How To Get Started With Bees - Part 1 (S2, E16)

S2, E16 - How To Get Started With Bees - Part 1 (S2, E16)

Jeff Ott: Welcome to  Beekeeping Today Podcast and our special series, How To Get Started With Bees, sponsored by Betterbee, your partners in better beekeeping. I'm Jeff Ott.

Kim Flottum: I'm Kim Flottum.

Jim Tew: I'm Jim Tew.

Betterbee: Hey, guys,  Beekeeping Today Podcast is proud to welcome the folks at Betterbee as a beginning beekeeping series sponsor. Betterbee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. Just how? Many of their employees are also beekeepers who know your needs, challenges, and answers to your beekeeping questions. From the colorful and informative Betterbee catalog to the support of beekeeper education, including this podcast series, Betterbee truly is beekeepers serving beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com.

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Jeff: Hey, guys, I've really been looking forward to this month long series on how to get started with bees. Before we get started, I want to welcome our newest and well-known contributor and co-host, Jim Tew, to the podcast. Hey, Jim.

Jim: Hey, I'm happy to be here. I've been looking forward to it, too. Even though I don't know what I'm doing, I'll get used to it. Thank you.

Jeff: I'm sure you'll do just fine.

Kim: It's good to have you back, Jim. I like working with you on  Bee Culture Magazine, and this is just more of the same. I'm glad to have you here.

Jim: You know what? It is more of the same. We've been through this a lot, so I'm looking forward to it. It's a good way for me to do this information transfer.

Jeff: Guys, when we were talking about doing this podcast and this special series, one of the things, and it's a common joke, but for those who are not with beekeepers, they'll soon learn if you get three beekeepers together in a room, you're going to get five different answers to any one question. There's so many different--

Kim: Or more.

Jeff: Yes, or more. There's so many different ways of beekeeping that I was thinking if I was a beekeeper and I was at Starbucks and I saw someone with a live bee sticker on the side of their truck, and I went in and talked to the beekeeper, I would want to know, how do I get started? What does it take to be a beekeeper? What does it take for me to be able to keep bees at my house because I want to be pollinator friendly and be a good citizen?

Now, that's really the genesis of this series of podcast. I think between you two and my silly questions, I think we can provide a good service for those who are just starting to think about keeping bees this coming summer.

Kim: Jeff, of course, the first thing you got to know is, is it legal to keep bees where you want to keep them? Can you have them in your backyard? Is it legal in your city? How many can you have? Those are the sorts of questions you answer before you do anything. That information is really easy to get if you know another beekeeper. If you don't, then you're going to have to start at City Hall.

Jeff: Don't I have the ability to keep bees wherever I want? I have a backyard, I pay taxes. I should be able to keep bees in my backyard.

Jim: You'd think. Everyone's not trying to become a beekeeper, Jeff. You got to always keep that in the back of your mind, so you do need to find out. You need to at least know what the ordinances are, if there are any, or if there are ordinances that are strict, to be sure that you don't lose the case if it ever comes to alienating or upsetting someone close by you. You need to know the law, the regulations.

Jeff: If I can keep bees in my neighborhood, or if I can keep bees in my city, what about my neighbors? What's the best way of talking with my neighbors?

Jim: I have spent some quality time with this, Kim. Do you have neighbors that wrangle you sometimes?

Kim: No, I haven't. I've been lucky all these years. It's even more at the top of the list than if it's legal. Even if it's legal and you've got neighbors that hate bees or are afraid of bees or beekeeping, you're not going to have a lot of luck. The second thing you have to do is you got to approach your neighbors and say, "I'm thinking about it. You got any issues with that?"

Jim: You have an idea, or I did anyway. I do. My neighbors don't keep bees, but they have really put up with me, and they know that I do. I've always been, as best I can, courteous and considerate to them, even when my swarms had to go to that property. I explained, did what I could, tried to keep my bees away from their water sources. You need to have a good relationship with your neighbors, I think. If you're starting off already with neighbors that you've already had issues with over property lines or whatever, I don't know that bees are going to help that situation in every case. Overall, a good relationship with neighbors seems to be important.

