Life and Times of Bee Culture Editor, Jerry Hayes (S4, E11)

S4, E11 – Life and Times of Bee Culture Editor, Jerry Hayes

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Jeff: Welcome to Beekeeping Today Podcast presented by Bee Culture. Beekeeping Today Podcast is your source for beekeeping news information and entertainment. I'm Jeff Ott.

Kim: I'm Kim Flottum.

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Jeff: Thanks, Sherry. You know each week we get to talk about how much we appreciate our sponsor support. They help make all of this happen and provide us the ability to bring you each episode. They help bring things such as transcripts and all the technology behind the podcasts, and all the servers that it takes that we have to serve it put everything on. It takes their help to get our information to you. Thank you. For that, thanks to Bee Culture Magazine for continuing their presenting sponsorship of this podcast. Bee Culture has been the magazine for American beekeeping since 1873. Subscribe to Bee Culture today.

We also want to thank 2  Million Blossoms that sponsor this episode. 2  Million Blossoms is a quarterly magazine dedicated to protecting all pollinators. Learn more in our season two, episode nine podcast with editor Kiersten trainer and from visiting www.2millionblossoms.com and that is with our number two, and also check out her new 2 Million Blossoms a podcast also available from her website and from wherever you download or stream your shows. Hey everybody, thanks for joining us. We're so happy you're here. Hey, Kim, how's your summer ending here?

Kim: Let's see. It was 92 days ago yesterday and today. Yesterday rained 1.1 inches.

Jeff: Wow.

Kim: The humidity is 140, that's been a lot of our summer. It's been wet and hot, and for some things, it's really good and for me, it's not, but there you go. The garden is doing good and that counts. It's been warm and it's been hot and it's been enough rain that it's been interfering with some of the stuff the bees are doing, but they're doing pretty good. goldenrod is just starting to peek.

Jeff: Oh, wow. I haven't smelled goldenrod in a long time.

Kim: No, I wouldn't have met enough of it to smell in the hives yet, but I hope by this weekend-

Jeff: Wow.

Kim: -it should be out there every night.

Jeff: That is always fun. You're talking about the weather that you're having way here drying up. We haven't had rain since June of all things. Remind me of that fact in November when I'm whining and complaining about all the rain we've had. Of course, California and parts of Oregon and Idaho are all burning up. Global warming is really a challenge for all of us.

Kim: In different ways but yes, it is. I don't know if I like hot and wet, better than hot and dry. Since I don't have hot and dry, I guess I'll settle for what I got.

Jeff: I don't think you have a choice.

Kim: I think you're right.

Jeff: Coming up this fall, Bee Culture is presenting the Ohio Bee Conference, being diverse, inspiring leaders and beekeeping October one, two, and three. That's shaping up to be a pretty cool conference, three days of presentations.

Kim: Check out the webpage. You could see the speaker list and getting registered and all of the information that you'll need to be there. I don't think you're going to want to miss this. I've been talking to Jerry about it, speaking of which, who's our guest today. I've been talking to Jerry about it, and so far it looks good.

Jeff: I look forward to being there and hearing the speakers. What's going on on Honey Bee Obscura?

Kim: Jim got a call and probably every beekeeper who's listening to this has had this call at least once. In every call, he says, "I've got bees over here. Can you come over and help?" 10 million things go through your head. What kind of bees? Are they horneta, yellow jackets, this time of year boldface hornets, or are they honey bees? Was there a swarm that went out last spring and they took up residence at that side of the-- What am I going to see when I get over there, and then what do I do, and what's my liability? What we talked about was that experience.

It can be a negative experience if you enjoy removing bees from the side of the house, taking them apart, and putting them back together, that's one thing. I don't. You can't just plug up a Yellow Jacket nest hole on the side of your house because they're going to get out somewhere and it's going to be a light fixture in your dining room.

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So, you got to help them. If you get up on a ladder and something happens or you tell them what to do, and they get up on a ladder, it's messy. We explore all the aspects of messy.

