Who wants fresh honey? We do! Learn all about the ancient art of beekeeping today in this classic episode.
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Windows eleven and the Intel EVIL platform make working from wherever better they rebuilt. It's me, George him, for this week's works of chosen or episode on Bee keeping from October to them.
The three hundred and nineteen listening to this one. I dare say that it could be my favorite episode and not just because I've been hoping to use their say in the sentence lately sure it doesn't have. The sexy thrills of the d dot B Cooper LIVE episode where the love
many of the elephant episode, but it's got a mellow homeliness. That makes me feel like I'm wearing a comfy sweater, sipping tea at the kitchen table and a beautiful morn. I hope it does the same for you enjoy. Welcome
Stuckey should now a production. Have I heard radio and welcomed the pod cast Iron Josh Clark, whose Charles W Chuck Brian
Jerry over there and stuff? You know a mellow gold addition. We turn back.
Sure, but I think back was really talking about em soft rock from the seventies, which are going to say, is like right up my alley these days
I know love, I mean I've always loved it, but I'm really on a streak right now. Yeah you are,
beating the yacht rock thing, and we, I just I discovered Kenny Login like a new Kenny Logan's only from the top gun era,
now and then a that one caddy sacks on which I was not crazy about it, then, even further back before the Caddy Shack thing, it was just beautiful
Messina yeah I've heard any Messina stuff. Sorry, I'm catching him right after the Messina part right before the Caddy Shack part. That's pretty
Iraq, any login to illustrate their prey went.
mellow gold, because I think you and I can both agree chalk- that even just reading about beekeeping, let alone actually engaging in the act of
Keeping is about the most mellow, just relaxing thing that you can possibly do on this planet. I think it's just above birdwatching and burning because birds, don't sting you.
Ok, so so it's less mellow than birdwatching. None are now yes, less mellow. I think birdwatching is the most mellow thing on the planet. Ok, anything because there is a threat of stinging. Then bees have to be just slightly more stressful yeah. We should probably just go ahead and can cut to that particular chase like if you are a beekeeper you're going to get sting like the bees. Don't necessarily know you exist and they certainly don't learn to love you or anything like that, and there's a certain tricks and techniques you can do the vastly cut down on the chance you're going to be strong
you're going to be stone like from what I've seen several dozen times a year from working very closely with these handling of interacting with them. And so, if you
have a bee allergy. You probably don't want to take up beekeeping, but but don't turn this episode off because, as we were to say even just reading, her hearing about beekeeping is relaxing yeah. It's it's a great thing to do for the environment now, because bees are super important to the environment and their dying offices,
people scraper, mosquitos and use our besides in things like that in their yard, and that's not cool. Nobody not just remember. There's this thing, colony collapse, disorder episode that we did
no one ever got to the bottom of what has been the cause of this there's like so many different culprits from my ground. Up to two years to pesticides, to cell phone towers was the culprit
lol or suspected culprit, but as far as we know, as far as I know, we don't know exactly what it is. That's leading the colony collapse disorder so yeah. It is a good thing to say you know what I'm going to oversee the colony of bees and make sure that they are just in Hog Heaven as far as their little life's
are concerned, that right and we did a full episodes on bees in January. Twenty thirteen. What else do we do on b? We did it
They show episode on bees
say you a clip from that episode today and we thought that he had laugh. I thought it was good. How is like
pretty good compared to our remember yeah. While I thought yes so bad, really that's fine
That's how I used to feel about, like I couldn't watch ten seconds strong
the other they show. I was so cringing to me. I guess enough time has passed were now. I looked back on our MIKE
is actually not nearly as bad as I remember being in the stage of his kicked in the China effect. I guess that's funny
and I guess I just listen Shanna, yesterday's he had sat bought her mind, half a falsehood
and is even more astounding cause. I was listening to bite or butter mine half this morning, so beekeeping in the United States,
is becoming more and more popular these days. Here's a state- and this was this- is an article from the old House of Works website. But it's from Dave
Sunday, ruse from our very own in that's how I found it cause, I'm looking for a ruse, specific material mail, it it's it's just bona fide good stuff. It is, but he had a step here from twin twenty seventeen. Where
There were about two point: six: seven million honey Bee colonies,
in the? U S, and of course, a lot of these or from you know from big, be big honey, her right, but there's a lot of backyard beekeepers doing
best work in going out there with her mellow gold smoke enough those hives in and get not that sweet, sweet nectar,
yeah and actually those are good. People buy it from if you believe in amino therapy, like idea, which apparently is still considered unproven, who do, but it will make so much sense that you could introduce small amounts of light
local pollen that you may develop analogy to prevent from getting allergies, which means that you.
when a bye, honey, that's been produced within ten twenty miles,
b of where you live here. So you would want
to go find one of those small beekeepers who sells their honey you, if you're on
your Facebook neighbourhood page or your next door, neighbor had page chances. Are you will cease?
pop up every now and then says, I've got honey or eggs or something like that or goat's milk. Just go get that stuff and eat it up right who wants
May I call GOAT's milk in other traditional Facebook Coastguards right. You can also go to like they were like a street festival in your time,
or something like that, like a little community festival, you're, probably going to find local honey there or health foods to something like that.
in yeah and while beekeeping is for sure
and this made me want to do it and it may do it one day, meat.
