. We'll talk to both of you then. Thank you.

Becky: Sounds great. Thank you.

Jim: Goodbye.

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 web page.

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.

[00:35:57] [END OF AUDIO]