Beekeeping Today Podcast

In today's episode we talk with Ben Dictus, beekeeper for Bee Downtown. The good people in the Bee Downtown organization have taken bees and beekeeping to a new level of education, promotion and opportunity. They have combined beekeeping and leadership training, with business leaders and employees: Bee yards with corporate landscapes. Ben manages about 150 colonies in the Research Triangle area of North Carolina, working with the likes of corporations such as SAS, Delta Air, Burt's Bees, Blue Cross to establish colonies on their corporate grounds. The hives are not hidden behind an outbuilding or the 'back acreage', rather, these companies like to place them in prominent spots. Employees often help paint and prep the woodenware in structured work parties. Bee Downtown supplies the hives, installs safety barriers, manages the bees for them to maintain health and stability, and holds informal events like hive tours, honey harvesting events, hive decorating sessions and discussions. This has led to the development of the Bee Downtown Leadership Institute lead by retired Colonel Joe LeBoeuf, Professor Emeritus Duke University Fuqua School of Business. Using storytelling and other techniques, including biomimicry from their colonies, the BDT Leadership Institute team help attendees (re)establish team communication and trust, resulting in a workplace that's more efficient and effective. Listen today as Kim and Jeff talk with Ben about the bees he manages, Bee Downtown and how bee culture is taking corporate culture to the next level! Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: Bee Downtown - https://www.bee-downtown.com Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com ______________ Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong", Musicalman, "Epilogue" Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

On today's show, we chat with Kaylee Richardson, who runs the Farm on Quail Hollow and posts about her life as a modern-day homesteader @the_honeystead. She shares the nitty-gritty details of what it takes to produce most of your food from your own farm both in beautiful photos and via informative YouTube videos. She's grown her apiary substantially, building up from a couple of hives into a small, sideline business. Currently she's in the process of relocating her colonies from her garden to a separate spot, where their flightpath won't be obstructed by foot traffic. We had a chance to talk about what it takes to live the life she has embraced with her family, the ups and downs, the joys and the hardships. She's learning about herbalism, so she can incorporate more of the plants she grows and forages for on their farm in Virginia into her diet and the skincare products she produces. Join us, as we learn more about The Honeystead. Additional information: The Honeystead Website: http://www.thehoneystead.com Follow Kaylee's The Honeystead on YouTube: https://youtube.com/c/TheFarmOnQuailHollow Follow Kaylee on Instagram: https://www.instagram/the_honeystead.com Kim & Jim's Honey Bee Obscura Podcast: https://www.honeybeeobscura.com _______________________ Kirsten's interviews are brought to you by BetterBee. BetterBee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. How do they do this? Because many of their employees are also beekeepers, so they know the needs, challenges and answers to your beekeeping questions. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, BetterBee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com Thank you to Global Patties for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a new quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong", Musicalman, "Epilogue" Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

In this episode of Beekeeping Today Podcast, we reconnect with our beekeeping friends from Season 2, Episode 29. They come from across the country including Central North Carolina, North East Ohio, the western slope of the Rocky Mountains and the West Coast of Washington. We talk with them about last season, this winter and what they expect for next season. We start out in North Carolina with Mark Smith, who has had bees since 2014 and is running 20 – 30 treatment free colonies. His season last year had some real surprises and he was playing catch up most of the summer. He has some good plans for this spring though that should help out this season. Next, on to North East Ohio, with Tracy Alarcon, an Inspector in Portage County. The weather played tricks with his honey flow last summer and he made a boatload of honey he wasn't quite prepared for. Surprise! So, he's going to be prepared this year. Next, on to the western slope of Colorado with Ed Cobey, the Bottom Board author in Bee Culture magazine every month. Ed runs about 70 colonies and keeps them at low, medium and high altitudes, so has a very mixed season. He had excellent overwintering last year, but some drought got in the way of the honey crop. Finally, meet Paul Longwell, a 12-year beekeeper in Olympia Washington. Paul uses topbar, Langstroth and AZ Slovenian beehouse hives, and volunteers to treat neighboring hives to reduce mite pressure. Lots of rain means lots of honey, some years, and you have to be ready for that, and do things at the right time, and he's getting good at that. Four different regions. Four different beekeepers. Four different approaches to managing their bees through the seasons. Listen today and see how you compare and perhaps what you might do differently this year! Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: First Episode with the Regional Beekeepers (Season 2, Episode 29) - https://www.beekeepingtodaypodcast.com/regional-beekeeper-perspectives-east-midwest-and-mountain-states-s2-e29/ Mark Smith: Flatwoods Bee Farm on Instagram -flatwoodsbeefarm Flatwoods Bee Farm on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/flatwoodsbeefarm/ Flatwoods Bee Farm on YouTube - https://youtube.com/channel/UC0gbVzebQUscVKmmwGeYh2w Read Ed Colby in Bee Culture Magazine Western Apicultural Society Monthly Conference - https://westernapiculturalsociety.org/mini-conferences/ Honey Bee Obscura Podcast - https://www.honeybeeobscura.com ______________ Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong", Musicalman, "Epilogue" Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC

Marla Spivak is a honey bee researcher at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. Her work has covered a variety of subjects over the years including queen breeding and disease prevention and lately she has been working on the relationship of honey bees and propolis. Propolis is simply a mixture of resins honey bees collect from a variety of plants. These resins protect these plants from diseases and pests that would otherwise harm them. She first became interested when she read that some properties of propolis had a positive effect on human HIV disease. Then she attended a meeting where she learned how ants collect these resins to use in their nests and she was hooked or should we say, propolis stuck with her… to her… to, everything. Propolis has a definite antimicrobial effect on dangerous microbes in the hive and at the same time, manages to help maintain, even increase the positive microbiome in a honey bee's gut and even their mouth parts. It doesn't cure AFB or EFB, but is does help keep it in check in an infected colony. Propolis in a beehive moves the needle, researchers feel. It is the foundation for honey bee health. Find out even more by listening to Marla Spivak explain the joys of propolis. Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: University of Minnesota Bee Lab: https://www.beelab.umn.edu Research - Seasonal benefits of a natural propolis envelope to honey bee immunity and colony health: https://jeb.biologists.org/content/218/22/3689.long "Why Care About Propolis", Marla on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Xsj8mB4KKZs Marla's TedTalk on the Disappearance of Bees: https://youtu.be/dY7iATJVCso ______________ Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong", Musicalman, "Epilogue"