Kim: There's a lot you can do to ease into this. Visibility is an issue. A stark white box in the middle of your backyard is one thing. A brown box off behind a hedge is another thing. You can screen your bees so that they have to fly up and over. You can do a lot of things to really ease that problem and make it so that your neighbors aren't even aware that you have bees. I know we're going to get at the end of this thing, where do you get more information? I'm going to jump right in here with part of it. When you take a beginner's class, that's one of the things you're going to learn, is how do you make it so that your bees are less obvious and don't cause any trouble? Before you do anything else, get that beginner's class under your belt.

Jim: Yes. I agree with you, Kim.

Jeff: What about water? Do bees require-- We know that they go to flowers, but do they need water as well? Is that an issue?

Jim: Since we just talked about neighbors, I found out that the best water is always on the neighbor's property. I don't know what it is about that, but no, they got to have water. They're going to find it somewhere. It's been my experience, if you put another water source out, they just add that to the one that may have been troubling you already. You need to supply water or they're going to have to have it from somewhere.

Jeff: Is that in their hive or is that-- What's the best way for that? Is that a chicken feeder or--

Jim: You put it in their hive. If someone's listening from some really hot climates, you can put that in your hive and just use some kind of feeder. Instead of feeding syrup, feed water.

If you're where we are here in the Midwest, provide a water source. I've used a bird watering device, but they'll get it from leaking water holes. If there's water anywhere in the vicinity, they seem to find it.

Kim: It's amazing how the sources that they find, air conditioning units that drip water are real common. You mentioned a leaky faucet. Swimming pools are real common. Both the chlorine and the saltwater kind are really attractive because they've got nutritional elements that the bees can use, and if you can imagine a chlorine swimming pool being essentially a great big neon sign that says, "Water here," because of the aroma that's above it. If your neighbors have swimming pools, have bird baths, have those sorts of things, your goal is to give your bees something close to home that they like. There's a lot of ways you can do that in terms of putting water sources out that have an aroma and a flavor.

Jim: Yes. New people, don't forget that you don't have all the bees in the area. There may be bees at that pool already before you ever put your bees in. You don't own all the bees. That may not carry much weight with a neighbor, but there are bees all over. Those pools, those leaking faucets, all those things may have some bees there. Anyway, you just probably help add more bees to those sources.

Jeff: Yes. Probably it'd be good to-- if someone asks you about your bees in their pool, you can ask them if they've seen your brand on the bees. If they didn't see your brand, then they're not your bees.

Jim: That's in that arena of really improving your relationship with your neighbor.

Jeff: It's not my bee. It doesn't have a brand.

All right. We've talked about and we've made the assumption that people are keeping their bees in their backyard, but so many people don't have the ability to put a beehive in their backyard. What about rooftops and other locations?

Kim: Especially if you're in a city, rooftops, maybe a balcony are going to be alternatives that work well for a lot of people. A rooftop gets the bees out of the ground level, foraging, you don't see them, and out of sight, out of mind really goes a long way here.

The third choice you got here, Jeff, is a friend who lives in the country that doesn't mind a beehive in their backyard. That may be the only alternative you have. I couldn't put a beehive on my roof. That 60 degree angle just isn't going to work. I've got friends who live in the country so that I could put a hive there if I needed to. That's another alternative. Backyards, roofs out of sight, out of mind or another-- We call them out yards is when you've got a beehive on somebody else's property.

Jim: Jeff and Kim, I wouldn't suggest it right off the bat, but as you get experience in beekeeping, it's not uncommon for people to keep them in a small shed. We used to have these things called bee houses. You literally put the bees inside a utility shed or something and then you got an opening to the outdoors. I don't want someone to start right off the bat having to do that. That adds a level of complexity. Just so you know, there's some extreme things that can be done to keep bees.

Jeff: Back to the rooftop, is there a possibility of being too high on a roof? How many stories up can you go with a beehive, and can they still forage?

Kim: Wind becomes an issue when you get 7, 8, 10 stories tall. Then if you're in a big city, you've got essentially wind tunnels. That's one of the things that, from my perspective, I wouldn't start there. If it's your only choice, then find somebody who's already doing it and find out what they're doing. Starting a beehive on the 20th floor is not the best first choice, I think.

Jim: It is done. I wouldn't go first choice. I don't like heights. We've been up there and they do clever things. They hide them behind these huge air conditioner units that are up there, so they find these odd wall places.

I think the roof though should be something that you're just going to really bang yourself up on should you fall from, but up there on those tall-- Kim, while you're up there, you don't have any secrets, man. All the taller buildings look down on what you're doing over there and especially gather around with the crooked arm and the coffee cup, watching the crazy guy work bees on the roof down there. Don't start there, beginners. Don't start there.