yet have some time. It is not the easiest thing in the world to do it's. It did cannot came across me as one of the things it like a lot of like a lot of stuff like this year. Your first
It may not be the best but, like you, learn any learn and you get better and better at it. Yet,
when a shoutout to also to some of the great resources in addition to this house of works already called, actually call the guy from Honey harvest farms in Glyndon Maryland his name's Jeff and Jeff help me out with some info. I just couldn't find online
but some of the sites I came across Include Carolina, honey bees, Irene Oak Farm and scientific beekeeping and all three others
resources, but there's a lot of really good resources on the internet. To help explain
to do this in answer more, like our king questions, there's tons of forms like people were really into beekeeping. I found are called beaks yeah geeks,
for short and they they are definitely into the sellers tonnes or resources out there to to kind of get started in just kind of dive. But yeah. I got the impression that
there's always more to learn touring each
call Annie over the years is probably has its own personality. I guess is how you'd put it
yeah. Should we go back in time, though, and talk about the history, I think so because they found honey. That is fifty five hundred years old, where in Georgia, not our Georgia,
the other Georgia, yeah and honey is very famous we're not going bad. You know they say if you find old honey like that, you can just heated up and it will go back to being just delicious honey, even if its crystallized right, because it yeah crystallization, is just kind of a unavoidable consequence of aging by its easy to reverse right, just for a little bit a heat yeah and you got money again flowing
so, did they taste that honey, I'm not sure if they tasted that honey, but they found other old honey that they tasted and it's supposed to be pretty good. You know that Katani tasted, like honey, I think
right and a danish hackers stores,
her days like chicken and its doors forever,
literally from what we understand, because it sterile and stays generally sterile, but the young, the earliest depiction of actually rating a beehive or of beekeeping is, is not really be keeping its basically just a picture of a guy in a cave in.
even on the cave, walls sticking his hand into a beehive in its from something like gum, a believer
seven thousand years ago gear. Nine thousand
see and yeah stick in his hand and honeypot as far as real beekeeping goes and on
estimated level. We all know that they did it in Egypt in about twenty five hundred BC, but of course, people think China probably beat us or not us an agent
Costs is lower than to everybody. They beat us, do it here in Egypt. So in Egypt, though, eventually they have something like
in hieroglyphs. They have like be hives, clearly depicted honey parts, and then they ve also found hives. There were human built. Clearly, human built made of clay and straw farmers as late as twenty nine hundred,
to go in Israel, so we ve been in the honey for a very long time and at some point we figured out that you could probably suffer a lot fewer, be stings if you kind of oh. What's the word insinuated yourself into this, be colony and that's ultimately were beekeeping is will see its humans.
Ok, I kind of get this life cycle of the bees in the Bee colony colonies. What's going on here, I'm going to kind of manipulate this or overseas supervise. I guess it's how you put it this natural process in order to basically steal the honey from the
he's at the end of the summer that right in a way that where they can keep making honey because early days, the very first be hives that people domesticated were cholera
stumps men tree logs and things and they would destroy these. They would get that honey and then be like right. Let's just destroy it and kill everything that gave us this
which is any there, was a better way forward later, but it also took these scab s, K e p. If you ve ever seen what looks like a turned over basket with a hole in the bottom, a sort of the symbol of beekeeping, that's cool
skip and they still use them today here and there I think, like the most hard core old school naturalist, beekeepers might use Skype, reader, hipster, yeah, hipsters, he's gifts
or they outside the developing world. We we rarely used in these
but there still around and you can find pictures of him and if you look at on images online and
They have pictures of them turned over and you can see the comb stuffed in their. It's gonna go looking right yet
like you said, is basically like the international can homespun symbol of of beekeeping in honey, raising that's right, but that was not any better for the b, because you had to destroy the hive with those as well right, which is it's bad for the bees. But it's
so bad for the beekeeper, because you have to re, establish a new calling everyday harvest in you can keep a colony going for a lot longer than just one year, Yonah, yet
and things really kind of took a leap forward in Switzerland in the eighteenth century, with a man named Francois Huber who had the first,
Isabel High, the leaf hive, which was was sort of like a book kit, turns like a book would
and this was a good design because you could get these. You get the honey
and not the brood, and you can remove these leaves without killing the colony, which is a great step forward, but it still wasn't like
best design yet and that whenever really caught on it didn't catch. Despite who bears them? Efforts to come
He would go into town and say all well, let's see, what's on the next page, bees within
Next pay more bees. Everyone in town focus never really caught on now.
but in the nineteenth century, there's a guy named Thomas Wild men and he started working with what we call bar hives, which I have also seen called Canyon bar high. So I suspect the Thomas Wildman got the idea from Kenya, but it's like basically a long trough for, like you know those standing
planters that you can keep a number of plants in, but it's just basically like a a long, rectangular raised box. Sure it's like one of those, but then, if you lift the top of the box, there's just a bunch of bars that stretch across the top inside
and that's it they have like a notch hanging down. But if you pull that that bar up you see that the bees have have created com
dangling from those those bars which is this disbar hive is still very much in use today. Sure it's is not nearly as widespread one word
to talk about a yes, there would be a man from Pennsylvania, Minister name, Lorenzo Lange's Trot, who said
I will one day be the Father of American Beekeeping and everyone's equity. Talking about he said just pay attention, because I have discovered, what's called the be space in everyone's like what he talking about
This is our men. He was widely question like everything he said. He'd be like. I have to go to the bathroom people
what do you mean what's wrong with you extra? So what he discovered is there's this magic space called the be space where bees can really do their thing successfully.
and there he found out that bees would not even build a comb in a space tighter than one centimeter, and so he said this is the be space where they can produce
the com in the right amount and not enough, be glue.
It's gonna get in the way like this. Is them
Jake area and I shall declare it be space and it shall be fruitful.
yeah, it was like believe it or not, realizing that be
dont build com
glue in anything tighter than a centimeter revolutionized beekeeping? Because now, with that be space, you could build these. These be hives, so that on the edges of em, they were just a centimeter between the sides of say where the cones are built,
could keep these these frames or these bar separated by a centimeter. So there's enough space like your same for the bees work, but not enough.
them to glue together, which was an ongoing.