In this episode, we welcome back Colorado beekeeper, Tom Theobald. Tom had a small commercial operation in Colorado in the late 70's, running up to 200 or so colonies when he first started using two queen colonies. The biology of running two queens in a colony does make sense if you use the technique Tom perfected, but the better you get, the more lifting you are going to do. His finished production hives had three deeps for brood production and seven mediums for honey storage. At the time, an average to strong colony in his part of Colorado would make about 70 pounds of honey in a season, Tom's two queen colonies averaged between 240 and 270 pounds! The advantages, beside huge honey crops, were that these colonies started with last year's queen, and a new, second queen was added in early spring. When the season was over, the new queen almost always prevailed, thus starting the next season with a proven queen. Plus, with a foraging population as large as these colonies produced, there was a vast store house of pollen the next spring for that season's buildup. Two-queen honey production is becoming a lost art as it takes a lot of work, timing and an understanding of your area's nectar flows. However, the payoff is big! If you have bees in a location with lots of forage and not too much varroa or pesticide pressure, this approach may work for you. Tom and we would like to know if you or a beekeeper you know uses the two-queen approach. Let us know on our website! Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: Our First Season Interview with Tom about Neonicotinoids: https://beekeepingtodaypodcast.com/tom-theobold-the-problem-with-neonics Honey Bee Obscura Podcast with Kim & Jim: http://honeybeeobscura.com ______________ Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong", Musicalman, "Epilogue"

On this special Holiday Replay, we bring back one of our favorite episodes from the first season, when we invited Dr. Sam Ramsey to the podcast to talk about the Varroa Mite. Sam Ramsey is a life long entomologist. His interests in all things insects started in his youth along with his parent's encouragement and his siblings displeasure! He continued his studies in college (Cornell) and just recently completed his PhD this year at The University of Maryland under Dr. Dennis vanEngelsdorp. Dr. Ramsey made headlines earlier this year with the publication of his doctoral research on the feeding behaviors of the varroa destructor mite on the honey bee. In this episode of the podcast, we discuss with Dr. Ramsey why he studied what was thought to be a closed subject and proved that the varroa was not feeding primarily on the bee's blood, but rather a liver-like organ called the 'Fat Body'. This is a fascinating discussion that all beekeepers should listen to. There are many interesting facts, that run counter to popular press and education. Following are the links mentioned in this podcast: Dr. Ramsey's website: https://www.drsammy.online 3-Minute YouTube Video on the Varroa Mite findings: https://youtu.be/Fyfyj-2O47Q GoFundMe site for Dr. Ramsey's new research on the Tropilaelaps mite in Asia: https://www.gofundme.com/fundhoneybeeresearch Dr. Ramsey's ground breaking research on the varroa, published in January, 2019: https://www.pnas.org/content/116/5/1792 For fun and diverse thinking, Dr. Ramsey's 'jazzy' departure from American Idol: https://youtu.be/UWwuxlkm7_4 ______________ Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong", Musicalman, "Epilogue"

On today's episode, we talk with Newfoundland beekeeper, Peter Armitage and Dr. David Peck, a Professor from Cornell University, David Peck. Those of us south of the Canadian border tend to mispronounce the name of that big Island off the east coast of Quebec and just north of Prince Edward Island. We tend to slur it, saying 'Newfundlund' instead. But that is wrong. How do you say it right? "Understand New Found Land". Onomatopoeia to the rescue! (One of the cohost's still can't get it right…) The good people who live on Newfoundland Island have managed to keep this rather inhospitable island completely free of Varroa mites. Not one mite. And Newfoundlanders are determined to keep it that way, using their Varroa Action Plan. There's only one way to get to Newfoundland and that's by boat, so they have some control on what gets onto their island. But they are in no way taking any chances. They have established the Plan to keep varroa off the island, educate the beekeepers all about varroa, and continuously monitor colonies for any accidental, or even illegal, incursion. Learn about the Newfoundland Varroa Action Plan and more on this informative episode! Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: Newfoundland Varroa Action Plan - https://www.nlbeekeeping.com/varroa-action-plan Research paper detailing how varroa will transfer from flower to bee - https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0167798 YouTube video of a mite vaulting onto a bee from a flower petal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oij1HOxD3iU ______________ Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong", Musicalman, "Epilogue" v2

QSI–America is a Germany based company that is in the business of testing honey for anything. Their US lab in Corona, California is led by Tobias Wiezorek, and employs about 35 scientists looking at the biochemical, microbiology, chemical and pollen aspects of the honey and wax samples. They can perform many tests, including moisture content, the presence of antibiotics or pesticides, the HMF content to determine if the sample has been overheated, sugar ratios to tell if it's a blend, pure or something else, they can identify the pollens found in a sample to identify the source and/or country of origin, presence of GMOs, and heavy metals. The sophistication of these tests continues to grow as the people who are in the business of adulterating honey also get more sophisticated. Honey is a good indicator the quality of the environment the bees who make the sample have to live in. QSI-America's testing is indicating almost every sample has some level of glyphosate in it (and there is no level of that chemical that is allowed), and it turns out, pretty much across the board, urban honeys are cleaner than those from the farm. Testing isn't just for the largest beekeeper. Anyone can send in a sample. It takes 5 days and when done, you can claim to have the best honey around and provide the documentation to prove it! Listen to this informative episode today! Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: QSI-America - https://www.qsi-america.com News Story about the Destroyed Green River College Apiary - https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/bear-destroys-beehives-used-research-local-college/HZM6SBDC5VELHFX6NVPYCA65RM/ Green River College Bee Yard Assistance - https://www.gofundme.com/f/bees-in-the-039burbs-apiary-repair ______________ Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong", Musicalman, "Epilogue"

In this week's episode, guest host Kirsten Traynor speaks with Emily Bondor of the Santa Cruz Bee Co about how she manages her colonies and those of other beekeepers without chemical intervention. Emily discuss the types of losses beekeepers should expect when foregoing varroa treatments, how to be an ethical treatment-free beekeeper, so that your sick colonies don't impact hives in the vicinity, and how her attitude toward treatments has evolved, because she also manages other people's investment in bees. Tune in for this in-depth discussion about the pros and cons about stopping varroa treatments of your bees. Also, just in time for the Holidays, Kim reviews a new book about bees, written for children, "H Is For Honey Bee" by Robyn Smith van Frankenhuyzen and illustrated by Eileen Ryan Ewen. Additional information: Santa Cruze Bee Company - http://santacruzbeecompany.com H is for Honey Bee on Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/H-Honey-Bee-Beekeeping-Alphabet/dp/1534110704/ _______________________ Kirsten's interviews are brought to you by BetterBee. BetterBee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. How do they do this? Because many of their employees are also beekeepers, so they know the needs, challenges and answers to your beekeeping questions. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, BetterBee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com Thank you to Global Patties for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a new quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong", Musicalman, "Epilogue"