Kim: Yes, that's good. If nothing else, think of how you're going to get them up there and your equipment up there, and then how are you going to get them down. Don't start there if you can avoid it.

Jeff: You mentioned something before and you mentioned it again. I think maybe it's a good time to point it out that if you're getting started in bees, it's going to be good to get a mentor or a class and a mentor under your belt. We can talk about that in a little bit. Especially if your only option is to go on a roof, find another beekeeper who's keeping bees on a roof to learn the ins and outs and to work with you. Even in your backyard, find a mentor who can help you set it up.

Speaking of hives, I was at Costco the other day and I saw this funky hive that was-- As a beginning beekeeper, I could look at it and say, "That is so cool." They have the boxes and the frames for the bees. Then there's quart jars on top.

The bees could go up and make the comb, and make the honey, and I can just take the jars off, put the top on, and I'm all set to go. That makes me think, what kind of hives should I get? What about hives? Are they baskets? Are they the boxes that I see? What are the options?

Jim: Kim, you go first on this. I think we're going to have the same answer, but you go first.

Kim: There's a lot of ways you can start. There's lots of different kinds of boxes you can put bees in, and bees are pretty amenable to most of the boxes that you're going to put them in.

From a just getting started perspective, almost all of the information that you're going to find available is applied to boxes with 10 frames. When you want to know something and you're looking it up in a book, it's going to tell you, "Okay, you've got 10 frames and you need to do it this way, and you need to do it that way." I'm not saying that the 10 frame is the best box there is, but it's the box that has the most information available on how to manage bees in it. I fall back on, start there and then go someplace else.

Jeff: Is there a name for that kind of hive?

Kim: That's the standard Langstroth hive. L.L. Langstroth, the guy who invented it and managed to get it organized. It's the standard, it's been used 150 years. I'm not saying that that's good or bad, but it's been around a long time and there's a lot of information on how to manage bees in a 10-frame box.

Jim: It's a simple contraption, but then again, many of the others are, too. Kim, I know you use 8 frame. I use 10 frame simply because it's what I got. I don't have a vast amount of money, so I just keep using what I've got, even though those boxes get real heavy as I get older and older. I'm with 10 frame, but you and I both know there's a lot of people out there who really are proponents of other styles of boxes. I wouldn't denigrate those in any way, but if I were trying to help someone over the phone, a little bit like we are now, it would be much simpler for me to go with a standard 10 frame because that's what's going to be probably what? 95% of the hives out there are Langstroth 10 frames.

Kim: 10 or 8 frame, definitely. Jeff, what do you have?

Jeff: I have 8 frame.

Kim: You have 8 frame?

Jeff: 8 frame.

Kim: One of the things about the differences between 8 frame and 10 frame from my perspective, as Jim just mentioned it, is weight. A big 10-frame box full of honey, and bees, and frames, and wax is going to be 100 pounds. I'm not the strong man I used to be, so I'm looking at a smaller box, fewer frames, less weight. There's an issue right there is when you're talking to somebody before you buy your equipment, you're taking your beginners class, talking to your mentor, go over and lift one of those boxes and see, "Can I lift these boxes all afternoon?" If you can, then you got it made. If you can't, then consider something else.

Jim: Yes, they are heavy. That's a conundrum too, isn't it, Kim? If you got a heavy hive, that means you got some honey and you got some bees. The lightest, easiest hives to move around, eight or 10, are those that are basically don't have any bees in them. That being aside, it's an interesting problem for us to complain about that the weight of all that honey that we're going to sell and give away is really giving us very-- You can take out individual frames at the time. You, and me, and Jeff talking, that sounds simple, but that's a messy job to pull those frames out. The bees are there, they're flying all around you, they want to get involved, too. You can work around it. We're making it sound negative, and I guess in a way it is, but whatever you have your bees in, when they put that honey in there, it's going to add weight to whatever particular box you're using. Just be aware of it.

Kim: I was going to say, Jeff, you mentioned that you were in a Costco and the box you saw, and pretty much all of the starter kits that I've seen in Costco, and Farm & Fleet, and those places, it's the big 10-frame box. That's the standard that people are selling. When you are looking for equipment, you're going to find a lot of it available. Because it's a lot of it available, the price is attractive because there's so many of them out there. You've got several things going in that direction already that you may have to wrestle with a little bit.