Jeff: I look forward to that episode next on Honey Bee Obscura and it comes out every Thursday, wherever you download or stream your podcast. Kim, this is going to be a great episode with Jerry Hayes. Jerry Hayes took over your role at Bee Culture Magazine after your 32, 33 years?

Kim: 33.

Jeff: Wow, that's fantastic. We're going to be talking as part of our two-part series. Last week, we talked to Eugene Markovic from American Bee Journal, and this week with Jerry Hayes from Bee Culture Magazine, just talked about perspectives of the world and the bee world as they see it of those journal editors.

Kim: What both of them have brought to the chair. Eugene had that background and in journalism and printing, he brings up to the chair. Jerry's got the product manager , at Dadant, was APA inspector in Florida, then he was working on that role on my control. He brings up a whole different set of experiences to the chair. I know I've talked to him a lot about this a lot of times before he came on board. I'm familiar with what he's going to tell us but not all of it.

Jeff: Let's get right into that talk with Jerry. First, a quick word from our friends at Strong Microbials.

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Jeff: While you're at the Strong Microbial site, make sure you click on and subscribe to The Hive, their regular newsletter full of interesting beekeeping information and product updates. Hey everybody, welcome back. Sitting across the table from us right now is editor in chief, Jerry Hayes. Welcome, Jerry.

Jerry: Wow, thank you so much, Jeff. This is quite an honor. I hope I don't mess it up. Thank you.

Kim: It's good to see you again, Jerry.

Jerry: Hey, Kim, how're you doing?

Kim: I'm doing all right.

Jeff: Jerry, you're our presenting sponsor. I will never tell you you messed it up. You're doing a wonderful job.

Jerry: It's all about money, isn't it, Jeff?

[laughter]

Jeff: Yes.

Kim: I've become accustomed to eating.

Jerry: It's good to do that a couple of times a day.

Jeff: You like something better than ramen noodles, right Kim?

Kim: I've never had a ramen noodle, never once. Jerry?

Jerry: Yes.

Kim: Relatively new editor of Bee Culture Magazine, sitting in the chair that I used to sit in. How does it feel?

Jerry: Oh, you know that the back up a little bit. One I never expected this opportunity or be there or to sit in the chair, the office that you occupied for 33 years, I think it was, and did such a marvelous job. When I first had the opportunity, and I'm not embarrassed to say this, I was overwhelmed and a little scared, and I wanted to do a great job. Going on two years now with all the help from Kathy, Jean, Amanda, you, and others, I've hit not maybe a perfect stride, but a little bit of a stride. It's it's fine. Finding topics, finding authors, people with different voices, trying to make the product better. It's being fun and I learned something every day and I appreciate everybody's patience.

Kim: Well, that's good to hear and it's good to hear that, you're having fun, but I'll tell you what, for those three or four individuals out there that don't know your background, where did bees come into your life?

Jerry: Okay. All right. Now, if I hear you start snoring in this, I'll have to speed it up, [crosstalk]

Kim: Hit the highlights.

Jerry: If you're asking me, I'm going to give you the whole, so this is the Jerry store. This is, I started out in life as a high school teacher and hated it. Just wasn't what I had thought I was going to be a high school teacher and saved the world and it turned out I couldn't do that and so I went into another business.

Kim: What would, excuse me, where were you a teacher?

Jerry: I was in Brooks County High School in Quitman, Georgia. From there, I went into another business commercial plastics and supply and had a guy working with me, Tom burnish, who was a beekeeper he and his brother and I thought, well, this was a hundred years ago. I thought, well, this is super cool, everybody knows about honeybees but nobody actually knows a beekeeper, and so I picked his brain at lunchtime, what have you and stories you told me and things.

Then I would ask him more questions and this went on for a few weeks and then I started reading things and becoming more involved, that crazy passion that beekeepers get, I don't know why it must be genetic or something, why, but yes, reading and doing, and what have you and then I became the consummate backyard beekeeper. I did all the crazy things, I made all that. I made a Kenya top bar hive, I did bottom.