Starting several years ago, Steve Donohoe wanted to find out more about beekeepers and how they kept bees. His travels took him to California, where he talked to Randy Oliver and Ray Olivarez, to Vermont to talk to Mike Palmer, then back the UK to talk to Murry McGregor in Scotland and Peter Little, who used to work with Brother Adam, then on to a New Zealand honey packer and finally to France to visit that country's largest queen breeder. These people were sort of his heroes, successful at their occupation and fairly well known in the beekeeping world. What he wanted to know was, what does it take to get to their respective positions, what do they have in common, and what don't they have in common. He explored the biggest challenges they faced as a group, and as individuals. It took several years to analyze the data collected, recount the interviews and gather the collective wisdom these beekeepers shared with him. He gathered this all and his book is now available so you don't have to travel the globe to gather the information yourself. Steve spent some time with us recently unwinding the tangle of his travels and finding the best in what he has learned. You will be glad you read this book and even better, glad you sat back and listened to this episode: Interviews with Beekeepers. Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: The Walrus and the Honey Bee - https://thewalrusandthehoneybee.com Business With Bees - https://www.amazon.com/Business-Bees-Honeybee-Including-Pollination/dp/1631594591 ______________ Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong", Musicalman, "Epilogue"

Protecting pollinators and improving the habitat for honey bees often entails planting nectar and pollen rich plants. In this episode, Kirsten talks with Calvin Ernst, founder of Ernst Seeds, who has been deeply involved with growing native plants for over 50 years. Learn how providing seeds for erosion control to the Department of Transportation helped him start his company and how he transitioned the company's focus to natives over time. He provides solid advice on preparing the ground prior to planting for pollinators. Learn more about this family run business and how it provides for pollinators in this week's show. Also in this episode, Kim reviews The Art of the Bee: Shaping the Environment from Landscapes to Societies by Dr. Robert Page. Additional information: Ernst Seeds - https://www.ernstseed.com Ernst Planting Guides - https://www.ernstseed.com/resources/ Beekeeping Today Podcast Episode with Randi and Lindsey of Ernst Pollinator Service - https://beekeepingtodaypodcast.com/large-scale-planting-large-scale-pollinator-habitats-with-lindsey-white-and-randi-grout-s2-e12 Ernst Pollinator Service - https://www.ernstpollinatorservice.com Bee Culture's "Catch The Buzz" on Honey Bee Vaccines - https://www.beeculture.com/catch-the-buzz-honey-bee-vaccine/ The Art of the Bee on Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/dp/0197504140 _______________________ Kirsten's interviews are brought to you by BetterBee. BetterBee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. How do they do this? Because many of their employees are also beekeepers, so they know the needs, challenges and answers to your beekeeping questions. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, BetterBee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com Thank you to Global Patties for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a new quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong", Musicalman, "Epilogue"

In this episode, Master Beekeeper, Katharina Davitt reveals the nutritional benefits honey bees derive from bananas. Yes, you read that correctly, bananas! We all know that bananas are good for people. They are full of carbs, minerals, vitamins, are good for digestion and just taste good. But the one thing all beekeepers learn when they start out is that when bees are threatened, they release alarm pheromone and that smells like bananas. So up to now, wise beekeepers didn't bring bananas to the bee yard. But it turns out feeding bananas to honey bees is actually a good way to get good food into a hive. Really. Katharina Davitt tell us why and how. Her University of Montana Master Beekeeper research project explored the nutritional requirements of honey bees and the properties of bananas. Katharina shares data behind this! The conclusions reached from this study found that colonies cannot live on bananas alone, but bananas will help in the spring, during a summer dearth and in the fall. But who would have thought – bananas for bees?! Before the talk with Katharina, Kirsten, Kim and Jeff discuss the ongoing debate pitting the honey bee against native bees and pollinators. Why the debate? What's the issue and what's the real problem? Kim, Kirsten and Kim explore it all. Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: Klamath Bees - https://www.klamathbees.com Davitt Apiaries - http://davitt.com Cavendish Bananas and their Nutritional Benefit to Honey Bees - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1j3TdyD1Nb7FTBECcuBoRwSzh6Y_CfAnT/view?usp=drivesdk Cavendish Bananas Increase Brood Rearing in Apis Mellifera - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1p1fK3BxWjpq98sIHuXSe3XU7nGCteg1h/view?usp=drivesdk Kirsten's referenced Gordian knot paper - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S016953472030207X Historical reference to beekeepers advocating for environmental protection - https://academic.oup.com/envhis/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/envhis/emaa059/5921133 ______________ Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong", Musicalman, "Epilogue"

This autumn wildfires cut through large swaths of Oregon, destroying towns, homes and habitat. In this episode, Kirsten talks with Sharon Schmidt, founder of Cascade Girl Apiary, who lost her home and apiary in Phoenix, Oregon. Sharon was visiting a friend when the fires roared into her town. The police would not let her return to her property. She expected the fires to be brought under control, but as she watched from the ridge line, her town went up in flames. Talent and Phoenix, Oregon were both early members of the Bee City USA program, changing their towns into bee havens. Luckily one of her out apiaries at a local fire station survived. Tune in to listen to this heart-wrenching story of loss and community. Our good wishes go out to all those impacted by fires. Additional information: Cascade Girl Organization: https://www.cascadegirl.org _______________________ Kirsten's interviews are brought to you by BetterBee. BetterBee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. How do they do this? Because many of their employees are also beekeepers, so they know the needs, challenges and answers to your beekeeping questions. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, BetterBee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com Thank you to Global Patties for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a new quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong", Musicalman, "Epilogue"

Dave Doroghy works in the worlds of advertising and sports marketing and lives on a house boat on the Frasier River in southern British Columbia near Vancouver. His discovery of beekeeping wasn't the common story of being swept off his feet with this new found passion. No, his interest was primarily financial. Show me the Money was a part of his professional sports life, so 'show me the honey' became a part of his beekeeping life. His story is familiar to many new beekeepers. He makes just about every mistake that can be made with a hive full of bees and his journey is both educational for him, and entertaining for the readers of his book. What he did wrong and what he did to fix it are lessons all of us need to examine, explore and learn from. Dave joins Beekeeping Today Podcast on this episode to talk about his beekeeping experiences and his book (reviewed in both Bee Culture magazine and The New York Times). Listen today! Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: Dave's Website: www.houseboathoney.com Show Me The Honey on Amazon:Show Me The Honey Bee Hive to Beekeeper: https://www.bee-craft.com/shop/books/bee-hive-to-beekeeper Updates on Developments with the Asian Giant Hornet in Washington State: https://agr.wa.gov/hornets ______________ Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong", Musicalman, "Epilogue"

