Rooftop Beekeeping with the Bee Buddies in Chicago (S6, E17)

S6, E17 - Rooftop Beekeeping with the Bee Buddies in Chicago

Leslie Houston: Hi, I'm Leslie Houston, and this is the Beekeeping Today Podcast.

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

Kim: I'm Kim Flottum.

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Jeff: Thank you, Sherry. A quick shout out to all of our sponsors who support allows us to bring you this podcast each week without resorting to a fee-based subscription. We don't want that, and we know you don't either. Be sure to check out all of our contents on our website. There you can read up on all our guests, read our blog on the various aspects and observations about beekeeping, search for, download and listen to over 200 past episodes, read episode transcripts, leave comments and feedback on each show and check on podcast specials from our sponsors. You can find it all at www.beekeepingtodaypodcast.com.

Hey, thanks for joining and a big thanks to Leslie Houston for that opening. Folks, you too can help open a show by recording your greeting on a show and sending it to us here. Of course, you could always track me down like some folks did at this last weekend's Washington State Beekeepers meeting in Olympia. I'll record your opening greeting right there on the spot. Now, that's easy. Kim is out this week. Sitting in as a guest co-host is Becky Masterman from the Minnesota Honey Producers Association. Becky, welcome. Thank you for being a guest co-host today.

Becky: Jeff, thank you. What an honor it is to actually sit in Kim's seat. I really appreciate being asked. I hope I don't disappoint anybody.

Jeff: No, and I hope you don't mind the old broken chair that you're sitting in. It's lopsided, but Kim, I'm sure is happy to see that you're sitting so well in his chair. You've been on the show multiple times. You're really knowledgeable about beekeeping and the people and personalities and bees. You've been involved with the Bee Squad at the University of Minnesota. You're well qualified to sit there. Hopefully, I don't embarrass you with our guest today, Al Renslow, because he's coming up. What are you doing today there in Minnesota? What's happening?

Becky: Honey's been extracted, and I am writing a couple of talks to go to Nebraska for the Nebraska Beekeepers Association for their Bee Fun Day. I'm very excited to head to Grand Island, Nebraska and talk to a group that I've met with them a few years back. It is a fun day with some live hive dives and lots of speakers. I'm excited about that.

Jeff: This is the time of year of regional bee meetings and conferences. I encourage every beekeeper to get to their local or their state conference. They should be coming up this fall, much like Becky's doing. You get to hear wonderful people like Becky and your regional beekeepers and find out how their season was. You might even pick up a thing or two about keeping bees where you are.

Becky: It really makes a difference. At every meeting, you've got that local researcher. In this case, it's Dr. Judy Wu-Smart. Every time she talks, I learn something. I can't wait to hear her talk.

Jeff: That is real fun. Coming up, probably just right around the time the show is released, will be the Washington State Beekeepers Association meeting. That'll be fun as well. I'm looking forward to seeing all the beekeepers there. Folks, get out there and visit with other beekeepers and learn more. Of course, they all culminate in the winter meetings, whether it be American Beekeeping Federation, American Honey Producers Association or even Cayman's North American Honey Bee Conference. There's some great conferences coming up. Get out there and see them.

Becky: Is money well spent going to attend these meetings? You're not just able to hear great speakers, but you're also going to meet beekeepers, and you're supporting the organizations that are doing their best to bring you the latest and greatest in research and programming around honeybees and technology.

Jeff: If I was to break it down in percentages of what's good about a conference, it's probably about-- all statistics are made up, so this one is, too. It's probably 60% just meeting the people, the other beekeepers, 20% the talks and another 20% on the trade floor, or maybe a little bit more in the trade floor and less in the talks, but it's meeting the people and other beekeepers, that is the big plus.

Becky: As a speaker, I'm taking a little offense at that 20%, but as an avid talk in the hallway, eat at the bar, eat at the banquet, all of that, can I have 5% more for speakers? Then we'll bring that to 55%, and then I think we're good.

Jeff: All right. Didn't mean to do that, and I just realized also, as soon as you said that, I'm speaking at the Washington Beekeepers meeting, so I'll have one person sitting in the conference room because of that comment.

Becky: I think you've come up with an idea, though. Let's just speak in the hallways.