apparently millennium,
millennia, old problem of having to harvest in getting a bunch of combs stuck together at once with this
space. Now, all of a sudden, you head little bits of calm that you
manipulate a lot more easily, and that was like a huge contribution to beekeeping. Strangely enough, that's right,
he got a the first american patent on a movable frame beehive in October of eighteen. Fifty two hooked up with a cabinet maker from Philadelphia,
Name Henry Bork when and started building these things
started selling them and did ok, but he found out that
patent was way too hard to enforce,
try to for a little while, but it was basically a waste of his time in the patent was just walked all over
any ended up, getting no royalties, but did revolutionise beekeeping, so allowing straw. Five, then, is a proprietary upon him. So,
you're saying: well I mean he got the patent brightened any could enforce it. Searches became like Kleenex, sort of or aspirin yeah, I mean if you, if you buy a Lang straw hive today
then for sure he's not getting any day
dead long dead in the ground by so this this high. This is really cool
talk more about it later, but just put opinion is that this is the most widespread hide like lying straw, fig
how to make a bee. I've there's so close to ideal that, since the eighteen fifty's,
it's gone, virtually unimproved too, pretty pretty significant accomplishment. If you ask me
and I looked at these war or where hives w e r r e, which is another key,
and but I didn't I mean, I'm sure their differences when she dig in there, but it didn't look that much different to me than the Lange strength you. I couldn't really
tell much that I mean I saw there was this. The laser doesn't have this. This quilted thing of, like you know,
our board shavings or whatever so there's like. I think it's, the very small differences that make a big difference range of differentiating between these high there. So should we take a break, I think we should then check when we come back we're in a talk a little bit about be society
Ok, let's do it the ongoing breakfast, a big deal. You three schools of thought about keeping your begun his breakfast and catch up. The first is that it enhances the second
is that it does, and the third is that it's just exciting to have an excuse to try more than one breakfast sandwich, Spock
choice is yours with new morning mix and match deals like a sausage, burrito and hash browns we're just three dollars single item at regular price pricing. Participating mayberry can be combined with any other offer Papa
worried, so
the direct everyone to earth ten of ten tv show stuff. You should now, and in particular the
these episode, which, by the way I wrote, I have an executive producer. Credit on that show from writing. That episode live in executive, have an executive producer. Credit on every episode
Is that really earned it now? Writing it! Well, listen! So that's funny gives us how's, explain me at the time, but Chuck. I just want to go on record here. I went to her Kulan linked to keep you from getting stung by a b and that a person they said absolutely not shock, has to get stuck just to make
that's the episode worth watching. He has to get son and I thought it was a better idea if you didn't, if we kept building up to it and it never happen, but they said no, no, we're not going with them, but I tried really hard to keep you from getting stun that's right and we had all fake bees that they put him eyeball, but I would direct people to the January twenty six hours, podcast absurd,
dead one above if sure, but if you really want to learn about bees, that's where we dive into its super deep. So I guess we'll just consider this a bit of a recap: ok, ok
though in the aid in the world, is something like twenty thousand species of wild bees, but in Honey Bee Bee,
keeping you're going to find. Usually one species of Bee Apis mellow fairer,
either the european or the western honey Bee and there's different.
It is it column, races? You know with Ike breeds of dogs, we column breed there, but there are still the same species keenest lupus, but with bees they're all the same species apis smell a fairer, but the races are different
You have like the italian honeybee where the car no lion, I believe, carnal.
In honey beer, the russian Honeybee but they're all races of european or western honeybee. That's what you're gonna find everywhere. Yet
things are amazing. I remember at the time we were just sort of obsessed with these after that episode, so much so that we wanted to do it, for the tv show
in one of the main reasons is because there was called a super organism which basically means you take
Western Honeybee out on its own, and that thing
I'm gonna do anything worthwhile with legal aid in order to dinner Roy Rogers restaurant. So dumb! No, but when you put on
things together. All these bees have very specific jobs that we're gonna go over here and a second and all these coordinated actions, and that
this super organism, they are one hole like sixty thousand honey bees,
acting as one in order to produce honey hive. Mind hive mind right to me:
it's so many who hide mind. Worker bees are these like things that are unlike the are like
can are all taken from the way bees do their thing right. Exactly
and so really when you put him together, this larger soup organism an emergent property of the collective actions in the instincts that these bees.
following if you put it all together, they interact, inform this larger hole and that's the colony and so on
individual level, you have three different types of bees. You ve got worker bees, which make up the vast majority of the population there all female they're, all sexually undeveloped females. In his right hand, they do almost all of the work as usual around the house,
that includes everything from raising the the eggs too,
creating a wax.
They would they do they make they honey. They go collect the polling day. They defend a high, they serve as guards at the entrance like they do almost everything they take care that queen, which is the biggest one of all, literally so
So may me nervous when I was reading this again, because so much depends on the queen. It all depends on this one b,
it wouldn't make you nervous yeah, it's not cause! It's not like. There's a bunch of queens
if one of them dies or some happens right, then I find you
have the queen and there's just one of them.
Care where we heard it, but, like somebody said it's somewhere that, like the queen is their slave and that's actually like kind of true, because the queen's whole job chuck is today
sickly, keep the colony going and optimistic through this pheromone that she may she creates, but also to like it
all of the eggs and fertilize them
but that's a lot of eggs. It's a time like your parents,
queen can lay up to a million in her lifetime right yeah. That's it
a few years, but that's about one thousand five hundred eggs a day. But my point is this: the queen is their slave because she does this for them. She keeps the population going, but they decide when it's time for another queen to be born. As far as I know sure,
is that correct, I think so. Ok we'll find out and the listener mayor
get your drones, of course, as are the male bees and they
it is funny you have one one queen, you had these males at all. They do is made with the queen and then these fees
worker bees. Do it literally everything else right by
on the other end of the female worker, bees are the ones who get to decide like who lives in who die.
turn and, if you're, a male drone once you ve made it with the queen,
happens in mid air outside of the hives very sexy. It is super sexy. The queen mate with more
for males at once. Gathers their sperm
stores it in a little sack which,
then goes in like lays eggs in fertilizers, the eggs as she sees fit because I believe on fertilized eggs are drones and fertilized. Eggs are workers,
so the queen is actually keeping an eye on how many of what are needed, but the drones whence they mate, especially when it comes time for winter and all of a sudden there, stirring to hit up their food stores and things are getting scarce. The drones Ghip pushed out into the cold to go off and die by themselves. That's right! That's a pretty ignominy
and yeah- and you know that it's a good time to point out that at different times of the year, bees
to be more well fed. Naturally, as you'll see when your beekeeping, you have to keep track of what time of year, it is because, like you said in the winners, can be super,
scarce, but even in the fall in early spring, you're gonna need to supplement their food intake right exactly because here's the thing so so, just with this lifecycle of bees in the spring, when the flower start,
bloom. In that the bees are going crazy. It's called the nectar flow,
they are producing honey in overtime. Yes, oh what you're doing as the beekeepers using ok we're here. I want to make sure you have plenty of room to store as much money as you possibly can, because what the bees are doing is storing huh
literally storing energy away to help get them through the winter
and you're going in and saying I'm gonna take these honey stores that you plan to use to make it through the winter
and only leave you some I'll leave you hopefully just enough so that you don't need any, but also as the beekeepers.