In this episode, Kirsten sits down with Matthew Pettersson of Madhu Honey, who fell into beekeeping after a chance encounter with a giant jar of honey in a New York City apartment. Fascinated by honey bees and the golden honey they create, he ended up working for a commercial organic beekeeper in Germany, who runs four to six thousand colonies – much larger than one typically thinks about organic beekeeping, envisioning small bucolic apiaries with a beekeeper very much in-tune with their bees. Hooked, he didn't want to stop over the winter and so headed to New Zealand in the southern hemisphere to keep working bees. One of his beekeeping buddies offered him four barrels of Manuka honey to sell in Europe. Because he had left a job in logistics, he knew all about imports and exports. And so, he founded Madhu Honey, importing high quality manuka honey to the EU market—a business born from the successful sale of his first imported pallet, sold before it even arrived in the harbor. Madhu Honey will be available in the USA the winter of 2020-2021. Additional information: Contact Matthew directly at: [email protected]. Madhu Honey: https://madhuhoney.com Unique Manuka Factor Honey Assn: https://www.umf.org.nz Comparison Between MGO and UMF Manuka Scales: https://www.manukahoneyorganic.com/what-is-umf/ Asian Giant Honey Updates in Washington State: https://agr.wa.gov/hornets _______________________ Kirsten's interviews are brought to you by BetterBee. BetterBee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. How do they do this? Because many of their employees are also beekeepers, so they know the needs, challenges and answers to your beekeeping questions. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, BetterBee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com Thank you to Global Patties for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a new quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong", Musicalman, "Epilogue"

Marina Marchese is the President of the American Honey Tasting Society. She refined her learning and teaching skills in Italy and Raffaele Dall'Olio was one of her teachers. Today we discuss with them all of the aspects of honey tasting – the basics of how to taste a honey, using your tongue, your nose, your eyes. Learn the vocabulary to describe, and then to remember the flavors, the taste and aromas of all of the many varieties of honey available. Marina's American Honey Tasting Society offers honey tasting classes, similar to the three years of classes she took in Italy. What will you learn? To start, the difference between taste and flavor. Then you'll learn the adjectives to describe what you are tasting. You will taste without smelling, and smell without tasting, and you will learn the actual techniques of how best to smell, and then savor a honey. Check out The American Honey Tasting Society, and Marina's and Kim's book on this fascinating subject "The Honey Connoisseur'. Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: American Honey Tasting Society: https://www.americanhoneytastingsociety.com Washington State Department of Agriculture, Asian Giant Hornet information: https://agr.wa.gov/hornets ______________ Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong", Musicalman, "Epilogue"

In this week's episode, guest cohost, Kirsten Traynor, editor of 2 Million Blossoms, talks with Michael Smith, Ph.D. Michael grew up in Panama, then went to boarding school in Wales, where he chanced upon a beekeeper with honey in a hallway. Together the two ended up launching a bee club that just celebrated its 15th anniversary. After being a gofer for a bee lab at a women's university, Smith convinced Tom Seeley to take him on as a graduate student. At Cornell, he investigated what triggers drone comb building plus ran a side project on who steals from a honey stand. He's currently in Konstanz, Germany as a postdoc, but returning to the US this fall to start his own bee research lab at Auburn, Alabama. The discussion is a rollercoaster ride filled with quirky humor, serious bee science and his work with the BEESBOOK tracking system. Additional information: Michael's Lab Website (The Smith Bee Lab at Auburn): https://smithbeelab.com Follow Michael on Twitter: @SmithBeeLab _______________________ Kirsten's interviews are brought to you by BetterBee. BetterBee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. How do they do this? Because many of their employees are also beekeepers, so they know the needs, challenges and answers to your beekeeping questions. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, BetterBee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com Thank you to Global Patties for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a new quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong", Musicalman, "Epilogue"

In this episode, we invited Dr. Brittney Goodrich to discuss what her research has found in almond pollination contracts. Brittney is a Cooperative Extension Specialist at the University of California, Davis. She is an Agricultural Economist and one of her favorite topics to research are the contracts between beekeepers and growers for pollination services. She is sitting in the middle of the biggest pollination contract industry in the world: Almond Pollination. She did a survey of almond growers to find out what they think about pollination contracts. She looked at colony strength, number of colonies per acre, and number of frames per acre and cost. She asked about actual contracts, both formal and informal even including just a handshake and what happens when a beekeeper can't fulfill a contract. She also looked at the expanding role of pollination brokers, and beekeepers acting as brokers and the shared risk each of these three players have in this business. Almonds growers continue to expand their acres, but they are using essentially all of the commercial honey bee colonies in the US right now. What happens when another 10,000 acres or more come on line in the next few years and what role do pesticide applications play in all this? And what pesticides are OK and which ones aren't? And what happens if colony health issues don't go away? Can growers pay a little more so beekeepers can afford to keep colonies healthy? Can some of the risk be divided so everybody does better? Brittney Goodrich explores all of these issues, and more. Listen in and learn. __________________________ Brittney provides Beekeeping Today Podcast listeners these points to include in a pollination agreement, whether written or verbal. Specific contact information for grower or owner, and beekeeper, or broker Crop and specific location Number of colonies needed Payment per colony based on agreed upon maximum and minimum strengths Payment schedule, e.g. half on delivery, half when removed, other terms Minimum strength and health of colonies that will be paid for and frames of bees, brood, queen, food Minimum average frame count Average strength to be paid for Bonus for colonies exceeding average strength, per frame Evaluation/inspection procedure and payment for services Colony strength enforcement mechanisms Delivery notification agreement, or per cent bloom, or specific date Colony density per acre Delivery access – gates, irrigation pipes, flooding, roads, assistance from grower Removal date, per cent bloom, advance notice Liability while on location for bees and equipment, injury of crew or non-crew individuals Access during bloom for maintenance, advance notice, time of day or night Location and colony count/drop minimum and maximum Pesticide application warning and procedure Compensation for pesticide damage applies by grower/owner Additional fees for additional moves Continuous water access Contract cancellation or transfer Acts of God Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: Brittney's personal website: http://www.brittneygoodrich.com/ Contract Resources: https://www.choicesmagazine.org/choices-magazine/theme-articles/pollination-service-markets-evolution-and-outlook/contracting-for-pollination-services-overview-and-emerging-issues ______________ Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong", Musicalman, "Epilogue"