I did everything hobby beekeepers do, because it was to be introduced to an insect and to have this insect and a human, basically partner with each other. An insect that will hurt you, is amazing. It's still amazing to me, every day is amazing. Again, the consummate backyard beekeeper, and did things and what have you, and then after a while, I thought, this is really cool.

That passion had really grown because somebody actually could make a living doing this and take care of a family and at the time, there were two beekeeping educational opportunities open. One was up in Canada in the Peace River area and one was at ATI, OSU, ATI, and Wooster. I got into the Wooster one first, and so we loaded up the car and I had a first son, who was probably about 18 months old.

We got in the car and a trailer behind it and drove the Lister. This was under Dr. Jim Tew. In Jerry's list of smart things that Jerry has done which is pretty short, this was probably three or four on that list down there to be able to do that and to do it with Jim Tew who everybody knows is amazing in themselves. I learned so much, he was so helpful, he has so many contacts.

From there, I went on to the USDA bee breeding and stock lab in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and that's when Africanized bees were going to be coming across the border and so we were learning how to measure venation in wings and do more morphometrics so we could identify them. Then Dadant and Sons offered me a job as regional manager in Michigan and they actually paid more than USDA.

I went there and did that for about a year and then strangely enough, John Root offered me a job selling the bee supplies in Medina. I waved that in front of the Dadant people and they said, why don't you come down to the home office and do something. I went down to Hamilton and another amazing thing. My office was next to Joe Grants, who at the time was editor of American beach journal.

Joe let me start writing the classroom, the question-answer section in the ABJ, and I started that then I think I had the world's record so far. I think that about 40 years or so for doing that before I went to Bee Culture and I did product development, what have you. From there, I was offered the job and there was a story to everything. I was offered the job at the Florida Department of Agriculture as the chief of the Apiary section for them.

We moved to Florida, and I worked on that. Then one of the things that I was able to do was to be on the selection committee for Dr. Jamie Ellis at the University of Florida was right next to our offices there in Gainesville, Florida. That was a great opportunity and then Jamie and I worked on a company from Israel via logics that was working on a biological on RNI method of perhaps controlling Varroa.

We did that for a couple of years and then Monsanto, who everybody hated bought BLI Jacks. They offered me a job as the honeybee health lead on this RNI project at Monsanto. I was there for, I don't know, eight, nine years. We couldn't make it work, so I was looking around for something else to do because I just didn't want to coast at Monsanto. Bayer was going to buy him and right here. Then Kim decided to retire and I don't know how all that happened. It's all a blur, but now I'm sitting in Kim's chair and having fun.

Jeff: I've actually seen that chair. I hope you actually earn a new chair.

Jerry: No, it's that? No, it's the original chair, because I thought that perhaps dandruff or sweat or something from there would have some information with that that would somehow get into my body and my brain and that helped me out.

Jim: I guess I didn't leave enough behind.

Jerry: No, you didn't. Oh my God.

Kim: Well, that's quite a journey and lots of beekeepers have that have those journeys, but yours is relatively spectacular. You've touched a lot of bases, a lot of different parts of the industry.

Jeff: It's really cool that you're done a full circle or you're completed one circle and that you're back working with Jimmy, Dr. Tew. Who's also worked with Kim and us on a Honeybee Obsecura Podcast.

Jerry: Yes, this is Jerry's journey and beekeeping. When you look back to me, it's amazing. Most of those things shouldn't have happened, I have been able to travel the world work with government and industry and corporations and coauthor papers, and beyond association boards and just a whole plethora of things that are wow. Just makes me smile because it's what I like to do and so I've had that opportunity. It's just amazing.

Kim: Well, the other half of to do it is the fact that you've got all of those contacts in the industry, which very often solves a lot of problems. You don't know the answer to a question, but five people that do and three of them will write about it, which makes life even better. I was in that position up, not as broad as yours, but I understand the value and appreciate the value of being able to reach out and touch someone who knows more in a smarter than I am so that I can share it with the readers.