Jim: Kim, we're going to hear it from all those people who use other style equipment, so just be ready for it. When they call, I'm going to say, "Kim Flottum, call him, talk to him."

Kim: Kim Flottum's got a top bar hive in the backyard, so I can talk to you about top bar hives. I don't have a Warre hive and I don't have any of the other less used equipment, but I do know top bar pretty well. That's another one.

Then there is another one that's fairly popular. It's called the long hive. Instead of being a stack of boxes, it's a big, long box. It's only one box wide, but three boxes long, essentially, is how you look at it. There's a lot to be said for that when it comes to lifting, because you don't have the heavy box to lift.

Bees, however, look at the housing somewhat differently. Given a choice, bees generally choose a cavity that is tall and narrow as opposed to long and wide. You've got that biology thing going with those other kinds of hives that you have to take into consideration.

Jim: Jeff, we keep cutting you off. I'm sorry. Kim and I are eager about this and we keep cutting you off. Have it.

Jeff: No problem. Back to the Langstroth hive, if we're going to keep keeping people to focus on that for their starter hive. I hear people talk about the real deep ones. You're talking about 100 pounds. Are there narrower boxes, and how do I need to consider those?

Jim: Those narrower boxes, help me out here, Kim. That almost be in the nucleus category. If you got down below eight to five, six, four frames, they're a lot lighter, and they are available, but they're a bit rare. If you use standard depth frames, anything smaller than eight frames, that's getting to be a small colony. It'd be much lighter, going to be harder to winter, not going to make as much honey, going to have more swarming. That would really address the weight issue, but it would also bring up other issues for you.

Jeff: What about the medium and shallow boxes?

Jim: Oh, you're going that way. No. If you go just shallower boxes, then that too lightens the weight, but you got to buy more of them. It take about three of the mediums to give you roughly the same bit more than the same cubic area as two deeps, so that's going to cost you money. Help me, Kim.

Kim: I was going to ask you to help me out on the depth of those boxes. There's what's traditionally called a hive body or a brood chamber. That's a deep, another common name, and that's--

Jim: About nine and a quarter.

Kim: Nine and a quarter inches, and then there's one that's not as tall. It's called a medium.

Jim: Six and five eighths.

Jeff: Out here, the medium is called a Western, just to let you know.

Kim: Yes, a Western.

Jim: It can also be called a deep shallow, an Illinois depth, a Western depth. It just goes on and on. Just choose a name and put the boxes on. Kim?

Kim: There's one more called a shallow, and that's what? Five and three eighths, something like that like? Those are traditionally used just to put honey in.

Jeff: As a beginning beekeeper, just stay with the standard Langstroth 10-frame hive. Do you get two deeps basically for beginning beekeepers in the backyard? Do you do two deeps, one deep?

Kim: A common organization on a hive that you're going to see a lot of references to is you're using two deeps on the bottom and those are traditionally mostly brood chambers. That's where the bees raise their young. Above those, you will put other boxes that are traditionally honey boxes. Because they're placed above, they're called super. Super being above. You've got two boxes for brood and then boxes for honey. I use eight frame equipment, and instead of two deeps, I use three mediums for my brood, and then mediums above that for honey.

The configuration is far less important than the considerations for basically weight, and that's why I use eight frame. A full deep box is going to be pushing 100 pounds, and that just doesn't work for a lot of people.

Jim: I agree with you. I've confessed already, I stay with the 10 frames. They're common, they're too heavy, but honestly, that's what I've got. I still have 25 or 30 deeps out there that I've had for 20 years that I haven't needed yet, and they're not even assembled. I think I'll probably-- as long as I keep bees, I'll keep going through these deeps.

We ought to mention though, Kim, that all that equipment you listed won't come in a beginner kit. That thing that are something similar to what Jeff saw at Costco. They're going to probably get what? One deep in a beginner kit?

Kim: Yes. In that box, that traditional beginners kit, the ones that I've seen is a deep, the frames, the foundation, and the bottom board sometimes, not always. The one box is where you get started and that's usually what people use and what you're going to see available for sale.

Jim: Like Jeff said, they're going to have a mentor, they're going to be learning all this time, so don't fret. By the time you need another box, you will be far enough down the educational road in beekeeping to know where and what to buy to finish out that first year.