[laughter]

Jeff: Yes. Signs down a hallway, "This group meet here. This group meet here." Becky, come on up. We have Al Renslow from the Admiral. It's a retirement community just north of Chicago talking about his bees. I'm looking forward to talking to him about what they're doing.

Becky: I cannot wait. I've got questions ready, and I want to learn more.

Jeff: Find out what we're going to be doing later in life. All right, everybody, we'll be talking to Al, but first, a quick word from our friends at Strong Microbials.

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Jeff: While you're at the Strong Microbials site, make sure you click on and subscribe to The Hive, their regular newsletter full of interesting beekeeping facts and product updates. Hey, everybody, welcome back to the show. Sitting across this big virtual Beekeeping Today Podcast table is Al Renslow. Sitting in Chicago, Illinois, Al is a beekeeper. Thank you. Welcome to the show.

Al: I'm happy to be here. It's interesting that I'm in the retirement community here at the north side of Chicago, about a quarter mile from Lake Michigan. We have a very interesting microclimate. That's something I've discovered because I've talked to some of the beekeepers in the state. It's not the same here as in other places, even in the city.

Becky: Did you say you're on the north side?

Al: The north part of Lincoln Park. If you know Chicago, Lincoln Park runs along the lake shore, and we're at the very north part at Foster Beach.

Jeff: Growing up near Cleveland, Ohio, I'm very familiar to near the Great Lakes, that microclimate within the first 30 miles of the shore that exists. Al, Becky and I invited you to the show today because you run a very interesting program there at the Admiral where you live. Give us a little bit of information about yourself, your background and how you got interested in bees. Then we'll talk about your program that you're running there.

Al: I'm a retired teacher. I was at the Chicago Public Schools for the last 10 years. When I retired up here in the north side of Chicago, I joined the garden group. We have a very active retirement community. We have gardens. We have six different gardens here on the property. The garden group wanted to have bees. They said, that would improve our productivity for the different plants that we have.

We actually have some produce that we grow. I said, "Well, sure, let's do that." When I first moved in, I started researching it. It was interesting because there was quite a bit of beekeeping in Chicago but not in the upper north side up here. It's mostly on the west side and the south side and some downtown. I couldn't get anyone to do it for us. I said, "Well, I'll do it." I volunteer to do it. I'm relatively young. I'm only 73 at the time. I started investigating what it would take to do it. The group said, "No, no, no, we're not going to let you do that by yourself. You're going to have to find some contractor to do it."

We contracted with a professional group called Best Bees out of Boston. There wasn't many that was available. They came up, and they set the hive up. Actually, the first year was in 2020, and the pandemic hit. We could not have the hive on property because the people could not come and go to our property because we were locked down. We paid for the hive, and we're out in the countryside, about one of the state parks, and that hive died. Hives die. That's not unusual, I guess. The next year, they were able to be here, and they set up on our roof. We did that. I watched them do it during the year, basically at the apprenticeship. The following year, we purchased our own hive so that we had two hives rather than one. With two hives, it's much better than one hive. You can do a lot more with it.

In fact, we combined the two hives at the end of the year and made it through the winter. The first one we had died, and we had a dead out. Then finally we got one that went it over. It did turn very well. Then this spring, I went ahead and got some used equipment and purchased packages, actually two packages and one nuke for three other hives. We have four hives in the roof now. I didn't tell you much about my teaching, but that's where I got interested. I do have a friend that had hives in Highland, Indiana, and I saw it, and I found it interesting.

Once I got involved with the bees, my gosh, they are such incredible creatures. It's interesting. I find it almost offensive to call myself a beekeeper. I'm more like a bee. You don't call dog owners dogkeepers. You don't call cat owners catkeepers. The bees are pets, and they're interesting.

Becky: Al, you said they're on the rooftop. How many floors up are they?

Al: They're 13 floors up. One of the reasons we're curious is if that would be too high for them, but they did very well this year. That's good.

Becky: Was it hard to get permission to place them on the roof?