human, whose insinuating himself or herself all all hit you up with some food too. To make sure you guys survive happy uncomfortably through this winter. In exchange. For letting me take this honey right, because I've got some toast inside, that's just
opt out of the toaster it man, I had some cream honey for the first time today I mean like a big time- honey guy, but I had not had cream time before and it is that, like spun honey, is that different? It is a combination of crystallized in liquid honey. That's highly spread about ok,
got it: it's like just trader Joe Stuff, who knows where it was made by its very tasty at least he's doing nothing for my immune system. But it's doing a lot for my my Limburg system, yeah, I'm honeys, honey, sort of one in nature, Merrick
it is certainly not manoeuvre, honey and things like these peeling properties and its throat. A great stung by jellyfish put some money on it area now. I bet it couldn't hurt now
At the very least, you can eat some while you're doing that, and it makes things a little better. So should we talk about equipment forbid yeah bit? I think so because this is about beekeeping. That was our brief, be overview, but again go back to generate twenty thirteen. You want the full scope on bees, but visible
beekeeping, and if you want to be a beekeeper, we also did little short on beekeeping when
one of our little short that we used to like for the car commercials. When we would go around the different locations, we did a little bee keeping bet you remember. We had smokers and we want more.
He hadn't veil, our Marilla too, and gloves. I just had forgotten what the context was. Forbear was for one of those short acumen where we call them interstitial, that's right, the most dry site
civic clinical name for those things. Those were good. Surely you, like? Thou arouse yeah thinkers, hold up those refund? Ok, so here
you're gonna need is new equipment. If your new,
Beekeeping Dave here recommends, recommend you get new equipment,
No, you have too, because if you get inherited equipment like it once you're on the scene, somebody might be. I k like a guy in extra smoker ear. Some frames I can't use they opened their trench coat, look out a bunch of glee boxes hanging inside
but he had, but, as you will find out later on, in our section on disease and bacteria and stuff, it's pretty prevalent so
you wanna, get your new equipment going. If your new to beekeeping Jesse, you start out on the right foot yeah, because once a specific kind of bacteria that causes foul brood, one is in what sense in your boxes like your colonies, toast in your boxes are done forever. This, like you, need to burn the boxes, so they don't end up in some ways: hands cause it'll, kill to stay in lingering killer.
everybody stay right, not good. So for, as we kind of said earlier far and away the most popular hive among beekeepers is the last straw right right. So we're gonna just kind of focus on that one. But it is a lot of funds is go. Look. It exploded diagrams of the different kinds of beak hives out there and beekeepers use
and see all the different parts whatever, but there's there's too many of them. The really go into sir, is going to focus on the last straw. I even though it just as the length of this introduction to Howard just go,
pay attention. I shall type I could have covered two or three other highways, but for going to stick to just the last hour hive. Ok,
so you could build one of these things if you are good at this kind of thing, but what I recommend is that you go online or you go to if there happens to be a local aviary store and yearn village,
Show my one there if you live in it
it is in a Perry store for sure
but yes, they also still so mustache waxen beard, oils handmade axis and pay taxes so yeah, but there is true like if you have like a quaint hardware store. That's probably
good place to to look and then also a guarantee. There's a million places online. They get him to in the relatively cheap to get that not much. You can
and to bees fer. You know it seems like less, including the bees for less than five hundred budgeting gonna get going right.
That's it. That's what I'm gettin improbably. If you really, you know what you're doing, maybe handler are it so you get your your Langston hive. Nanda sing has a big box on the lower half carbohydrate
we or the brute chamber- and this is where the bees are mainly yen-
and even below that you have a stand
the thing sitting on your raises it off the ground and usually it's kind of angled. So it's like a landing pad for the bees and then it also improves circulation thing
the Bottom Board, which is the floor, the high which protects the high from invaders from above, and then you ve, got the brute chamber above that the hive body that
and that's where they're gonna be billed net comb. That's where the cat
and can be later eggs that
they're gonna raise at brute up and that's where they're going to store the honey that they think that they're gonna be eating in
that's right. And then you got a really important piece of equipment that
be very easy to overlook. If you don't know what you're doing but you're gonna have issues if you dont get, it's called a queen exclude her. So you remember check that you said that the queen is about twice the size of the
workers. I don't guess where that, but that is true. You definitely debt, I'm here to tell you when, when, when you add a queen excluded all it is basically like a mesh earths slats or something like that. That are space far enough apart for the workers to easily make it through, but it's too close together for the queen to make it through. So the queen won't leave the brute chamber to lay eggs. She'll just use the brute chamber for that, which means, though, that the workers can go lay honey in the chamber above the brute chamber, which is called the honey super. The box above that attract the honey super, not the supper, no just the super, and I do not see why they call it that did you know the honey superposition maybe said nod to quantum physics, maybe so, but this is where they are going to store that surplus honey. I win that when the plants are bloomin and that Nectarous flowing
and your your skin and some off the top, as the beekeeper yet end like. If you did not have that queen exclude her that the honey super would be just another brood chamber, because the queen, once he uses many places ass, she can t lay eggs and then they
honey around it, so that the eggs which is where it, which also serves as the nursery for the brood and the honey they're all like together in the same combs, but because you put their queen, exclude her she's, not lay and eggs in their honey super, which means is just sweet, delicious honey in all the code
on the frames which we have talked about yet well. Yet these are the frames, Caesar frames it you can take in and out. They hang vertically, and these days it's pretty amazing-
how far they come. They are actually pre printed with bees wax
or some sort of foundation made a plastic b, just sort of says here you go because here's a little head start, but you found some extra interesting stuff about the bees and and their wax making abilities to yeah. I did actually so like it takes about a tablespoon of honey to make an ounce of wax yeah and bees make wax through the land right that you do honey and secrete wax instead, and so whenever they create a new brood chamber, they make it they
secreted as waxing basically circle, and then they used their body. He d shape it into a hectare Gaia and the reason they kind of imperfect works again to write and the reason that they make hacks Ganz is because they don't know this, but structurally it is the most structurally sound Stumm shape in nature. That uses the least amount of material right, which is just astounding that bees instinctively no do make a and a hectic gone. I exit downright, not octagon.