Jerry: Yes, no, and I think you're absolutely right because I think being an editor, in particular, requires you to be humble because you don't know everything and you do need to rely on other people. Being editor of a magazine, it doesn't make you a star nor do you want to be the star. You want to be able to manipulate the stars so that they shine the best in this particular offer in this particular magazine.

Kim: That's a good way to put it. I hadn't quite thought about it that way, but that's a lot of what I did.

Jerry: You did for 33 years. You were Bee Culture and you did a marvelous job.

Kim: Well, thank you for that.

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Kim: After a couple of years, you've got it relatively under control, because even after 30 years, I didn't have it under control.

Jeff: No, you never do.

Kim: Relatively under control. What's the best part of what you do every day?

Jerry: For me, I'm not the English teacher from hell. I'm more of an entrepreneurial thing, so for me, looking at-- You had this too. You get all of these magazines from around the world, and I like to look at them and see what they're writing about, and topics, and what have you. You've probably seen this. I've been able to find some really cool ones, and then ask the German Bee Journal, or the one in England, or what have you, "Can I reprint this?" Or the one from Canada, "May I reprint this?"

We're such a small industry that I never wanted to think that our writers, or any writers I found, were the only ones around because there are so many smart people. Good writers with different voices who are able to share these ideas, that light bulb go on over your head or, "I want to try this," or something interesting because that's what I want for readers is for something to connect them to beekeeping the rest of the world, and to find energy in that.

Kim: To be able to solve problems. One of the things that I enjoyed the most was being able to find answers to questions for people that I didn't have, but we could find somebody else like we just said before.

Jerry: Beekeeping is like everything else. We don't know everything about honey bees, and we'll probably never know everything. Honey bees are not like a herd of Black Angus in a field that everybody knows the bull, and all that thing, or chickens, or what have you. We have so much inconsistency, genetically, in honey bees. These pests, predators, diseases, management options, seasons, what have you, are slightly different everywhere because honey bees are not going for the home run.

They're not genetically going for it. They want to get on base, and that's how they survive. It's just genetic diversity that allows them to survive basically from pole to pole. We, beekeepers, are pitting our 2-pound brain against one the size of a period at the end of the sentence, and most of the time, they win. They're just tolerating us because we get them an empty box to live in, but it's amazing.

Kim: It is. Coming at this from a different way, you started bees with Jim Tew down in Wooster, Ohio, and now, you're essentially back with Jim Tew in Wooster, Ohio, just up the road in Medina. In the beekeeping industries that you've been a part of, what's changed the most and what hasn't changed?

Jerry: What has changed the most, and this probably happened over the last 30 years since varroa was introduced, and there's been more awareness of the importance of honey bees, and perhaps, a little bit more money to give to researchers to look at honey bees, that we do have so many researchers who now have had the time, and money, and effort, and students, to do significant research on honey-bee health directions.

What hasn't changed is that honey bees are still the ugly stepchild of agriculture, in general. We are responsible for a tremendous amount of food production and production agriculture. We're in a tremendous position. I've never seen any numbers on this. Honey bees are out foraging in that two-and-a-half-mile radius, not only visiting these crops or somebody's backyard but out in the environment.

Pollinating these plants, and trees, or what have you, that are reproducing in the woods, in the fields, in the roadsides, and all these other kinds of stuff, and people just expect us to be there. It's like contract pollination: Almonds. The bees show up, and three weeks later, they leave, and the bees aren't doing well and they're dying, and the commercial beekeepers splits and divides to make up those losses.

Then, they show up next year for the three weeks because they're an overhead. They're a production overhead, not any different than chemicals, or pesticides, or fertilizers, or water. That's the thing that bothers me. It's people know about us, but I don't know that they appreciate us the way I would like them to.