Al: We have a very accommodating administration. Where we put it on the roof, there's nothing there. There's no mechanicals or anything like that, so there's no problem. We have a 32-storey building, and on the independent living side, it's 32 stories high. On the assisted living side, it's 13 stories high. On the 13th floor, that one has not been developed. All the other roof-tops are developed as gardens. It was not difficult. Some residents had some concerns at first. After what was there for two years, they realized it wasn't a problem, and they've been much more accepting.

Jeff: Thirteen floors up, so are you taking the equipment through the elevators?

Al: Yes, we have elevators go up to the 12th floor, I got to carry it a whole flight up. That's a little bit problematic because most people interested in beekeeping have mobility issues. That's a bit of a problem. We've got eight people that have been active in the community that's helping me with it and makes it doable.

Jeff: These are all standard Langstroth hives?

Al: Yes, they're all standard lengthy. We have one 8-frame and three 10-frames.

Becky: I'll tell you, I've done a little bit of rooftop beekeeping in the Twin Cities, and ratchet straps are our friends because you can ratchet down the colony so that the wind doesn't take the telescoping cover away. Do you have any tips and tricks you could share with our listeners?

Al: You're exactly right. The ratchet strap I have on each of the hives, and I put concrete blocks on top. I got 40-pound concrete blocks on top of that. I fastened the straps to concrete blocks. We have two blocks at the bottom, put the straps through, put it up and then put the blocks on top. I got to tell you, we're here, and we get some storms through here. This spring, one of my hives got blown over, even with the straps and the 40 pounds on top. I couldn't believe it. The hive survived, but I was surprised. We've got to be careful not making it too high.

Becky: Al, what do you do for a water source up there?

Al: The bees get their own water. We have just down five stories, is a bird bath, and they use that. There's also water on the roof from condensation, and they use that, too. I got to tell you this drought that we've had the last about three weeks now, it's been quite dry, and I've been putting sugar water up for the bees, and they're going through it like mad.

Jeff: What side of the building are they on? Are they facing the south, north, east?

Al: The west side of the building, and the building faces east and west, so they get both north and south. It gets pretty hot up there. We do have a building next to us that shades up for part of the day, so it's not as bad, but still, it's pretty hot up there. I go through clothes quite quickly when I've got my bees who've gone up there.

Jeff: [laughs] I have to imagine that it gave some people some reflective consideration when they heard that Al was keeping bees up on the 13th floor. How did you get everyone's approval and buy-in?

Al: It was interesting. One of the things that we pointed out is the bees are here already. The bees are in the gardens. We have balconies on all the independent living places. They have flowers, and they have some vegetable stuff out there, tomatoes and other plants. People said, "Well, yes, there are bees here already." I said, "If there's bees here already, it doesn't make any difference if they come from our roof or come down the street, they're still here." Once that was resolved, they realized, "Well, maybe that's the case. If we're going to have gardens, we're going to have bees."

That was accepted. The other thing I did is I got a demonstration hive. I had the windows on it, and I brought the bees down to the residents, so they could see them working. They found that interesting. Our harbors group, our assisted living people, was fascinated, and they helped me bottle the honey, and they put labels on it so they could be invested in it also. That's how we did that. Then we sold the honey within the community, that's what we're doing. Last year, we went through 200 bottles. We've already got 120 ordered in this community this year. They're all four-ounce bottles, but that's great. We did a good harvest. I've been very pleased with it.

Becky: That's fantastic. You don't want to make too much honey when you're on the 13th floor, and you have to carry it down a flight to get [crosstalk]

Al: You got to carry it all down.

[laughter]

Al: The first year we harvested, we rented a centrifuge, and that cost us $60. I convinced the garden group to pay for one because it only cost $300. We got our own centrifuge that allows me to bring it down in stages rather than try to get it all at one time.

Jeff: There you go. Carrying five-gallon pails of honey gets tiring pretty quick.

Al: I can't carry the hive down. I carry the frames down, and then we actually cap it. We have people help us uncap it in the residence on the sixth floor, so they can see the process and see what's going on.

Jeff: It really is a whole community helping with the bees and extracting the honey?

Al: They're being invested. One of the reasons we did it, of course, is the bees have had this collapse disorder for the last 10 years. We feel that urban honey, first off, is very, very good. Urban honey is the best honey. Our honey tastes like it's citrusy and very light. It's incredible. We think it's because of the diversity of plant life that they draw from. Because they have flowers and trees and meadows and everything here.