hex again break the designers, but they use, but the start with the circle and then use their body. He d melted into the shape or anyway, what they have to do this for each egg that they put in a brood chamber. They have to do this for each
each cell that they put honey into and then they can. They also make wax to cap the honey off so ever
there's a lot of honey to make that wax, which means, logically, if you can give them a leg up either with prepare.
honey or plastic, or leaving as much honey is you can from the honey heart?
ass it leaving as much wax there is you can for after the honey harvest they they don't have to make new waxing reuse, the old stuff,
means that less honey that you're bees are eating to produce wax, which means it's more honey that you're getting yes and by the way, if your type
an email to me right now, because I said hexagons are or five cited. Please stop. It is excited
Actually, I'm two guns. Yes, everyone,
five cited structure is a circle way. What is and far sighted one
what's a far sighted one set of Pentagon Earth
a Europe Pentagon. I played enough dungeons and dragons as a youth it. I should know this, but I dont know I get my guns confused. Sometimes everyone, while chuckled I'll teach a little cheat here cast referred. All them is polygons in your covered, our really oh yeah
so like every hex gone into polygon. Mckenna thing hectic on triangle, anything with three sides or more to polygon in vat or someone now not apply gonna that that's a circle, but as someone debating it, can't you just shut him down every time here and also make new friends at parties ready come at me fight me.
polygon, so you're also gonna have a feeder. In this thing we talked a little bit earlier about the fact that year, your scheme in this honey and taken some for yourself as its made an excess,
and at other times of the year, when it's like, especially late summer, in winter, there pollen resources resources we can be lower. Obviously right crossings are in full bloom.
So you're gonna have to help feed these little little fellows and little. Ladies,
There are feeders Dave here, says something about as a block bag with sugar water with a slit cut, but I've seen that's the most.
Intriguing, I can imagine that one small step up is like sort of an
lemon and pan with sugar water that slides in and out of this box Yang you
those like pet feeders pet waters that have like Bulgaria outer look like that. Yes, let specifically called Boardman Feeder and it's just me
jar filled with sugar, water and screwed into the Mason jar cap, which is inverted in a little wooden thing, with some slots for the basic in and out of, and the cap is perforated, so the sugar words slowly drips out here,
and so it's a long, steady supply of water that you slide. The wood part that the cap is is inserted upside down into into the front entrance of your beehive. So all you have to do is on
screw the Mason jar and put more sugar water and every once in a while in the bees need it's really easy way to feed bees. The tried, but specifically you mentioned Poland. I saw something I didn't realize
But when you reach about the fall, you dont want the bees to have any point. If you're feeding them, it has to be the pure sugar water, because if the pollen that will produce solid waste in
a really clean and they won't go in their high if they leave the hive to go evacuate their bowels, which actually ties
that yellow rain short stuff. We did remember that and right, but they'll go far away from the hive, but if it's too cold, they can't leave the hive, so they will actually die rather than poop in the in the
Germany or some of them will be like. Forget it. I'm living, I'm just gonna go improved, but now the whole colony a spoiled and the reason. Why is because they ve eaten too much pollen and they can't make it until the spring to go outside and poop, so you don't want to feed on many pollen in the fall.
And that is the opposite of our wives, who would rather die than poop in a public place her head exactly me too.
sickly weight as well up anywhere. I know,
it's an admirable quality that mean I don't love it, but I certainly won't put myself at risk. What's your technique to go to like a happy place,
pretend you're, not you not! There like leave your body for a little while now just cooking a primal.
Oh yeah, like a lot of running kicking at the wall that just you know it's like that, you gotta! Do it it's the most primal thing you can do church to force feces out of your body Jerry's eating.
No sorry, oh dear me, so it is growing
Craig over man. I'd know do energy, and so it was keep going here because we need to move on to the tools possess. The box ass, the Lange struck, I've gotta get a good one mixture solid, yet again, United break the bank, there's there's a there's enough
She basic Lang straw, I wasn't going to put you in the poorhouse, am plus one other thing about Lystra Hive before we move on it. So ingenious Chuck is the the Ets
modular in scalable, so you can
easily like remove the top boxes and put another brood chamber on put another honey.
super ire and you know harvest more more honey. It's if you break part of it, you can replace parts exactly as it is. It's like a really good in
You like it makes sense that it would have been invented in eighteen, fifty and not in a really have been changed that might cheer agreed. So we talk a little bit
the protective clothing, that is, that veil you can
the cool, little sort of Safari pith helmet with avail
Usually they will dispute over any kind of wide brimmed hat. You are measured snug, they some
people, you know, depends on who you are. If you're really used to this, you can build up sensitivity to be stings, and you like forget the gloves, forget covering my body I'll, just where
avail some people might not, even where the veil, because they're so cool, I think at least they were the veil. Oh no, I've seen people here
bees without veils. My friend are real sure, that's crazy, you think oldtime beekeepers are put, not avail
all the videos I watched. Every one was wearing fails. Doug
they might not have been wearing anything else, but they had a veil and they had the second thing a smoker. We are you gotta have that smoker matters of
call device and I'd always wanted to hold one, and finally,
not too, when we made that little video interstitial and it looks sort of like a day compared it too.
