New Years Resolutions - 2025 (311)

311 - New Years Resolutions

Candace Rose Casados: Hi, this is Candace Rose Casados.

Dr. Anthony Meyer: Dr. Anthony Meyer.

Candace: We're on a 21-hour road trip from the AHPA conference in San Antonio, Texas.

Dr. Meyer: Heading home to our insulated, condensing hives in snowy Michigan.

Candace: We'd like to thank Jeff, Becky, and all their guests for keeping us entertained and informed along our journey.

Anthony and Candice: Welcome to the Beekeeping Today podcast.

Dr. Meyer: [laughs] The rumble strips!

Jeff Ott: Welcome to the Beekeeping Today podcast presented by Better Bee, your source for beekeeping news, information and entertainment. I'm Jeff Ott.

Becky Masterman: I'm Becky Masterman.

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Betterbee: Just a quick reminder, Varroa mites might be lurking on your bees even if you can't see them. Protecting your colonies means actively combating these mites, the leading cause of colony death. The good news? There are plenty of natural methods and treatments available to keep those mite counts in check. Learn about different monitoring techniques at betterbee.com/mites.

[music]

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Jeff: Thank you, Anthony and Rose, from that road trip opening. On your way back from the American Honey Producers Association meeting. Welcome everybody to the show, to this holiday New Year's special.

Becky: Happy New Year, everybody.

Jim Tew: I'm happy to be here. I came roaring into 2025. I've got nothing but big plans for this year.

Jeff: That's good because it's quickly approaching. In just a few days, the three of us will be sitting in Louisville, Kentucky. That's a great way to kick off the New Year. At the North American Honeybee Expo, we won't have to look at each other on the video screen.

Becky: That's true. We can also celebrate your birthday in person.

Jeff: It's going to be hard to be 40 again.

Jim: 40 what?

[laughter]

Jeff: Oh, my gosh. Yes, so North American Honeybee Expo is going to be a fun way to kick off the New Year. Welcome everybody to the show. New Year's is right around the corner. Perhaps you're listening to this while you're on your way to the North American Honey Bee Expo or on your way to a party or wherever you're going. This is going to be a little different format with us here today with Becky and Jim Tew from Honey Bee ObscuraPodcast. Jim, I want to officially welcome you to today's episode.

Jim: Thank you. Thank you. I always enjoy this. Truly.

Jeff: Listeners, forgive me, I've told you this story before. Jim Tew was my first formal instructor for keeping bees way back, I don't know, Jim, I don't remember, so I don't expect you to remember, but it was--

Jim: It would have been in the summer of 1878. I remember it well. You were just a child.

Becky: He was just turning 40 the first time?

Jim: He was just turning 40 the first time.

Jeff: Well, the good Reverend Langstroth there had-- he was making waves way back then. The skep people were really ticked off with him. The skep builders did not like the innovation of the plank wood hives.

Jim: Well, oddly, Jeff, I remember you. I honestly remember you. You were around a lot. You took several classes and you made an impression of that lingers in my old brain.

Jeff: Good impression, not lingers as in something that's a difference and lingers in a--

Becky: He didn't modify impression.

Jim: Don't push it, 40-year-old. Don't push it. Leave it alone. Leave it alone.

[laughter]

You don't want to know the answer, Jeff.

[laughter]

Jeff: Yes, Jim, it's been a pleasure working with you over the years and even continuing today, so it's wonderful. In our last episode, we talked about 2024, so let's leave that behind. I'm happy to do that. 2025 is this is a time of New Year's resolutions. That's the theme of today's episode. Let's talk about New Year's resolutions. Let's look at what are we going to do differently? What are we going to do new? What are we going to make sure we do not do again?

Becky: Oh, that's a good way to look at it.

Jim: That's painful.

Jeff: [laughs] That's painful.

Jim: What am I not going to do again? I'm not going to bungee jump. I'm never going to water ski. I'm giving up zip lining. Oh, you're talking about bees? Oh, you're talking about bees. Oh, okay. That's a long list for me.

[laughter]

Okay. All right. I'll narrow it down.

Jeff: I'll start because I always ask you guys to start and this time I'll be selfish and jump in there and start. What am I going to do differently this year? What I did this year, New Year's resolution is continue the heavy focus on mite control and mite management. Last year, I was on it all the time and forced myself to think about it when I didn't want to think about it and treat when I didn't want to treat. I think so far this year, my winter season, the bees came into the winter stronger. They look stronger now and hopefully they continue that good progress. I'm going to continue doing the focus on the mites.

What am I going to do differently? Boy, that's a good question. I'll take a pass on that.

[laughter]

I'll come back to that. What am I never going to do again? Never such a long time. I have a hard time saying never. I apologize to our listeners, my challenge is trying to find something that works consistently well in the Pacific Northwest. What I don't want to do again, I don't know. I'll come back to that one too. I had a purpose for saying that, now I've lost it. So much for being 40, I feel older than that now.

Jim: I tell you, when you're 40, that just really rolls in on you, doesn't it?