We're up in the north part of the park, and it gets a lot of different type of flavors. It's really quite wonderful. People once they taste it, now that's the other thing I did, I gave tasting to the group to see what the taste of the honey was. They said, "Oh, this is good." A lot of people don't know what real raw honey tastes like.

Jeff: This is a great opportunity to take a quick break, and we'll be right back.

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Becky: Al, you have mentioned that the health of honey bees has really been suffering as of recent. We've noticed that in urban areas, varroa mites can especially be a problem for beekeepers because you've got other colonies in pretty close proximity, and your bees can go and take advantage of maybe a weak hive and then bring mites back. How do you manage mites in the rooftop apiary?

Al: Last year, we started with Farmer Pro. We did that in August. This year we did the same. Then we're going to be doing oxylic acid drop in October. That's what we're looking to do. The other thing we did is we combine hives. If the hive is weak, we're going to go ahead and combine them. That's one of the things we're looking for. We're not looking at splits. We're looking at making strong hives to get through the winter. That make sense?

Becky: That makes sense. We found on some of the rooftops we managed that we had to start intervening because the population started getting really high in July with

new colonies. With new package colonies, we saw crazy numbers in July. I'm just wondering if you've seen the same thing with your urban beekeeping.

Al: Yes, in our area here, there's not that many hives. There's none right here in this right here. There's only one hive that's about a mile away. That's the only one I know of in this area. Of course, the bees go three to five miles. It seems to be okay. I can tell you one thing that's going on, I'm feeding the bees now sugar water, and they're going through five gallons a day. I said, "Oh my God." I tried to feed them for top fevers, and they're going through the other ones so quickly. I said, "Well, I'm just going to continue that for a little while, see how it goes, and then we get a cold snap."

Becky: That's a lot of sugar syrup.

[laughter]

Jeff: It is.

Al: 10 pounds of sugar to pop. I said, "Okay." It might be partly my fault. I agree. Of the three new hives, we harvested honey from them. Oftentimes you don't harvest the first year and let the bees have the whole amount. We didn't do that. I'm trying to make up for it.

Becky: Sounds like you're taking care of them.

Jeff: Did you run honey supers then on top of that? You had two deeps and then stacked your honey supers?

Al: Honey supers, yes, that's correct.

Jeff: How hard was it to find people to help you, especially working actually with the bees and not just with the extracting and bottling?

Al: Yes, working with the bees has been a little bit troublesome because many of our people are not mobile. You just can't do it. I had one fellow helping me. Then he fainted a couple of times, so I didn't want him up there again. I've got three people right now that can do it, and I've been pretty good. I just got an interesting person who I recruited, who's not a resident. She's a teacher, and she lives not too far away in Chicago, and she wants to learn about bees.

I said, "Tell you what, I got a deal for you. I'll let you go for a whole year with me, and I'll show you all the aspects of putting the colonies together, from putting them in bed in the winter to bringing them together in the spring and harvesting in the fall. You'll get the experience that you need." She agreed to it. Her deal is she's going to work two weeks a month with me to learn about beekeeping. I hope to do that with a couple of other people.

The other thing we're looking for is to get some of the schools involved. Admiral has a relationship with an elementary school that's a block away. We want to be able to integrate the environmental sciences course with our beekeeping up here. I'm even looking to write some grants with some of the teachers since I'm a teacher, and I used to write grants. That would not only do that but also measure the health of the colony by weight and weather. If we can correlate that here and compare our hive to a hive that's out in the suburbs, so we can see the microclimate difference and use real-time statistics. Because now, middle schoolers are responsible for statistical analysis, stuff we didn't do until college. This is real-time stuff they've got to look at.

Becky: You are a retired mathematics instructor, is that correct?

Al: That's correct.

Becky: You have a doctorate in mathematics education?

Al: A, B, D. I didn't finish my dissertation but yes.

Becky: I was waiting for numbers to come up, and it sounds like you are really trying to bring those numbers into your beekeeping operation. What are some of the favorite things that you think about with the honeybee that combine with your mathematic background?