If you're interested in starting a honey festival in your city, you have to speak with Steve Rogenstein who founded the Ambeesadors. A former event manager, he fell in love with bees and has used his unique skills to organize honey festivals in both New York City and Barcelona. Currently he lives in Berlin, Germany. Steve is also involved with the COLOSS Survivor Taskforce, coordinating the citizen science project Honey Bee Watch. This project seeks to connect beekeepers, bee enthusiasts and scientists in identifying feral and wild honey bee colonies to help preserve their genetics and learn more about their survival traits. In this episode of Beekeeping Today Podcast, Steve sat down with guest host Kirsten Traynor to talk about unique honey profiles, the hoarding tendency of honey lovers, and what it takes to organize a giant citizen science project. Listen today! Additional information: The Ambeessadors - https://www.ambeessadors.com The Honey Bee Watch - https://www.honeybeewatch.com The College of Melissae - https://www.collegeofthemelissae.com Learning From The Bees, Berlin - https://www.learningfromthebeesberlin.com BCN Honey Festival - https://www.bcnhoneyfest.com NYC Honey Week - http://nychoneyweek.org North American Pollinator Protection Campaign (NAPPC) - https://www.pollinator.org/nappc 4th International Bee and Hive Monitoring Conference - https://colonymonitoring.com/events/ _______________________ Kirsten's interviews are brought to you by BetterBee. BetterBee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. How do they do this? Because many of their employees are also beekeepers, so they know the needs, challenges and answers to your beekeeping questions. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, BetterBee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com Thank you to Global Patties for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a new quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong", Musicalman, "Epilogue"

Dr. Dewey M. Caron's latest book, The Complete Bee Handbook is quite the book. Not a scientific text, not a how-to beekeeping book, but one that's meant for all those folks who think they might want to keep bees, but don't know what's involved. Plus it includes sections on honey recipes, making candles, mead and honey beer, gardening for all bees, bee biology in just the right amount. Beautiful art highlights each chapter, with each chapter given an overview and summary. It is truly delightful. But wait: There's more. Dewey is very involved in working with the Honey Bee Health Coalition. The Coalition is looking at all beekeeping problems from very different perspectives and solving many of them because of this approach. Dewey is also involved in the BeeMD website with the Univ. of Florida, adding references and greater depth to each solution. It's going to be a phone app pretty soon, so you can solve problems while still in the field. Very, very useful. Listen in today and find out about his new book and the problems he is solving. Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: The Complete Bee Handbook on Amazon: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/1646119878/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_wIKzFbT1CXBXX The BeeMD: http://www.thebeemd.com 4th International Bee and Hive Monitoring Zoom Conference, October 5 – 9. Registration: https://colonymonitoring.com/events/ ______________ Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong", Musicalman, "Epilogue"

The Bee Audacious conference brought together beekeeping luminaries like Mark Winston, Marla Spivak, Tom Seeley and many others. The event was created and organized by Bonnie Morse, who recently sat down to chat with guest host Kirsten Traynor. In today's episode they talk how Winston's editorial in Bee Culture encouraged audacious thinking about bee health inspired the event. It was an unusual conference focused on dialogue instead of talks, bringing together bright minds to try and find creative solutions to pressing issues in the bee industry. And what has she been up to since that first conference in 2016? Based in California, she's been working closely with fire safety officials to ensure that fire prevention policies don't obliterate important nectar and pollen sources. With her husband Gary, she runs Bonnie Bee & Company, helping others learn to keep bees successfully in their climatically diverse region near San Francisco. Listen today to learn more about this high-energy beekeeper, who is helping to shape pollinator friendly policy in California. Additional information: Bee Audacious: http://beeaudacious.com Bonnie Bee & Company: http://bonniebeecompany.com Ten by Ten Plus Ten: http://www.tenbytenplusten.com/about _______________________ Kirsten's interviews are brought to you by BetterBee. BetterBee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. How do they do this? Because many of their employees are also beekeepers, so they know the needs, challenges and answers to your beekeeping questions. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, BetterBee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com Thank you to Global Patties for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a new quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong", Musicalman, "Epilogue"

In today's episode we talk to Britteny Kyle, DVM, President of the Honey Bee Veterinary Consortium (HBVC) and Alexzandra (Allie) Mosel, DVM, who is the President Elect. Both are beekeepers and small animal veterinarians interested in getting more vets trained and interested in bees and beekeeping. Recall that as of January 2017, if a beekeeper needs to administer antibiotics to their honey bees, they are required to have a prescription or feed directive from a licensed veterinarian. The HBVC is made up of students and professionals from all segments of veterinary medicine and animal science who care about bees and beekeeping. The mission of the HBVC is to provide continuing education to veterinarians about honey bees and to provide a resource for beekeepers to locate a veterinarian who is willing to work with honey bees. Right now, there are fewer than 100 vets who can or will work with beekeepers in the US, but there are over 340 who are working to get on this team. We'll talk about how this is working now and what goals the group hopes to accomplish. We discuss the tools vets have to learn about bees and what do beekeepers need to do to make this work for them. Listen today! Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: The Honey Bee Veterinary Consortium: https://hbvc.org The BeeMD: http://www.thebeemd.com 4th International Bee and Hive Monitoring Zoom Conference, October 5 – 9. Registration: https://colonymonitoring.com/events/ ______________ Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong", Musicalman, "Epilogue"

In today's episode we talk with Sarah Weiner, the Executive Director of the Good Food Awards Foundation and Mark Carlson, the Committee Co-Chair of the Honey Category. Sarah brings a global perspective to her position having worked with Slow Foods International in Italy and the US, produced the Organic Food Festival in the UK, and has co-founded seedling projects. In his spare time, Mark is a California State Beekeepers Association Master Beekeeper and a Chemist at Micro-Tracers, Inc. They both sat down with us recently to talk about the Good Food Awards Foundation and what it takes to gain recognition as one of the best honeys in the contest. You can enter honey in the liquid or naturally crystalized category, comb, or creamed categories. Good Food Awards divides the USA into five regions with winners from each region, recognizing the wide variety of honey across the US. Find out what you need to know and how to become one of the Best Honey Ever winners with us this time. You'll be glad you came along for the sweetest, best tasting podcast you've ever heard. Links and websites mentioned in this podcast: Good Food Awards Foundation: https://goodfoodfdn.org Honey at the GFA: https://goodfoodfdn.org/awards/categories/honey/ 4th International Bee and Hive Monitoring Zoom Conference, October 5 – 9. Registration: https://colonymonitoring.com/events/ ______________ Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about heir line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong", Musicalman, "Epilogue"