Kim: Go back to that beginners class.

Jim: Yes.

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Jeff: The one question every-- It's not even a question. The one known fact everybody knows about honey bees or all bees is that they can sting you. How does one protect themselves about bee stings and getting used to it or working with bees and bee stings?

Jim: The secret weapon beekeepers have is all those designer clothes. There's a whole entourage of different styles that you can get, but if you don't want any stings ever, then there's full length suits, veils that go over your head, gloves. What do you wear, Kim?

Kim: I have two basic outfits that I wear. One of them is just a jacket with a veil that zips on, elastic on the cuffs, and elastic at the waist, and that's what I use 90% or 80% of the time.

Part of what you wear has to do with knowing what's going on with the bees. If it's 95 degrees, and there's 20 acres of blossoms right next door, and there's no wind, and life is gentle at the moment, the bees probably won't even notice you when you go in the colony.

If it's 50 degrees, it's cloudy, it's trying to rain, and everybody is at home looking for trouble, you're going to have a bad day if you don't have on some protective gear.

Knowing the bees is a big part of what do you wear. Like I said, most of the time, I wear a jacket. On good days, I'll wear just a veil that just fastens around my neck, and on those 50-degree days, I've got a full suit on.

There's all different kinds of suits and I wear just a plain cloth suit that has a veil that zips on, zips up the front, elastic on the sleeves and the ankles, and if I'm going to be doing a lot of work with the bees, I'm going to have some kind of gloves on. What kind of suit do you have, Jeff? What do you use?

Jeff: I go between two, so if it's a good summer day, I have one of those BJ Sheriff from way back in the '80s I got it, I think. It's just the overcoat and a little hood. It's pretty dirty and beat up by now, but it does a good job.

Then I have a full Sheriff suit for those typical rainy, overcast 50-degree days that we have typically all year round here in the Pacific Northwest.

Jim: Is that suit something you wear, Jeff, that you got from the police department or the county sheriff's office or what? That's a brand name.

Jeff: BJ Sheriff?

Jim: BJ Sheriff was a brand name. I guess that's an unintended promotion for that brand name, but it's a long time ago.

Jeff: Yes. I think they still make them. It's an unsolicited, unsponsored mention, just that it's lasted a long time and I appreciate the quality.

Jim: I like

those, too.

Kim: One thing just to throw in here is, where do you live? Where you live, Jeff, out on the West Coast in Washington, you're going to have more cloudy, cool days than we are. Jim and I are here in Ohio. We're still going to have weather that's a little more inclement than if you live in Arizona or Southern Texas. Where you live is also going to influence what you wear often, so keep that in mind, too.

The next thing to look at is what is that suit made out of? Like I said, mine is just cloth. Yours is cloth, Jeff, made by the BJ Sheriff Company. There's suits out there that are like foam, that are half an inch thick, that are very cool to wear. If you're living in Southern Texas and you put a full suit on, you're going to have a warm afternoon. You want something that's got some ventilation to it, so look at that.

Talk to your mentor, somebody who's been keeping bees for a while where you live, and they'll tell you what's going to work better than what you may think of or that I'm telling you in Ohio isn't going to work in Southern Texas, and probably isn't going to work as well in Washington. All of those things come into play.

I didn't mention gloves. Jim, I know I've worked bees with you enough to know that you don't always wear gloves, but do you ever use them for anything?

Jim: I always have a pair of gloves under the seat of my truck. If things really go south and the bees just are adamant that they don't want me there that day, and I've got something that really has to be done, I'll put the gloves on.

You danced all around an interesting topic a bit ago. I waited for you to say it. The way beekeepers become experienced and finally just go out there with hands and maybe a veil on or a light jacket is they started-- I started with almost a full suit, full gloves, everything every time. Then over the years, maybe a year or two, you do a slow strip. That equipment is so hot on some of those days until the heat inside that suit is actually worse than the occasional bee sting you might get. You end up working with one glove off maybe, and the other hand ready, but over time, for those of you who are wearing everything in the world plus the roll of duct tape, you're going to slowly get better at that. I got the duct tape with the gloves under the seat of the truck too, for those particularly bad days.

Jeff: All right. What other kind of tools? We've protected the face, protected the hands or not, work away from that. What other tools do we need to consider?