Al: The quantity of honey per bee is a pretty interesting thing because you have to figure out how many bees it took to get that 10 pounds of honey. That's certainly interesting. I think the correlation between weather, more sophisticatedly, would be the correlation of weather and production of honey. That could be an interesting regression analysis.

They can actually see that and compare that, one that's on ground level and one's up here at 13 stories. Because the other problem we have up here at 13 stories is not so much the bees getting water but the bees being hampered by the wind. We had a very windy year. I was really worried about that, them not being able to get out and get back in. They seem to thrive, so they're hardy creatures. They're incredible.

Jeff: Are your colonies set up on scales at this point?

Al: No, not at this point. Part of the grant would be to purchase the scales and the remote monitoring equipment so we could do. That's what I'd like to do. It's fairly expensive, not real expensive, but it's within a small grant.

Jeff: Yes, every time I go to my wife to ask for money for a scale, it sounds like I'm having to write a grant.

[laughter]

Jeff: I understand that-- no, I'm just kidding. I just kid my wife. [laughs] Anybody who listens to the show knows that I get caught up in the gadgetry and the electronics that have come out. The scales, of course, is the gateway into hive gadgetry. It's fascinating just to watch differences throughout the year of hive weight. Then you start thinking about what's going on inside the hive and temperatures and brood expanding and stuff. Then what you're going to do to correlate it with comparing it to other regions, I think will be really fun for both the schools that you're working with and for the residents there to have an understanding of what's happening.

Becky: I think the more you look at numbers, the better beekeeper you can be. I think it's a great way to get that insight as far as what the colony is doing. Weight is certainly so important. Every beekeeper has a way that they measure how heavy their colonies are. Some of it's not very accurate. [laughs]

Al: They say lift it up. That gives you an idea.

Becky: You don't want to be able to lift it up, actually.

Al: Actually, that's right. You don't want to be able to.

Jeff: Oh.

Becky: There you go.

Jeff: That explains it. Anyone who's been keeping bees will tell you that the hives are just getting heavier as they get older.

Al: Yes, that's absolutely true.

Becky: Now, I really like deep supers. I will tell you, they are very heavy when they're full.

Al: That's why I was thinking about using 8 frames. That means that maybe it'd be a little easier for us to lift them. I got to use equipment that was 10 frames. I got the whole kit and caboodle for like $100. I couldn't pass the deal.

Becky: Some people also use medium supers for the whole thing.

Al: Yes, I've seen that. Becky, have you had any experience with that?

Becky: Oh, we've done it. I used to work at the University of Minnesota. There's information on the website that does talk about it. It does work. In Minnesota, we tend to really ensure against the winter. You're talking five medium supers for our program. You can certainly do it. We can still winter in a single deep. You could do three or four two. It's just a matter of how much you want to feed in the fall. It does make a difference. We did it in our bee veterans program, where we're working with veterans and trying to have other ways or have lighter hives, basically. Not cumulatively but just the pieces.

Jeff: We've also had beekeepers with accessibility challenges and the horizontal hives come into discussion at that point too, because some of those can be set at the proper height and also can be set up to be tilted so the beekeeper can, even from the wheelchair, reach into the tilted long hive and pull out frames and do their inspections and put them back.

Al: That's a great idea. I just don't know how I can secure it. I'd have to get that with one of our hives, one of our gardens down below. That's something to think about in the future. That's a good idea.

Jeff: I thought that was wonderful. I'd never considered sitting there and tilting the hive and making it accessible. That's just like, "Wow."

Al: One of the ideas our group has kicked around is put a- not demonstration but a hive with a window onto the building so they can watch the bees work that way. That's a possibility we could do that.

Becky: Al, I have to ask, are there people who have their residential units that look over your apiary on the 13th floor?

Al: Last year, there was. This year, there's not so much because I'm in a more protected area. It was easier for me to get access to because the first year we had the hives way out, they're like a half a block away. They're all at the end of the building because people were scared of bees. I had to carry everything across the roof. When we got snow up there in the wintertime, it was tough. I moved the hives to right by the door, and it's much easier. There's some people that see it, but the people used to like watching me do the hives from their apartment.

Becky: I would want to live in a place where I could watch a beekeeper. [laughs]

Jeff: I'd be giving them direction, "No, not that frame. The other frame. I want to see the other frame. Pull it up."