In this episode, Kirsten Traynor meets up with Dr. Rachael Bonoan, a bee biologist and ecologist. Bees have some unusual and quirky behaviors. They discuss bumble bee high fives, why honey bees like stinky, dirty water, and how our pollinators may be seeking out unusual food sources to gain important minerals. Rachael tells us about doing science in Costa Rica, where she looked into the foraging habits of vulture bees that turn carrion into slurpy meat soup. To her astonishment, some bees that normally collect pollen also loaded up bits of meat into their pollen carrying corbicula, wearing little packets of shredded chicken. Rachael has spent the last two summers searching for the rare Puget butterfly in the Pacific Northwest. She and her team were hoping to locate the caterpillar in the wild so they could document its feeding habits and interactions with ants. But despite roaming the prairie landscape with up to nine people, they found only a handful—definitely not enough to say anything conclusive. She's just taken a new job as an assistant professor at Providence College in Rhode Island, where she will once again be studying honey bees—her favorite pollinator as they both stay busy, work tirelessly and fuel their adventures with sweets. Listen to the discussion today! Additional information: Rachael's personal website: https://www.rachaelebonoan.com/ Rachael's TedX talk: https://youtu.be/KsA8V-yooFA Dress Like A Scientist Day website: https://dresslikeascientistday.com/ ______________ Kirsten's interviews are brought to you by BetterBee. BetterBee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. How do they do this? Because many of their employees are also beekeepers, so they know the needs, challenges and answers to your beekeeping questions. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, BetterBee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a new quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong"

Strong Microbials got their start producing probiotics to improve the health of cattle, dairy cows, poultry and swine. Their products improved animal food digestion resulting in overall animal health. In 2012 they became interested in doing the same thing for honey bees. In this episode, we talk with Vera and Slava about their probiotic use to aid honey bee health and well-being. Multiple bacteria are present in all nectars, pollens, propolis and the environment. Honey bees need these bacteria to aid not only in digestion, but also to improve immune response and combating stressors detrimental to their health. Strong Microbials' product, Super DFM-Honey Bee, is a probiotic of naturally occurring bacteria. The probiotic aids in restoring the natural gut biome of bees challenged by unbalanced food sources from monoculture crops, holding yards, drought, food shortages, antibiotics, pesticides and several pathogens, including chalkbrood. Listen today and learn more from the producers of Super DFM-Honey Bee and Strong Microbials. Websites and links mentioned in the podcast: Strong Microbials Website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com/ Strong Microbials Science Blog: https://beesciencenews.com/ Strong Microbials on Twitter: @strongmicrobial Strong Microbials on Instagram: strongmicrobials Bee Space to Bee Hive - Kim's Book Review: https://www.bee-craft.com/shop/books/bee-space-to-bee-hive ______________ This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a new quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong"

In this episode, Kirsten chats with commercial beekeeper Simeon Valkenburg, who runs a commercial operation with his brother in Australia. He talks about building up their commercial operation from scratch. They started with one hive and are now up to about 1,000 hives in south east Australia. The season kicks off with almond pollination. Yes, that's right—Australian almonds which bloom in August. They then move colonies into crops like canola or beans or move into areas flush with a low desert eucalypt, which under the right weather conditions can produce a huge honey harvest. In their summer they chase after pollen, not for trapping, but simply for building up the bees or running from bushfires. The conversation ranges widely, discussing everything from ornery beekeepers with deep political connections to conducting successful field days and the trade war with New Zealand over the name 'manuka'. Tune in to learn more about keeping bees downunder. UPDATED - Aug. 14 The report Simeon referenced in his talk with Kirsten is by Oregon beekeeper, Katharina Davitt: "Cavendish Bananas and their Nutritional Benefit to Honey Bees" The report's author has the same information in a PowerPoint .pdf here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FrVf6_sIujaID-txJiUI33hlVV_pklpg/view?usp=drivesdk ______________ Kirsten's interviews are brought to you by BetterBee. BetterBee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. How do they do this? Because many of their employees are also beekeepers, so they know the needs, challenges and answers to your beekeeping questions. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, BetterBee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a new quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong"

Dr. Jay Evans is the Research Leader at the USDA Honey Bee Research Lab in Beltsville Maryland. He and the resident scientists there are involved in many projects, including mite studies, nutrition supplements for bees, queen health and nutrition. Plus, even in middle of this pandemic, they have realized the need for continuing the AFB Diagnostic Center so beekeepers can handle this disease before it gets out of hand in their apiaries. There's more to Jay than his regular research. He has been writing a column for our sponsor Bee Culture magazine for several years and has gathered together a books-worth of these that he has called Bee Optimism, published by IBRA. It is a welcome addition to our honey bee literature because of his easy to understand style, vast experience and willingness to gather information from a great variety of sources. His chapters include the challenges that bees, and beekeepers face, a lot about honey, both good and bad, he examines the value of propolis to honey bees, looks at issues with queens, and spends a fair amount of time looking at the effects of climate change, and advances in overwintering science. And of course, the final chapter focuses on why he is optimistic about the future of bees, beekeepers and beekeeping. Websites and links mentioned in the podcast: USDA-ARS Bee Research Laboratory, Beltsville MD: https://www.ars.usda.gov/northeast-area/beltsville-md-barc/beltsville-agricultural-research-center/bee-research-laboratory/ Bee Optimism: Translational Research Can Rescue Honey Bees and Other Pollinators (IBRA): https://ibra.org.uk/product/bee-optimism-softback Bee Optimism: Translational Research Can Rescue Honey Bees and Other Pollinators (Northern Bee Books): https://www.northernbeebooks.co.uk/products/bee-optimism-evans/ International Bee Research Assn: https://ibra.org.uk ______________ This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a new quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong"

This week, guest co-host Kirsten Traynor joins us with Madeleine Ostwald. Madeleine studies bees, having worked with both honey bees and carpenter bees. When days get hot, we seek out ways to cool off with water. Beekeepers (and sometimes their neighbors) know that honey bees do the same. As an undergraduate student in Tom Seeley's lab, Madeleine turned up the heat on a honey bee hive to find out just how they do this. Madeleine observed some bees adapt to heat stress by acting like water storage containers, always ready to chill things down when days get hot. Madeleine now investigates desert carpenter bees in Arizona. Wood is a precious resource in these barren lands, so carpenter bees end up sharing a home. To learn how these large bees shape, modify, and change their nest structures over time, she enlisted the help of a local hospital and their CT-scanner. Also in today's episode, Kim reviews the new book by Jay Evans, USDA Bee Research Leader at Beltsville, and regular columnist for Bee Culture magazine. Lots to learn, lots to hear. Hit the play button now! Links and websites mentioned in this episode: Maddie's paper, "The behavioral regulation of thirst, water collection and water storage in honey bee colonies" Maddie's carpenter bee video showing the CAT scan results: https://youtu.be/H0Xt2oMwGgU ______________ Kirsten's interviews are brought to you by BetterBee. BetterBee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. How do they do this? Because many of their employees are also beekeepers, so they know the needs, challenges and answers to your beekeeping questions. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, BetterBee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a new quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong"