Elongated metal teapot, not a bad descriptor metal canister with a with a spout point.
Upward and it's gonna handle that has a little little bellows built into it, and
you do is and always wonder what the heck was in. There uses burn burning something you're burning car
border, you're burning leaves or something and use that bellows just to pump little smoker
right. In the reason your pumping the smoke out is to calm the bees and it comes the bees by masking the pheromones that they that their say the guard bees are shooting out
which means that the other bees aren't picking up on this alarming pheromone
and so there all remaining com. Actually, so it's an essential tool of the trade is a smoker. That's right.
and you're also gonna need a hive tool, if you look those up its if you've ever used
Wonderbar. I think that's probably proprietary name, but it's it's kind of like that. Like a flat, crowbar and said exactly what it looks like around crowbar. I highly suggest you get a wonder bar too cuz. Those are just great to have around the house
have another euro under bar. I do. I don't know if it's wonder, brought wonder bar trademark pry bar, but it is very likely that yes, this high to a sort of the same
and it is used. You know I think we had mentioned be glue earlier on that's for Polis and that is
saliva and beeswax and other like materials from the garden maybe, and they use that to seal up gaps in the hive, but you're going to need to pry open stuff like get that be glue loose in that high tools. What you use cuz it doesn't destroy your beautiful
for five bucks yeah, because I mean the frames or where they build these honeycombed and you need to get the frames out to get the honey from the honeycomb, so yeah you're going to need to pry the frames out, sometimes time because
everything that these doing is saying. Please don't take my honey,
politically then we're like oh, but we have a tool that allows us to do that right, mingled,
including in up to stinging you to say: please don't take my honey but yeah. We don't listen. You wanna, take our second break girls. Do it? Ok, we'll be right back.
he caught stream the biggest live event Superbowl. Fifty six to complete coverage of the winds you're. There is all the legal force to the side of now Peacock Tv Dec on
So if this whole thing is really fast,
you're both as it did us because Chuck I guarantee you. Both of us are going to be country folk beekeepers by by the time, were dead and retirement, right,
So if that, if you ve been bitten by the bug the be, if you been some by the beekeeping, that's all that come in bank there there's actually just a few things. You wanna do too
started, is not hard to get into its one of those things like come. Have every taken, scuba diving lessons Nope
You learn how to scuba diving it takes about thirty minutes and then the rest of like say the week. Long course is it teach you how to stay alive or something.
Is wrong. I write. Beekeeping is kind of the same,
like, it's really easy to get into a learned, the basics but the, but it takes years of
his understanding and learning and picking up new things to to really become a in advance beekeeper year and in its
you can read books and you can go online and you can take courses but like with everything, there's nothing like first hand. Experience and, like you said it's it's going to be a while
be. How can I know to do that? I'm sorry, but in a couple of seasons,
No, you you're going to really know what you're doing to a large degree, yelled stay Bruce's Bank of China,
Tor there's plenty of beekeepers out there who were there not can a yellow?
you for asking their probably be happy to pass along this knowledge and information. I think, sir. It seems like a year, a hobby slush job that people want to spread the love of right like cream honey. So Dave says, though, just there some
basic to start. You want to pick a location for your hive and one of the first
want to do is make sure that you're allowed to have a hive
pending a where you live. If you live out, the country there's probably very few ordinances, most most ordinances, either say you can't have bees here, because this is a city in within the city limits. No bees are allowed.
They say, bees are farm animals, so they belong in a farm or bees or non d
the kitten animal so same thing or head.
Media of an age. Awake just forget about it. Yet we literally forget about it. If you haven't eaten away, there's one place called Champlain Minnesota and they say
as far as the Universal Minnesota says that they allow bees so long as co.
The neighbours are on board: that's the official
I understand that in what is in the city code or the current cooler, that's the tower was put on the universe,
Minnesota website. So that is a good point, though
make sure your neighbors are cool with it or at the very least, that you have enough land that your neighbors are
to be bothered by the bees yeah. But if you have a neighbour that says
no I'm deathly allergic to bees, men
I mean tell him to move either that it is time for you to get into like our sea planes. That's right! So you you get your local ordinances. All settled
off your neighbour, and then you want you're, the the. U want to direct that be trafficking,
set it up on. Your property is important. You don't want to have the hive entrance and exit facing your neighbors from
all right. You want to have a facing your house and you wanted ideally facing south or South EAST
yeah, and the reason why you want to have a facing says it's thesis, so it is also to really good morning. Sun, because that all wake the bees
get him going insane, get off your deaths, laziness and get out there and start foraging and make me some honey. That's right! They also say that it's goodbye, if you have a like some bushes or private, or offence right near the
entrance because when they, when they leave the high, that's gonna make encourage them to go upwards yet, rather than to your neighbors pool. That's right! So you also, in addition to make
sure the beehive gets morning. Sun. You want to protect it from strong winds. You want to make sure that it's definitely protected from afternoon. The worst of the afternoon Sun so say like between two and four: you don't want unobstructed son just beating down your beehive is going to cook them, and you also want to make sure that there's a good all weather cap on the the beehive
can a protected from rain and stuff like that to an speaking a rainy, also on a water source, nearby yeah beneath
the joke about going to your neighbors pool button. That could happen because bees need water, they forage for water and they call the hive with it. They blended with Poland me
bee, bread, which is the pollen nectar and honey and that's what they eat, and I think that's what the larvae especially feet on is that right. I think so that be bred,
So if you live near ponder or like Europe like me and had a creek
near by your house and then you're on your set yearning to worry about it. But if you doubt, then you gonna wanna, put something in like a bird bath might be nice or Dave even says you can just put a large platter of water. May a Dave also says: put
the block of sugar water, any Hiven cut a slit in it, so maybe guides step further bisbees beyond a platter. Amin depends on your static, ethnic and gas.