Al: Pull it up. They got the binoculars while watching us. [crosstalk]

Becky: Oh, that's for sure. For sure binoculars. Then there'd have to be some radio communication, an open cell phone line or a walkie-talkie,

Al: Something like that . Then you miss that. No, I didn't miss that.

Jeff: You hear a pounding on a window. One of the things, Becky, that I wanted this year, I did last year, is I got a sugar board, a candy board for the top of the hive. That seemed to work real well because it kept the moisture down. The bees had something to eat. There was still sugar left at the end of the time, but that was fine. It was a good insurance, I think.

Becky: They really do make the beekeeper feel a little bit better on those cold days when there are long stretches, and you can't get out there. Yes, they do. If the bees use them, that's fantastic.

If they don't have to get to them, that's great, too.

Al: It's okay to.

Becky: Yes, but that's beekeeper peace of mind and an insurance policy. There's nothing wrong with that. Al, I have to ask you, you've mentioned all the gardens, are there flowers that you have in the gardens or different vegetables or fruits that you're really seeing your honeybees visit?

Al: Yes. I don't know the name of some of the plants. There's a purple flower that they just love up here. They really go nuts on that. They also seem to like very much sunflower seeds. We have a number of sunflowers. They seem to like that a lot. The bees and the bumblebees like those quite a bit. The other one is oregano. It is almost growing almost wild on one of the roof gardens. When I went to flower, the bees really liked it, which I was surprised. Oh, look at that. They're tiny flowers, but they were going nuts with them. Those are the ones I remember.

Becky: Very cool. Very cool.

Al: They didn't do the squash as much as I wanted them to.

Becky: Yes, you need squash bees for that. [laughter]

Becky: Special bees.

Jeff: You said you got a couple of packages this last spring. What race of bee were you using? Were you using Carniolans or Italians?

Al: Carniolans, yes. That's what I used, and they were really successful. They're dark and a little more manageable-- not as easy as Italian bees because they're a little bit more aggressive but not terribly. They don't like you taking their honey in the fall.

Jeff: No one really does, especially on the cold, dreary days when everybody's home and bored.

Becky: I was going to ask Al how they harvest the honey. Do you brush the bees off, or do you use a board?

Al: Yes. Just brush the bees off frame by frame. This year in particular. Last year, I did use an exclusion board on the eighth hive, but this time I didn't. It's because I didn't take all the hive. We made sure that it was capped before we took it. I've got a spectrometer, whatever that thing's called, to look at the moisture to make sure it's dry enough. We did that.

We brush them off, take them up, take them down to the sixth floor. Then we uncap them in a bucket and a little thing, manually uncap it with a knife and then use a scraper to get the place the knife didn't get. Then we spit it out in our centrifuge by extraction. It's hand-cranked, so everybody gets a chance.

Jeff: [laughter]

Al: It's a form of exercise for the people in assisted living.

Jeff: I was going to say, everybody has a very strong right arm.

Al: That's right.

Becky: They sell bicycle extractors in Minnesota. You might need to do a fundraiser for one of those.

Al: That's more honey than we want.

[laughter]

Jeff: What about the wax? Are you working with the wax cappings at this point?

Al: We saved the cappings. We saved the capping, and I got it in my freezer. We've got the balls about this big each time, I think about five of them at this point. I'm going to use that wax to paint on the- not the frames but the foundation, any new foundation to do that. Now that we've had this good harvest, I finally got most of the supers have been built out. We've got wax on the supers, which will be much good for next year. The culinary department, the chef here, they've got big freezers. I'm going to put them down for the winter in there. We'll put the flames there to store it, to keep the mollusks and critters out of it.

Jeff: Does he have any extra space? I could probably send you some for--

Becky: Hey, I'm closer.

[laughter]

Becky: I'm just a quick six hours away.

Al: Yes, it's true. The culinary group, the chef particularly loved our honey. We had a special biscuits and honey breakfast about two weeks ago, and it was a big hit. The chef wants to accommodate us.