Jim: I would like to say protect the face. I always have a veil, so don't take a chance on going out there. Always have a veil on and put veils on people that are out there that you're showing your bees to. Always protect your eyes, your nose. Those are two really tender places. What other tools, Kim?

Kim: I'm going to take a half a step back on gloves. What you said is correct in terms of you start out with heavy leather gloves. When you put those on, you can't feel a thing. You can't feel a bee if you touch it. You can just barely grab a frame because the gloves are thick, and heavy, and hard to hard to manipulate. You will eventually get to the point where you're using something like dishwashing gloves, which is about as-- That's the only gloves I use, if I use gloves. I'm using a dishwashing glove. Bees can sting through it, but barely. When I touch a bee on a frame, I can feel it through those gloves and I avoid being stung a lot because I'm being able to avoid squashing bees.

What other equipment? The two things that every beekeeper has. You always smell like smoke because you're always using a smoker. Then it comes down to-- We did a story, Jim, in the magazine a while back, Smoke is Beekeeper's Perfume.

Jim: No, it's not Kim. It really isn't. Smoke is the beekeeper's body odor.

Kim: If you're going to keep bees, you're going to smell like smoke. There's just no getting around it. How big a smoker do you have? Is bigger better?

Jim: I use bigger. You don't have to fill it. If I'm just going to buy one size, I usually get the big one. Then if it's just a quick hit, I actually light what was in there from the previous day, start over again. There's a whole host of smoker types now. The big one I'm talking about is what? Is that thing 10 inches tall or so, the bellows...

Kim: I believe. Yes.

Jim: There's much smaller smokers, much lighter, build a smaller fire, but nothing's worse than a smoker going out at the very minute that you need it. You got to knock off, take off the gloves, get away and refire that thing. It puts you in a bad frame of mind and probably the bees too, because they've had a chance to regroup. Are you a big smoker man or the medium size?

Kim: I've got both, but the medium one sits on the shelf almost all the time. The test, what I'm doing with beginners in a bee yard is, what you need to be able to do is light that smoker, get it lit going the way you want it, set it down and come back in 20 minutes and it should still be lit. If it's out, then you need to learn how to light that smoker and pack that smoker better. Don't use your smoker the first time you go into your bees. Have that skill down before you ever open up a hive because it's exactly what you said. When you go to open a hive and your smoker's out, "Oh, darn," only that's probably not what you're going to be saying. Know how to use your smoker before you need to know how to use your smoker, I guess, is the bottom line here on that one. What do you use for fuel?

Jim: I was going to say this is where the mentor comes in. A good mentor's going to show you how to light it from the bottom. All too many people pack it all in there and try to light it from the top. It's not going to work well if at all. I tend to use wood shavings, but boy, the number of things that you can use for smoker fuel. Sometimes it depends on how desperate you are. Oh, my stars. I barely found the matches. I've got this colony open. I didn't think it'd take this long and then I'm grabbing dead leaves, dry leaves, the needles from conifer type trees, pine needles. In general, if I have the time, and I'm set up, and I'm expecting it, I'll just use wood shavings because they last so much longer.

I don't think the smoke is particularly good for me or my bees. I try to use the least I can on the bees and the least I can on me. The smoke does wash off. You are going to smell like smoke for a while, but you go home, and clean up, and wash your hands, and get the propolis off.

Kim: What's your smoker fuel, Jeff?

Jeff: Whatever's on the ground nearby. In Ohio, I like the sumac antlers when they're dried out. Those work really well. They last a long time. Here I've gotten to a point where I like the-- I put a chunk or two of lump charcoal in my smoker. That retains some of the fire and the heat a little bit longer. A lot of people around here are using wood pellets from Total or Tractor Supply Company or wherever your local hardware store.

Kim: That people use for heating their houses?

Jeff: Yes.

Kim: Okay. All right.

Jeff: I'm not real good at having a whole big supply. I just use whatever's around. I'm an opportunistic smoker.

Jim: Yes, I can understand that. I buy that bale of wood shavings over at the agricultural supply store. It's for pets. It goes in pet cages and whatever. It's hard to light. It's hard to get the wood shavings going. Once they go, it's not as good as the charcoal you mentioned, but it does form a ash coal bed.

Jeff: Does it matter whether it's cedar or just pine shavings?

Jim: I use cedar, but I probably shouldn't. It's aromatic, but I just try not to breathe it. I do use cedar shavings that's used for pet cages. That's not a recommendation, it's just what I do.