But I mean my letter,
some water and like a tire that stood up on its side alone, that Sudan Yard, when it became a day. If he's a bet- because I was
just genuinely bad advice to put a player water out, their legs like put a little more thought into. Ok, ok, all so you
everything except to bees, and it never
Kurt me where you get these bees right. You know,
you to set this all up in the bees- would be attracted to it now and fill it up over the course of a decade, and then you can start making honey you can
by bees yeah and they arrived post. The postal service would understand our proliferation.
These, but I wrote a mother Earth news article from nineteen. Seventy four and they were saying your postmen- will love you for this.
but they're going to arrive in a package, a box filled with live bees, probably somewhere around ten thousand of them. Yet and
did queen. That's important. It's not like you have all this
you like. Now I gotta go, find the rarest thing in the world which is a happy mated, Queen right and so them made it. This is one of the reasons I called Jeff over at the farm: honey harvest, farming, ailing Glinda Maryland, because I was like why couldn't find what made specifically meant it was called pre me
That's what Dave they called it pre made. It sounds. Like does I mean a virgin queen that hasn't made it yet or has made it before
and that it was right to me right, yeah yeah, the ladders correct the boat like they they have. The queen mate with a bunch of drones in, is a unique and take the queen and Pierre sequester her so that she can't live
any eggs and then
put her in a special container with the rest of the bees and ship
to you, and then you put the b
together in your own brood chamber, with the queen inner sequestered thing, and you peel back a little like Pisa tapers, something and that exposes a little candy plug and the workers eat through the candy plug to free the the queen. It's pretty cool now works. There really is
and I have also seen that the candy plug, which has meant also keep the Queen Bee alive during transport. If it comes out or something you can just Puglia with marshmallow to which is the
quaint thing. I've ever read my entire life
You should also try and get your bees locally. If you get them locally, then you know aid that they have.
been shipped along way, which is going to stress them out and b that they're gonna be hip to your scene,
be down with your weather and just cool with the bar.
In the restaurants in or near by they'll know all about the local schools that the parents never stopped.
about in everyone's who's, gonna be happier right so also use. Hopefully, you can just go pick him up, but I do have the impression that there are tons of mail order bees to
sure, but you will you whatever it is you want to order, I'm so that they arrive in
early early spring, because your whole goal here is to get this call
up in moving in really healthy and well populated and rare and ago, by the time the spring flowering and the nectar flow begins.
That's right! There's another way to do this. What I call the Chuck way, the german version master by nuke right and a new car is a nucleus colony, and that is
sort of like the lazy persons all on one solution. You you buy a hive box, its pre loaded. It start it's got an active queen, it's got eggs, it's got your brood midst got your pollen stores. It already has
honey for God's sake right and they call it like. I said it is short for nucleus color,
He is a new and you can get a new for not much more than this other stuff.
right, yeah enemies. So basically it's you, the brute chamber component, that we are talking about with the Lange straw, five, that's basically what you're buying is they ship you eat a like? You say a ready to go brood chamber and then you to start putting a queen ex exclude her, and you know super boxes and all that stuff on top and they you gotta I'd, seems pretty pretty smart to meet a tribe. Starting with that is well when I was looking at the price of sectors where these nets, like a thousand bucks- and it seems like it- was all about fifty dollars more than starting from scratch, but I think you can spend quite a bit
on a starter kit of bees. If you're say I'm looking to have just pure bred bees, elexa various worst yelling GS, detail in honey bees or just russian honeybees, because they different different races have different kind of them tendencies later italian honeybees tender to keep a larger population over the winner, which means that you need to leave a more honey or feed a more, but there also friendlier more docile that kind of stuff, but it really expensive because those bees are artificially inseminated in, like really in a very controlled environment, whereas with most of those ones, they you're spending like hundred two hundred bucks on time
as you know there weren't they call months which are just like you know, I hope, a whole bunch of different races of the same species of b and there they have a lot of different characteristics, some of which may actually make them less susceptible to diseases then say like pure, bred, czar
It's like it's like a normal person compared to british royalty, or something is it's too soon pressure
So once you ve got everything set up, your main job is going to be to feed your bees, try and keep them from swarming and then making sure they stay healthy from disease and might
you're gonna, be harvesting that excess
along the way like we ve, been talking about and again be feeding them that sugar water going to keep them happy.
And as you're doing this you're gonna be learning more and more about just sort of the shore.
And of all like like when you
They even lift the back of a box, you're gonna know
just by weight like how heavy with honey that's the thing is. You know you have to keep Poland stuff out and looking at it over and over this pretty impressive yell, these little short
but we need to talk about swarming, because that's a that's a big deal.
and something that seems like it could happen fairly easily. If you ever
healthy hive going on in there
losing a lot of brood, it's gonna become overcrowded, so you want to eat part of avoiding this is to keep your population and check, but if you doubt then they're going to swarm, which means,
half of your colony, and sometimes all of it is gonna, say, come on queen. Let's go! Let's leave this place. I don't like this apartment anymore, because this too crowded right, which is just aid, unavoidable natural process,
because if you think about it, what the bees are doing is reproducing and growing their population and then eventually, when things get crowded, they split into two and go
stable she colony or leave,
colony behind right. So you're you're artificially preventing that from happening by doing things like inspecting the the brood chamber for signs of
we cells like little queen larva that are being grown by the young by the workers, which means that their preparing this warm and start another call
yeah, that's what he's like a little peanut sort, a hanging off of urine comb and if you just go through and pick those off literally pig
get him out of there. Then the bees are like. Ok,
Yes, when I can raise another queen now, but there's other things you want to do,
like you, want to actually physically get rid of some of the brood too to control the population. Yours basically saying this idea about war,
we were no, when I can do that, we're going to make it so
You have more room by controlling the population year when you say
where the brood that doesn't mean take these frames out and burn them on the fire
You're gonna be involved, hopefully by this time with other local
people in the area that are doing this, you may go in to beekeeper meetings and getting hammered once a month on Mead
and you're going to trade with your friends, you going say: hey, let's I got
what's going on here, I'm afraid I'm going to get a storm happening. So here's some brood frames, if you can, if you can take them and people are going to be very grateful.