Dr. Sam Ramsey joins us again to share what he has found from his most recent work on Tropilaelaps mites in Thailand. He has been looking at the history of this mite's movement around the world, the biology and its life cycle. Just as important he is exploring the differences and the similarities of the Tropilaelaps to the Varroa mite. His work points out why this pest is so very difficult to control with chemicals, why it is so genetically diverse, what helps it adapt quickly to new control tactics and why populations build so fast in the colonies it infests. His work was interrupted by the spread of Covid-19 around the world and he had to return home this spring. We were able to catch up with Sammy while he is back in Maryland, exploring the possibility of making honey bee larvae produce fat bodies without the necessary proteins that varroa need to develop. Meanwhile, he is looking forward to going back to Thailand and picking up where he dropped off. Listen today and you will understand why the Tropilaelaps is a far greater threat than the varroa ever has been. You can listen to Sammy's talk with us about the varroa mite and the honey bee fat body during our Season 1 visit with him by clicking here. ______________ This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a new quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong"

This week, guest co-host Kirsten Traynor chats with Adam Ingrao, Ph.D, founder of Heroes to Hive. Heroes To Hives is a veterans training program he started five years ago. They train veterans, especially those suffering from PTSD, how to manage honey bee hives and get started in beekeeping. Over 500 vets and family members are enrolled in this free program this year, making it one of the largest vet training programs in the US. Kirsten also talks with Adam about his own struggles with opioids, how honey bees helped him regain purpose. He then describes how he got the program off the ground, the organization's goals and the tremendous success the program has had getting veterans focused on a project that has a multitude of rewards. Why does beekeeping appeal to vets? Often vets have their minds filled with memories and have trouble focusing, are looking for a mission again and can contact other vets who have a shared interest in nurturing something living that's also a tad dangerous. Heroes to Hives is based out of Michigan State University, where Adam collaborates closely with extension agent Dr. Megan Milbrath. Listen in to find out more, and check out the web pages listed below. Bees are the perfect gateway bug, opening up a greater appreciation for nature, which is just one of the interesting impacts of the Heroes to Hives program. Links and websites mentioned in this episode: Heroes to Hives - https://www.canr.msu.edu/veterans/ ______________ Kirsten's interviews are brought to you by BetterBee. BetterBee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. How do they do this? Because many of their employees are also beekeepers, so they know the needs, challenges and answers to your beekeeping questions. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, BetterBee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a new quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong"

In this episode, we talk with James Wilkes and Joseph Cazier from Appalachian State University, who spearheaded the World Bee Count program just completed this spring. Bee Count is an annual event that aims to identify pollinators around the world and also measure pollinator health, dispersion and biodiversity. James is a Professor in Computer Science at ASU and founder and manager of HiveTracks, the Bee Hive data collection and analysis program. Joseph, a frequent contributor to Bee Culture magazine, writing on bee hive data collection and analysis, is Director of the Center for Analytics Research and Education. Together, cooperating with a whole crew of beekeepers, scientists and others, these professors are gradually working toward perfecting the Genius Hive. The World Bee Count is just one component of their data collection analyses for this project. Relatedly, the team is working on a standardization for all data collection programs. A standardization will allow researchers, beekeepers or suppliers to talk to and learn from each other. Learn more by listening today! Websites and links mentioned in the podcast: World Bee Count: https://beescount.org World Bee Count at ASU: https://care.appstate.edu/world-bee-count Hive Tracks: https://hivetracks.com Genius Hive: https://www.beeculture.com/peering-into-the-future-a-path-to-the-genius-hive/ ______________ This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a new quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong"

As part of the pollinator week special, guest host Kirsten Traynor chats with Dr. Dave Goulson, an expert on pollinator health from the University of Sussex. Dave Goulson has been fascinated with insects since he was a boy and was able to turn this love of all things that fly, creep and crawl into a career. One of the bumble bees from his childhood became extinct in the 1980s, so he and his research team tried to reintroduce it to the UK, first from New Zealand and then from Sweden. Although they released countless queens over multiple years, it did not reestablish. However, the new habitat they created to help it thrive has been a boon for many other rare bumble bees. We also chat about his efforts to restore the farmland around his summer home in France to a wildflower rich meadow and the insect diversity that has returned to this nectar rich habitat. And if he had to pick a pollinator avatar, Dave would be a hairy footed flower bee—Anthophora plumipes—even though he doesn't have hairy feet. Links and websites mentioned in this episode: David's YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbnBys2Hl1T26dzO_nbgbiw Goulson Lab, University of Sussex: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/lifesci/goulsonlab/index The Pollinators Movie: https://www.thepollinators.net ______________ Pollinator Week episodes are brought to you by BetterBee. BetterBee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. How do they do this? Because many of their employees are also beekeepers, so they know the needs, challenges and answers to your beekeeping questions. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, BetterBee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a new quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong"

Bee Friendly Farming has a good friend in Ron Bitner, Co-Chair of this Pollinator Partnership program. Ron runs Bitner Winery near Boise Idaho in Treasure Valley and for 40 some years was involved in non-apis bee management for pollination. Bee Friendly Farming has between 800 – 900 Bee Friendly Farmers, who practice reducing chemical use and use a whole row of holistic farming practices that improves the health of their soil and provides forage for bees. Ron's goal is to double or even triple the number of BFFs so there's even more out there for bees and pollinators. BFF are more or less self-regulated, but do have to report chemical use, acres covered, and the cover crops used to meet Bee Friendly Farming certification. Their newest adventure is working with almond growers to take advantage of the bare ground in orchards with a program called Qcify. Tune in and find out why Bee Friendly Farming is the only way to go. Links and websites mentioned in this episode: P2 Bee Friendly Farming: https://www.pollinator.org/bff P2 Qcify Program: https://www.pollinator.org/bff/qcify Bitner Vineyards: https://www.bitnervineyards.com The Pollinators Movie: https://www.thepollinators.net ______________ Pollinator Week episodes are brought to you by BetterBee. BetterBee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. How do they do this? Because many of their employees are also beekeepers, so they know the needs, challenges and answers to your beekeeping questions. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, BetterBee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a new quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong"