Kim: I planted long needle pines in my yard 30 years ago and I've got burlap bags full. I got enough smoker fuel in my garage to last me another 20 years. I like pine needles. I like the smell. It's not too strong. It doesn't burn too hot. Bees don't seem to mind it too much. It's free, it's easy, but like you guys, you use what you got. What you don't use is starter fluid, you don't use gasoline, you don't use any of the oil-soaked rags you got laying around in the garage. If it's not organic, you don't burn it. If it's some sort of petroleum-based product, you're going to have a really

bad day because bees take a really dim view of smoke from gasoline. Jeff Ott: You want to learn how to use your smoker wisely so you're not throwing flames out on the bees. It's a nice white smoke that comes out.

That's the other thing I've seen a lot of times is someone puffing away on the smoker and there's just flames, and it looks like the 4th of July coming out of the smoker. That's not a good thing either. That's a good trick to work with your mentors to work on how to get your smoker going.

Jim: I sense that we're drifting away from smokers, but I do want to say, please, don't. Few things in beekeeping, never, but don't put that lit smoker in the back of your pickup truck and then drive 50, 60 miles an hour home. It's going to be a roaring flame, like Jeff was just talking about, and high heat. Under the right conditions around beeswax, and smoker fuel, and whatever, it can be an ugly story. Not often, but it's definitely documented.

Kim: You bring up a good topic. The first couple times you use it, what do you do with the stuff that's left, that's still red hot? You dump it out in the driveway or-- That's the best way, is to dump it out someplace where you're not going to dump it on a surface that it can burn. A gravel driveway is a good example.

Leaving it set up without puffing it, it will continue to burn for way longer than you suspect. If it's next to something that's flammable, you're going to have a problem.

One of the good ways to do it other than dumping it out is to lay it on its side. When it's standing up, you've got hot air coming in the bottom through the bellow opening, rising up through the fuel, and going out the nozzle. You've got to continue airflow and it'll continue to burn. Laying on its side, you cut that off and you have no airflow and it'll go out in minutes.

Jeff: I've used a wine cork in the nozzle of the smoker to just shut it down. That usually leaves me with some solid charcoal for the next day.

Jim: A spent 12-gauge shotgun shell works nicely, but it really needs to have been spent already. Don't put a live shell or cartridge at the end of your smoker.

Kim: Is that the voice of experience here?

Jim: Not in that regard, but I have had some other misdeeds in the past. I was much younger then and life was going to go on forever. That's not the voice of experience with the bee smoker. No, it is not.

Kim: Jeff, which hive tool do you use?

Jeff: What hive tool?

Kim: There's a lot of different kinds on the market. Which hive tool do you use?

Jeff: Whichever one I can find at the moment, but my favorite is the one with the J-hook on it. I can't remember. I learned it as the Maxant tool.

Kim: You like those?

Jeff: Yes, I like those. Jim, which one do you use?

Jim: I have them all. I didn't mean to be a hive tool collector, but always looking for one that's just one tool better. I bought most of the common things, but I tend to use the common tool. The common window opener type device, the little pry bar, you can buy them in any hardware store for other purposes, but they work well for bees. I use the pry bar. Jeff, under the right conditions, that pry bar tool, especially with frames that were not glued, you can actually pull the top bar off and prying that up. When that hive is neat and clean and everything works well, if you want to use it, I have found the deep, or the super, or whatever you're using, and then use a hammer to tap the frame out from the bottom to loosen it up. Then the pry bar works fine to pull the tight burr-combed embedded frame out. Then once you've got one out, then you're home free from then on.

Jeff: Yes. I experienced that, separating the top bar off of the frame on someone else's hive because they didn't build the frames right, or they were bought, or they weren't built right. The top bar just came right off.

Jim: Just push that right back down and close the hive up and move on?

Jeff: I said, "We'll start over. We'll start on the next one."

Kim: I want to comment on something you just said, Jim, about where you get that hive tool. There are tools, it's a metal bar with a wide end with a sharp blade and then it's got a curved end that's got a sharp on the end of it. You can get those that are meant exactly for what you said, painting, opening windows, and things. Almost always, they aren't made of hardened stainless steel. They will chip and doing what you were just saying about arguing with a propolis glued in frame, you can have a piece of that snap off and that can get exciting.