Jeff: I would think that would be the honey. Any products you make from the wax would be a great fundraising opportunities both for your bee buddies, your club or your organization to raise funds for whatever you want to raise funds for, whether it be more beekeeping equipment or to donate to the schools, whatever. The great fundraiser opportunity, especially at the end of the year in the fall, going into the winter and the holiday season, the wax candles ideas would be-- I bet you'd sell it all out before the end of the first day.

Al: I'm sure. Becky, if you have any sites that help me clean up the wax and make things out of it. Do about those? Jeff, do you know those sites?

Becky: I don't know that the university has anything. I'll make a note of it. If I find something, I bet Jeff can put it in the notes for the podcast.

Jeff: There's a lot of stuff out on YouTube about rendering wax and melting it and everything from the 16 to 30-gallon wax melters to the crock pot. It's all doable. It's a matter really, as you'll find out, is proper space to work it because it becomes very messy, likely to become very permanent, and folks will know where you work the wax.

Becky: Do not think you're going to borrow a pan and get it back to somebody. That is where you go to the thrift store, and you shop for every component you need at the thrift store, and then that is forever your wax rendering equipment.

Al: I think that's good advice.

Becky: Then also be careful that nothing lights on fire. It's super flammable. [laughs]

Al: The bee wax is flammable itself.

Becky: It is.

Al: I'd be careful with that. Okay. We use electric stoves here. That makes it easier. There's no open flame.

Becky: There you go. That helps, but you still want to be careful.

Jeff: Yes. You don't want to boil it over onto even a hot plate. You want to be very careful. Most of the time with the wax, you want a double boiler-type arrangement. There's a lot of information. We'll provide some links in our show notes, and we will send you directly, Al, some ideas that'll help you with your wax. It's hard to say wax rendering.

Al: Wax rendering.

Jeff: Wax rendering, I sound like Elmer Fudd. Al, it's been a pleasure talking to you today. Is there anything that we haven't asked you about your group and your bees there at the Admiral that you want to talk about that we haven't asked you about?

Al: I think I just want to talk about how nice it is to have a group that's really active. A lot of people think that once you go to a retirement home, you're on the shelf. You don't have any purpose in life anymore. That's not the case at all. This is an entirely active community that embrace this and find it important and think they can make an impact. I think that, keep in mind, just because we're retirees don't mean we don't have a purpose.

Jeff: Absolutely. I think the folks there at the Admiral are lucky to have you there providing this leadership with the bees and bringing the bees to their community because it is a special hobby. It is a special relationship we have with the honeybees and all pollinators that you're exposing them to. Kudos to you, Al. Fantastic work you're doing.

Becky: Very impressive, Al. Very impressive.

Al: Thank you very much.

Jeff: We'll check in with you on occasion and feel free to reach out to us and let us know how the bees are doing there at the Admiral.

Al: Thank you.

Jeff: If I ever make it to a retirement center, I would like to be in a place like the Admiral where I could continue keeping bees and be part of a community spreading the good word.

Becky: Jeff, I've got like two years, I think, before I qualify, I think at 55. I am going to start looking at vacancies at the Admiral. I can relocate to Chicago. They've already got permission. I can keep beekeeping in retirement, I love it. Jeff, I tell you, when working at the University of Minnesota for the Bee Squad, we kept bees at art museums and universities and golf courses. Retirement communitu never crossed my mind. Way to go, Al, for taking the initiative, getting all the permission and making it happen.

Jeff: He's done a fantastic job and making it work. Like he said, getting the involvement of the community is really what's made it special and actually made it ongoing.

Becky: Bringing in the chef, bringing in the sale of honey, really people are going to be excited about those bees year-round. When the weather changes, they're going to talk about the bees. When the flowers start blooming, they're going to talk about the bees. It's such a great way to connect people and like you said, make a community.

Jeff: Kudos to Al and the Admiral. That about wraps it up for this episode. Before we go, I want to encourage our listeners to 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 like. You can get there directly from our website by clicking on the reviews along the top of any webpage.

We want to thank our regular episode sponsors, Global Patties, Strong Microbials, and especially Better Bee for their longtime support of this podcast. Thanks to 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 or comments at leave a comment section under each episode on the website. We'd love to hear from you. Thanks a lot, everybody.

[00:39:33] [END OF AUDIO]