Jeff: I'm really not 40, just for the official record. Who wants to go next?

Jim: I'm going to go. I want to get it over with. If you got trouble coming, go meet it. Here I am. I don't know what I'm going to do differently. I need to control mites. I don't like mites. I don't want to deal with mites. I don't want to read about mites. I don't want to study about mites. I want to work with bees. I do a terrible job of mite control. I just want them to go away. I have the curse of knowing bees before there were mites, and that's what I want to get. I will boldly say, yes, I'm going to control Varroa mite. I'm not. I'll give it my best shot, but they're going to give me grief, and I'm going to see wingless bees out front, I'm going to see dwindling populations, and I'm going to make vows at that moment to get better at it.

I need to get out of the way for people who can really control mites and keep bees under these conditions. That will probably never be me, which leads to what I'm going to do different. This is going to be sobering. I need to look at and continue to embrace what I've called age-related beekeeping. Because I can't, should not, will not pick up the boxes, climb the ladder to get the swarms, and do all the things I used to do just because it takes me too long to heal and I'm too hard to get parts for. I just can't do physically what I used to do. I keep picking and choosing the things I can do with my abilities, in many cases electronically. Can you do something with Bluetooh? That scale you gave me to go into my hive.

I have every intention of loading that up because I really like keeping my bees with my phone because there's no sweat, no smoke, no nothing involved. I will continue to do what I can with

this position I am in life, soon to be 77. I just have to acknowledge that you're not going to be the young buck that you once were, and so don't grab that full deep. There's that. That's what I'm wanting to do.

What will I never do again? I doubt that I'll ever move hives again to pollination out at two o'clock in the morning, dews falling, slipping on the grass, bees coming out of some auger hole that I don't like. There's the auger hole opportunity for you. Stinging me like crazy, by myself thinking, "Why is there no one out here but me?" Because I couldn't find anybody to go with me. For all those people who still move bees to pollination, it is absolutely viable and critical, but I'm done. You guys carry on.

Jeff: You're not going to miss it, it sounds like.

Jim: I'm not going to miss it. I'll stay cozy while they're out there doing this for the good of my strawberries and apples.

Jeff: Let's take this quick opportunity to take a quick break. When we come back, we'll hear from Becky.

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Becky: Welcome back, everybody. Okay, it's my turn. I'm going to start with what am I going to do the same. Last year my resolution was to focus on making honey. I did this last year and it was so much fun. I loved the honey production. I still need a little bit of a plan for selling the honey, but I will definitely continue to try to produce honey or try to have my bees produce honey. That's that. Never again. This is partially for my husband. We just got a new car because our old car was totaled in an accident. One of the first things I thought of when that car was totaled was, "Oh, Tom's never going to find that big prop line of propolis that I accidentally have in the back seat because I put a deep there with lots of propolis in it and it wasn't protected.

I'm not going to get propolis in our new car. That's my goal. I have a bee truck. This is not a good goal. I have a bee truck that I use, but sometimes it's just easier to take the car, and so now I'm not going to do it. I say that every year, I'm not going to do it. What I'm going to do differently is, last year my operation grew, but I was buying equipment very piecemeal and not in a very organized manner, and I was just dealing with my lack of enough equipment.

I think part of it was because my husband build my equipment and I didn't maybe want to let him know just how much I was buying at one time, but what I'm going to do though this year is plan it to whatever number I'm going to end up at and just have enough equipment and just buy the bullet, buy it all at once. Also along with that, I haven't purchased queens for a long time. I'm going to bring some new queens into my operation. I'm looking forward to some different genetics.

Jeff: That sounds like fun. Sounds like a good year. You had a really good year with the honey you were talking about in your kitchen. You couldn't even get to the refrigerator or the stove because you had five gallon buckets of honey,

Becky: Five gallon buckets. They were actually in our dining room for a very, very long time. I finally found a place to store them. I'm selling some honey at a market this weekend. Really, it doesn't make sense to have a bunch of honey without a way to get rid of it, so I'm working on that.

Jim: I like the part where you said that was a lot of fun. I just made a comment I think in an article I wrote that it's like cleaning a lot of fish. You really enjoyed catching them, but how much enjoyment is it in cleaning them?

Becky: I had so much fun.

Jim: It's fun. I agree. I don't disagree, but it's--

Becky: I would bring back maybe a couple hundred pounds at a time and extract it. The extractor was just set up, because that's part of my equipment problem, I would extract it, take those wet supers, go to the next apiary, pull honey, put those wet supers on, and then extract that batch and then go to the next apiary. I would just extract every day or every other day and move my equipment around.

Jeff: You have a hand crank, right?

Becky: No, no, I have an electric. That's the way I take off the wax cappings with a scratcher a little bit at a time. I'm actually quite fast. [laughs] It's really insane. I told Better Bee-- I purchased two fume boards from them years ago. I used those two fume boards for 1,500 pounds of honey. They worked just perfectly. I would have two fume boards in the apiary. I think there were people out there who would just be absolutely-- I worked pretty quickly, but I would drive people crazy with that lack of actual-- it wasn't the most efficient way to do things, but it was fun. I had so much fun. Just enough honey to extract. Not too much. You still need to have a good night's sleep and then do it all the next day.