The ones that you get from bee supply companies are all hardened stainless. I've never broken a hive tool in my life that came from a bee supply store. I have broken ones that came from hardware stores.

Jim: You've got some really tough frames there, Kim.

Jeff: You ought to go into your hives a little bit more often, Kim.

Jim: What's your next step for getting that first frame out? A short stick of dynamite?

Kim: The short one, yes. That works really well.

Jim: The short stick. Yes. Don't get crazy there.

Jeff: All right. Smokers, hive tools, any other tools that a beginning beekeeper should consider?

Jim: Not beginning, and really, not many more tools than an advanced beekeeper would need to work a hive.

Kim: I think later we'll talk about feeders. Right off the bat, you're going to need a way to give bees additional food. There's a lot of different ways to do that. Why don't we wait until we get into the point where we've got bees in the hive and we'll talk about feeders?

Jeff: All right. That about wraps up this episode, episode 1 of how to get started with bees. We have three more episodes coming up. Where should people find more information on today's topics?

Jim: They're going to start with the web. I can tell you that. They're on the web before they're even deciding to keep bees or not. When you go to the web, you're going to find all kinds of information from all types and skills of beekeepers. Either know whose work you're reading or sometimes look for the university web pages or whatever. I'm offending untold numbers of people now. I don't know how to list them or whatever. Certainly the web is the first place. Kim writes a lot of books. Go with books, Kim.

Kim: There's a lot of good books out there on beginning beekeeping. Pretty much all of them have stood the test of time or they don't last very long. If you're looking at books, look for one that's in the second, third, fourth edition that's been updated, and you're usually going to be pretty good. I'll go back to the web and what you just said, Jim. In my opinion, start with university or government web pages and learn the basics. Then when you're looking at what other people are doing, you can compare what they're doing to what you learned both in the books and on government and university pages to get a feel for where these people are coming from and how good they are at what they're doing. You've got something to compare it to.

Join a club. Take the beginners class. Join another club and take their beginners class. I can't say enough. If you can find two, take two. Jeff, you started out and you put three beekeepers in a room and you're going to get five different answers to the same question. If you take two beginners classes from two different people, you're going to get a bigger picture and that can only help.

Jeff: I think you both have mentioned it and said it. One of the biggest things you can do to help yourself in getting started with bees is find someone who keeps bees, someone who's been keeping bees for multiple years and has a bunch of bees in their backyard or wherever they keep their bees. They've made many of the mistakes and they'll help you avoid making them yourselves. It'll be a safe bet.

Looking forward, we have three more episodes. Guys, I want to just recap where we're going with this. Next episode, next week, will be where to get bees and we'll talk about the different types of bees. How can you order them? Where do you get them? How do you get them? The differences of them. Episode 3 is, now that you have your bees, what do you do? How do you hive a package? What to expect that first month. Episode 4 will be, now that you're a beekeeper, now what? We'll talk about the next steps in beekeeping and just to get people going along.

Jim: After all these decades, I still enjoy it. Spring's on the horizon here for me right now. It's time to consider packages. Everything's in its place. The universe is in good shape. It's time to start the bee year again. This is going to be the year, Kim. This is going to be the big year. I'm going to have [crosstalk]

Kim: Finally.

Jim: -good brood patterns, no diseases. I'm going to make a lot of honey and this is going to be the year.

Kim: Okay, good. I'll come down and help you.

Jeff: That about

wraps it up for this podcast. Before we go, I want to encourage our listeners to rate us five stars on Apple Podcasts, wherever you download and stream the show. Your vote helps other beekeepers find us quicker. We want to thank our series sponsor, Betterbee, for sponsoring this four-part series on how to get started keeping bees. As always, we thank  Bee Culture, the magazine for American beekeeping for their sponsorship of  Beekeeping Today Podcast. We want to thank our regular episode sponsor, Global Patties. Check them out at www.globalpatties.com. Finally, we want to thank you, the  Beekeeping Today Podcast listener, for joining us on this show. Feel free to send us questions and comments at questions@bekeepingtodaypodcast.com. We'd love to hear from you. Anything else we should mention?

Kim: Well, I think this has been a good start. I'm looking forward to the next three sessions. I enjoy it too and I look forward to working with you guys some more.

Jeff: All right. Thanks a lot, guys. Catch you next time. Bye-bye.

Jim: All right. Bye-bye.

[00:51:10] [END OF AUDIO]