Kim: That's an interesting perspective. I agree with you on that. A lot of that makes make sense, and that makes me want to ask, what's the part of beekeeping that has changed, that has made the most difference? I know a lot of things have changed. You've been a product manager, and you've been an inspector, and you've been a researcher, so you come at it from a lot of different directions. What's the thing that's made the best difference?

Jerry: The best difference we, as beekeepers, at all levels have been challenged by the varroa mite, and that has brought, in some cases, more focus, more perspective on honey-bee health because when I started beekeeping a long time ago, I remember one the first beekeeper meetings I went to, and there was a semi-commercial guy there. I remember this distinctly. He had about 200 colonies and he introduced himself to me, and I told him I was a new beekeeper. He said, "This is the easiest job I have ever done because I can keep bees and go hunting or fishing the rest of the year," and you can't do that anymore.

You have to be on your game. You have to be smarter than I was when I started beekeeping. If you're going to be a successful beekeeper, whether it's a backyard, or commercial, having thousands, or what have you. This realization of honey-bee health in this way, even though we haven't figured it out exactly, has brought smarter people to the beekeeping world.

Kim: That brings up a good question. The level of education that is available to beekeepers now. When I started, where I was at, it was relatively minimal. There may have been a local club. How many master beekeeper courses are available today? That sort of thing. The level of beekeeping, and certainly, the journals have played a big role in that.

Jerry: Not only Bee Culture. I wrote for ABJ for a long time and those educational outreach tools are excellent, and tag so many of the beekeepers. We have the master beekeeper programs, and we have all the state and local associates. This is where I'm going to step my foot right in the middle of it. The worst thing that's happened to beekeeping is the second-year beekeeper who's now the world's expert, and has a website, and a podcast, and everything else, and is telling people that you control varroa with green Jell-O and everybody believes them. I'm not quite sure why so many beekeepers are spending their time in that way, when we have so many vetted resources, universities, and what have you.

Jeff: That's a whole societal question there, though.

Jerry: Well, that's a societal, tribal, cultural question, and you're absolutely right. One of the problems is that honey bees are very tolerant until they're not. Spontaneously, a beekeeper will be a beekeeper and do all these crazy things and then the bees die over winter. Then the beekeeper blames the farmer down the road or the lawn care person or something else. This is where the confirmation bias stuff comes in. Where we only want to listen to people that listen to us.

Jeff: Yes.

Kim: You mean green Jell-0-doesn't work?

Jerry: No, it's red Jell-O Jim. For goodness' sake.

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Jeff: You brought up a point. Well, you brought up a lot of great points, but one of the things you've mentioned, you having written for ABJ in the classroom column for how many years? 30 or 40 years or something?

Jerry: Yes, almost 40. Joe Graham sent me a thing a couple of years ago that I forget who was before, but I had beaten their record. Talk about learning about beekeeping, I've learned so much by just answering questions because as Kim said, nobody knows everything. When somebody would ask me a question, I would dig down and do some research and come up with whatever data showed in that particular time. That was a great opportunity for me as well.

Jeff: Well, what question during that period do you distinctly remember today? Which one either threw you for the biggest loop or impressed you the most?

Jerry: I'm going to tee off more people right now too. I think the thing that sticks in my mind is, of course, Varroa. Three words I want everybody to remember, Varroa, Varroa, Varroa. The issue is that most of the beekeepers now are 50-plus years old. They read the Mother Earth News in 1975. The kids are grown and they sold the SUV, and now they want to save the world again with honey bees.

As a result, they are very environmentally aware. What they are doing is perhaps not taking Varroa seriously and sampling and treating and all these things. Then when the bees die, they blame someone else or they're on the web looking at vaporizing some kind of acid to kill Varroa mites. We all do this, we hear, oh here's a solution, but you don't look at the whole story.

Vaporizing an acid in a beehive when Varroa is still hiding behind cap cells and isn't all exposed phoretic like it might be in January and February. The bee's nose is at its antenna. Data show that vaporizing acids in a beehive damages the bee's nose after a couple of these treatments. If you look on some of these websites, the person is saying, "Oh, Jerry. I vaporize an acid every week," or something like that.