Jim: I envy that. I envy the fun part. It's supposed to be fun. Few of us keep bees because we're required to by some authority. It's supposed to be fun, it should be enjoyable, but so often there's work aspects to it that dampen that, but hearing her testimonial there is exhilarating.

Jeff: Makes you wistful for the--

Jim: Makes me wish she lived closer to me so she could bring all that energy here and help me take off 200 pounds a week.

[laughter]

Becky: The other thing that was so much fun was the fact that I would extract the honey and then just label it, and so now I've got all these different months and variety and locations. I've got some pretty amazingly different flavors based upon when and where they were pulled. It's a fun way to do it.

Jeff: That is good. How many different yards do you have?

Becky: I have six.

Jeff: That does give you a good varietal difference and just even in your region right there.

Becky: To get from the one that's the farthest south to the one that's the farthest north, it's over an hour's drive, so they are spread out a little bit.

Jeff: That's good. I like the bottling of honey and the selling of honey. There's some people just light up when they buy it. They see it's-- "Oh, it's local." They ask you all sorts of questions. Seeing that joy and giving someone that pleasure by something that you help produce and brought to them is I find enjoyable.

Jim: Ultimately, we're trying to eat it. My number one enjoyment is a warm biscuit that I may or may not have made myself, a little dollop of butter and some really high quality honey. As I use that honey, I think, "I knew you when you were a clover blossom."

[laughter]

Then you savor that and there's a sense of purpose, a sense of being, that I understand the history of this product and the goodness of it, and it makes it a really nice Sunday morning.

Jeff: It helps you really appreciate the work that went into making the honey too. It's more than just sweet. This is going to be an exciting year. We have a lot to look forward to in 2025. Of course, we'd mentioned kicking it off with Navi in a couple of days. Jim, I know you have shows lined up for 2025. Becky and I and BeekeepingToday podcast, we have-- be kicking off February with our upscaling your beekeeping operations series. We talked about series earlier. This will be focusing on how to go from hobbyist to sideliner, and how to upscale your bees, how to upscale your equipment, how to upscale your honey house, and how to upscale your mentality, your business, your approach to beekeeping. What else did I miss, Becky?

Becky: I don't know. They just aligned with my resolution so well, so I'm so excited. That was such an accident, right? [laughs]

Jeff: Hey, wait a minute. It was your suggestion, wasn't it? Oh, wow.

Becky: Such an accident. I'll try to pay attention. I will do my best to get invested in it.

Jeff: When I see that someone's been downloading the transcripts repeatedly, I know who to talk to.

[laughter]

Becky: They're going to be three-hour episodes because I have so many questions for our guests, so it'll be great.

Jeff: Thank you for a wonderful 2024. Thank you for the coming 2025 that I know that we'll all share and enjoy together. I look forward to hearing your stories from 2025. It'll be fun.

Jim: I look forward to it too. I do look forward to it. It's like looking forward to getting your teeth cleaned. It's not all that great while you're having it done, but your teeth feel so good later on, so I'm looking forward to it. It's going to be worth

getting it done, meeting the deadlines, getting the criteria, getting the topics, finding the visitors, and responding to the email. It's positive pressure. I'm looking forward to it.

Jeff: Jim, there's three types of fun. There's type one fun. It's just fun while you're doing it. Type two fun is only fun in the retelling later. Type three fun is never-- ot's not fun at all. It's just not fun.

[laughter]

Jeff: Beekeeping you’re saying, Jim, having your teeth done is type 1.5.

Jim: Yes. I'm going to let you go down this path all by yourself. I will not be holding your hand while you explore the types of fun.

Becky: I just need to go back to type three fun that isn’t fun.

Jeff: It's just not fun.

Becky: Does it get to be a type--

Jim: I don't want to do this ever again. I hate this.

[laughter]

Jeff: I was sold a bag of--

Becky: Type three.

Jeff: Yes, type three.

Becky: They said it would be fun, but it's not.

Jeff: That's right.

Becky: Is that type-three fun supposed to be fun?

Jeff: It's supposed to be fun, but you'll never do it again. No, not going to do it.

Jim: Not going to do it. Too many stitches and too much recovery time.

Jeff: The recovery time was just way too long.

[laughter]

Happy New Year, Becky. Happy New Year, Jim.

Jim: Thank you.

Jeff: We'll talk to you in Louisville.

Jim: Louisville. We're Louisville. [unintelligible 00:21:36].

Jeff: Louisville.

Becky: Looking forward to seeing everybody there.

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 or wherever you download and stream the show. 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 the reviews tab along the top of any web page.

We want to thank Betterbee and our regular long-time sponsors, 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 on our website. We'd love to hear from you. Thanks a lot, everybody.

[00:22:37] [END OF AUDIO]