Yeah, because this kind of like getting a free, nuke, two sisters Supplement Europe. Europe,
Call Annie this maybe not doing so good, because there are two problems: one you're colony can be to healthy and then it's gonna score.
What you want to prevent or can be weak, which mean
play the can be overwhelmed by robber bees, nearby bees that come through and just steal a bunch of stuff in that basically kill off the weak colony so yeah. It is to supplement your numbers with a brood
that somebody doesn't want, because their populations starting to swarm there would be a very good thing to have. That's right.
One other thing about swarming chuck: that's how you make a bee beard, the dried you'd take a queen.
and you tired to your forehead and the bees, will come in
or a beard around your face, that's what they're doing with the BBC
pretty funny looking and they will get stuff
But the reason why they're not totally stunning is because, before they swarm the bees gorge themselves on honey for their traveling to go, establish the new colony and they're just following the queen, and so if the queen is tied to your forehead there just hanging out waiting to see what she's
totally are we need to talk about disease because it is, it is bad right now,
there's something called the varroa Mite, which is a parasitic pest and it is
very small came to the United States and lighting eighties and is the most common cause of bees.
Colony failure right now, because forty two percent of commercial behoves, almost half in spring of twenty seventeen were infected with varroa. It's a bad bad problem,
it is because they will lay their eggs. These might well lay their eggs on the larva or the people of the bees, and they will feed on the paper and neither killer.
before them. They will also attach themselves who Adobe's and suck their blood. They spread disease, it's a really bad jam, and so, as being a beekeeper, you have to keep an eye out for any kind of might infestation and entreated. Accordingly, that's like Bob basic part of beekeeping, but also something that's a little more advanced than anything. We could really go into now. It's just no.
Part of beekeeping is monitoring for diseases and pests and then treating them yeah. You don't want more than ten and their various ways that you can test. How many might do you have that once you get,
beekeeping, you're, gonna, learn all these little tricks, but
You don't want any more than ten minutes per two hundred bees right and
you have more than that. Then you are in trouble and when you look at a picture these things like
sitting on a b and feeding on it says you want. I like pride, offer their right and squash. It right then,
and foul brood, which we mentioned earlier, is another big problem in their. It got its name from the sulphurous smell that a brood, a brood frame we'll have when you pull it out, and once you have that your your whole colonies gone there garners in you need to burn your beer wooden where, by, as I saw dead fish out, because I saw sulphur announced equal to this man like farts her height for then I saw dead, fish was kind of what a lot of people said. It smells like any other
get that than them. I'm sorry, that's what a let down it is a lie down, especially if it happens. You know right around in a right before they really start producing honey right and that's where we find ourselves. Finally, you get today
Sweet sweet mellow gold, which is, which is what you do
this horror, not only to get the honey but obviously also do the right thing by encouraging bee populations but harvesting
money- is what everyone really in it for whether you're gonna sell it reduce, give it away to friends or just have some for your family. That is really the end game here.
so like when you do. When you go to to get the honey, and there is actually pretty clever
The thing you put on in between
brood chamber and the honey super that you're going to collect honey from that led to the bees out. But it's a produces amaze for them to try to get back in so
for twenty four to forty eight hours. All of these will clear out. You can take your honey super and all of the frames laden with honey and put them into an extract or which is definite
going to probably double the amount that you ve put into your beekeeping so far, but from everything I've seen is. If you're going to harvest honey, this is the way
do it? Did you see any videos on this year I mean you can get
mechanical. Motorized ones is like a centrifuge button. The ones I saw were mainly very homespun, distorted these hand, cranked versions, literally homespun yeah.
you, you uncap, and remove the wax and you'll see in these videos. They hold up the frames and has taken.
I like a hot knife, just sort of cut the wax away
the frame, and then you can literally see the honey there. If you dont have of an extract or you can just do it,
the old fashioned way and lay it down and just wait for the honey to flow, but you can also stick them down in the extractive, though, when I saw held about eight frames and you just crank that thing in it just slings, the honey out and filters- and I have to have certain size screens for for honey extraction, to filter out the wax bits and be legs in engineer things. You know my parts sure you wanna get that stuff out of their two yeah by then
the bottom is the catch where they ate. The you know between the they extract. Her in the screen is a reservoir in there's a spigot on the bottom, and he put it up on your countertop in pure honey, just flows right out of the bottom. It's pretty awesome, it's beautiful and the least delicious
The good thing about the extract, or too is all you doing- is carving off the top wax cap.
But you're leaving the the wax part of the chamber, the bulk of the wax intact. So the
How can we use it and they have to eat less honey to produce more wax for the next season? It's pretty great. It is pretty great that beekeeping, which is pretty great to agreed, gonna, think elsewhere. Now
and nothing else. I will talk about this more later. When we get into beekeeping. Is old man? Ok, sure, not that you have to be an old man to be in to be us, not at all what I mean
If you want to more about bee keeping going how stuff works and check out this awesome article by Dave, ruse and there's also tons of others suffer around internet help, you mean, since I said tons of other stuff on the internet. That means it's time for listener. Mail.
Call this something better jingle for theme, song, hey guys, been listening for about eight years,
never had a reason, a right in naked
Emil's from couples who sing your jingle back and forth to each other very cute. But my story is less cute. I just move into a new house and it turns out we have the exact amount of steps on our stairs for me to stop to your jingle. Yes, ever since I discovered this couple months ago, it's become virtually impossible for me to not stop your jingle on the stairs
Sometimes singing along to imagine a manning that is a couple of days ago. I was thirsty in the middle of the night and went downstairs for some water, cheered. Guess what happened next down, I go into my front door chipping a tooth. I was not guess
that that was going to happen, I wasn't gonna guess at either, but Jamie
sorry that happened seriously. Jamie's is from college and sorry if the worst of all your worms
right, but that was the email address, can ended like that.
like I wanted to be like in. I went to the dentist and the dentist having to turn out to be a long lost uncle, who put me in his will or something, but now it ended with the chipping of the tooth. That's it sorry, Jamie! That's all we can say
and, like many of my own stories,
If you aren't you again to genocide, Jamie did to let us know each of the two thirds
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