What happens is, bees, one of their communications techniques is odors. Is a queen there? Is a brood there? What's the pollen coming in? All these. If you don't smell, it's like you Jeff, you get a cold and you can't smell and you come home and maybe your wife is cooking chocolate chip cookies in the oven. You have no earthly idea that there's chocolate chip cookies in the oven because you can't smell.

That's what happens in a beehive, and that's why queens are replaced so often. Is because the bees can't recognize it. There's all sorts of collateral damage by us beekeepers who are not looking deep enough and just doing the confirmation bias thing.

Kim: Interesting comments on vaporizing. I've pretty much agree with that, I think. I want to shift just a little bit because being editors, your day job, but I know that you're on the boards of many organizations and advisors. What are some of the other things you're involved in?

Jerry: Yes, science advisor for the PAm board. I'm on the HPA board. One of the cool things about working for Monsanto was that they wanted to become more engaged in the beekeeping industry. They gave me some money and we started to Honey Bee Health Coalition with that. That's continued to go and grow, and what have you. I participate in that as well. Having those connections in the beekeeping industry keeps me energized as well, because you can sit in that office, and if you don't get out a little bit. You get those blinders on or the blinders get bigger. These are great opportunities to keep salient in the industry.

Kim: Gives you even a greater group of people to ask questions when you don't know the answer. I would guess that most of those people that you're dealing with are, they're in the research world, right?

Jerry: Yes. Most of them in the research world or business corporate world or in the industry. I remember the AP inspectors of America just because I was president of the organization at one time and so I can interact with the inspectors and find out what they're saying in the field and what's going on. All these things come funneling into me. Boy, it's sometimes great confusion.

Kim: Well, welcome to be keeping. I think that's probably the best way to look at that is it's always confusing, but as long as you're heading in the right direction basically. Well, what have we missed? What's the part of Jerry Hayes here that readers are going to want, would like to know about or you'd like to share?

Jerry: Golly. I have a vegetable garden. I have a bunch of apple trees and I'll tell you my apple tree stories. I think this is kind of fun. The Hazes came over from Ireland in 1823 to New Brunswick. I don't know about the fires now. We've had so many fires, but there was a fire called the Miramichi fire in New Brunswick that was at the time or now maybe, the second or third largest fire in the world.

This was in November and the fire drove the Hazes out of Miramichi area and they had to go to a place called Chaleur Bay, which is the bay separates New Brunswick from Quebec. They had to wade out with his baby son, out into the water and get on a fishing boat and go across Chaleur Bay to a little town called Shigawake. They spent the winter with friends of theirs called the Sullivans.

When spring came, they decided to stay over there. The Haze farm is over in Shigawake, Quebec, which is Gaspé Peninsula area. Carl and Louis Hayes are the owners of the farm. They're getting a little bit old, but I was up there several years ago. This kind of stuff is just cool to me. The Haze apple tree, it's one of those apple trees that you can just about put your arms around, so you know it's kind of old and it had apples on it.

We got some seeds and I grew the seeds, and then my wife Barb knows people in horticulture a lot, so we took cuttings and they grafted a non-dwarf and semi-dwarf rootstock. I have all these Haze apple trees on different rootstocks and I just think that's kind of fun. I like that kind of stuff.

Kim: I might have to try one of those this fall.

Jerry: Yes.

Jeff: It's pretty cool.

Jeff: The Jerry Appleseed.

Jerry: Yes.

Kim: The heck with Johnny. Let's go with Jerry.

Jerry: That's right.

Jeff: It's a Jeff, right?

Kim: I like that Jeff. That's good.

Jeff: Well, fantastic. Well, it's really been a pleasure having you on the show and I say this and we say this every, every episode. We appreciate our sponsor support and Jerry, we really appreciate Bee Culture'scontinued support of the podcast. Regardless, we would have you on the show. Your background, your insight to the industry and to beekeepers, all the way around is very important. We're glad to have you on.

Jerry: It's been a fun journey. Let me put in a plug if I may.

Jeff: Sure.

Jerry: We have an event in October, October 1st, 2nd, and 3rd coming up called being BEEing, B-E-E, BEEing Diverse Leaders in Beekeeping. This is primarily a focus on all of the women leaders in the beekeeping world that are in business, are in research from all over the world. I've actually invited too many of them here. We're going to be having that in October. We're going to have a couple of talks from each of them. This type of event with this type of female leadership, I think, is unique. I'm really looking forward to being able to be a small part of that in October.

Jeff: I'll be looking forward to that, for sure.

Jerry: Yes, anyway, get on Bee Culture's website. Go to Store and Events and sign up. We have limited seating. It's going fast. We want to see you there.

Jeff: Actually, I think I will be there.

Kim: That's good to hear. Yes, I'll be there. I'll do whatever you need doing, Jerry.

Jerry: Great. That's true, Kim. Everybody can always rely on you to do all these things at whatever level. We always appreciate it. Thank you, also, Jeff, for coming and maybe putting a marker in the ground for us.

Jeff: Jerry, thanks for your time this afternoon. I really appreciate the work you're doing on the magazine. I can't think of a better person in that role.

Jerry: No, I thank you for that. It's an honor for you to say that and I've recorded that so in case things go bad, I can replay. [music]

[laughter]

Jeff: That and 350 or buy a cup of coffee at Starbucks.

Jerry: Yes, exactly. Exactly.

Kim: Thanks, Jer. Take care.

Jerry: Thank you.

Jeff: Kim, how did it feel talking to Jerry Hayes who just took over your role in Bee Culture. That's probably a cool, fun, weird feeling.

Kim: Well, it was. Thing is that I was with him for a year when he started and I haven't been gone that far. I probably see him a couple of times a month minimum. We're not that far apart. It's a really good relationship. He's got questions about, "How did you handle this?" because things come up only once in a while that you haven't had to do before. He considers himself lucky that he's got somebody around who was there the last time this happened and was able to take care of it. Maybe not even successfully, but at least you know the experience. Yes, we get along really well.

Jeff: That's good.

Kim: We get together every once in a while. He is one of the few people in the world I can talk to about the job he has and I had. There aren't a whole lot of bee magazine editors floating around.

Jeff: No, they're not.

[laughter]

Kim: We've got Eugene over at the American Bee Journal, but he's way over in three states away. That's nice. I like being able to do that. It has taken away a lot of the separation anxiety I was anticipating perhaps.

Jeff: Just so that folks on, we have tried to get Joe Graham on the show too.

Kim: He's in his travel trailer, not at home, having a good time which is okay.

Jeff: Yes. Enjoying life. I don't blame him. I don't blame him at all. All right. That wraps it up for this episode. Before we go, I want to encourage our listeners to rate us five stars on Apple podcast or wherever you download and stream to show. Your vote helps other beekeepers find us quicker. Even better, write a review and let other beekeepers looking for a new podcast know what you'd like.

You can get there directly from our website by clicking on reviews along the top of any web page. As always, we think Bee Culture, the magazine for American beekeeping for their continued support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. We want to thank our regular episode sponsor Global Patties. Check them out at www.globalpatties.com. We also want to thank Strong Microbials for the support of this podcast.

Check out their full probiotic line at www.strongmicrobials.com. We want to thank Betterbee for joining us as the lead supporter. Check out their supplies at www.betterbee.com. Finally, and most importantly, we want to thank you for Beekeeping Today Podcast listener for joining us on the show. Feel free to send us questions and comments and questions at beekeepintodaypodcast.com. We'd love to hear from you. Anything else, Kim?

Kim: Just reinforce what you just said. We'd love to hear from you.

Jeff: Send us those emails. Thanks a lot.

Kim: Take it easy, Jeff.

[00:45:34] [END OF AUDIO]