Andony Melathopoulos is the Pollinator Health Extension Specialist for Oregon State University. He's not just about honey bees, but every pollinator out there. But honey bees are a big part of what he does because of the multitude of crops grown in Oregon that need 'mostly' honey bees for pollination. He works equally with the farmers who grow the crops, spray the crops, and provide additional forage for the bees. Additionally, Andony works with the Oregon Department of Transportation, home owners, and Oregon's huge Master Gardener programs. He's even helping with the new Master Mellipolous Program, sort of like a beekeeping club, but for native bees. Visit his web page, listen in and learn a lot about a lot of pollinator work in Oregon and across the US! Links and websites mentioned in this episode: The Oregon Bee Project: https://www.oregonbeeproject.org Oregon State University Pollinator Health: https://agsci.oregonstate.edu/pollinator-health/pollinator-health The PolliNation Podcast: http://blogs.oregonstate.edu/pollinationpodcast/ The Pollinators Movie: https://www.thepollinators.net ______________ Pollinator Week episodes are brought to you by BetterBee. BetterBee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. How do they do this? Because many of their employees are also beekeepers, so they know the needs, challenges and answers to your beekeeping questions. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, BetterBee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a new quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong"

Dr. Orley, "Chip" Taylor started Monarch Watch about 30 years ago. So far, he and his group have managed to tag over two million monarchs so they can study the migration habits of this beautiful butterfly. His research has also determined where monarchs spend their time all year, the flyways they follow going from Canada to Mexico and back, when they start, when they arrive and how many weeks it takes them to travel this incredible distance. Chip and his team have determined how to produce milkweed plugs by the thousands to provide food sources for monarchs and make these available to buy. Chip talks about how habitat loss and climate change is a double whammy these butterflies face, and may not be able to overcome. Improving life for the monarch will improve life for all pollinators. This is a fascinating discussion for this Pollinator Week! Listen today! Links and websites mentioned in this episode: Monarch Watch Organization: https://monarchwatch.org Milkweed Market: https://monarchwatch.org/milkweed/market/ Monarch Habitat Restoration: https://monarchwatch.org/bring-back-the-monarchs/milkweed/free-milkweeds-for-restoration-projects/ Free Milkweed for Schools and Nonprofits: https://biosurvey.ku.edu/application-free-milkweed-nonprofits-and-schools/ More Information about Milkweeds: https://monarchwatch.org/bring-back-the-monarchs/milkweed/milkweed-profiles/ The Pollinators Movie: The Pollinators Movie ______________ Pollinator Week episodes are brought to you by BetterBee. BetterBee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. How do they do this? Because many of their employees are also beekeepers, so they know the needs, challenges and answers to your beekeeping questions. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, BetterBee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a new quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong"

Welcome to the first of our Pollinator Week Special Episodes. Each day this week we'll release new interviews with teams and individuals who are all working to protect, provide and propagate pollinators all over the globe! Pollinator Week was started by Pollinator Partnership and we kick-off the week with P2's President Laurie Adams and Program Director Kelly Rourke. P2's projects include Monarch Wings Across America, North America Pollinator Protection Campaign (NAPPC) – in its 20th year, Mite-a-thon, Bee Friendly Farming, research grants for researchers focusing on forage development, posters, recipes, and all sorts of activities you can be a part of. What a way to kick off this exciting series… and all the while starting our third year of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Links and websites mentioned in this episode: Pollinator Partnership: https://www.pollinator.org Pollinator Week & Related Activities: https://www.pollinator.org/pollinator-week Pollinator Poster: https://www.pollinator.org/shop/posters TheBeeMD: http://www.thebeemd.com Bee Friendly Farming: https://www.pollinator.org/bff ______________ Pollinator Week episodes are brought to you by BetterBee. BetterBee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. How do they do this? Because many of their employees are also beekeepers, so they know the needs, challenges and answers to your beekeeping questions. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, BetterBee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a new quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong"

This week, we talk with Dr. Jamie Ellis, from the University of Florida about The BEEMD website, the UoF Bee Lab, Coloss, research, teaching and his extension work! All his work is centered on honey bees, is beekeeper driven and embraces collaboration. Dr. Ellis has a brand-new bee lab with over 50 grad, undergrad and volunteer students conducting research. In addition, he is working on the U of F Master Beekeeper Program, is teaching 5 levels of honey bee classes, speaking to beekeeper groups, hosting his own podcast and more (if you can believe it!). Get set to sit on the edge of you chair for some of the most exciting information on honey bees you've heard in a long time – well, at least since our last podcast! Find out more by listening today! Links and websites mentioned in this episode: The BeeMD: http://www.thebeemd.com The University of Florida Bee Lab: http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/honey-bee/ The COLOSS Honey Bee Research Organization: https://coloss.org Two Bees in a Podcast: http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/honey-bee/podcast/ ______________ This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a new quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong"

In this episode, guest co-host and 2 Million Blossoms editor Kirsten Traynor joins Jeff and Kim with her Dr. Meghan Milbrath interview. Meghan applies her epidemiology background in her work with honey bee diseases as an academic specialist at Michigan State University. Megan started keeping bees over 20 years ago with her father and continues today at The Sand Hill Apiary a small livestock and queen rearing operation near Munith, MI. Kirsten and Meghan talk about her history keeping bees, swarms, queens, bee diseases – including European Foulbrood, pests and even hygiene in the bee yard! Websites and Linked mentioned in this episode – The Sandhill (Meghan's website): http://www.sandhillbees.com MSU Pollinator Champions Program: https://pollinators.msu.edu/programs/pollinator-champions/ The latest news on the Asian Giant Hornet in Washington State: https://agr.wa.gov/departments/insects-pests-and-weeds/insects/hornets ______________ Kirsten's interviews are brought to you by BetterBee. BetterBee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. How do they do this? Because many of their employees are also beekeepers, so they know the needs, challenges and answers to your beekeeping questions. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, BetterBee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com This episode is also brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a new quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong"

Ask beekeepers and you will hear many different opinions on Russian Honey Bees. Mostly, they either love them, hate them or know nothing about them. In this episode, we go directly to the US source of these bees with Dr. Tom Rinderer and Steve Coy. Tom was instrumental in the early days of the research resulting in the introduction of this line of honey bee to the US by visiting Russia to find these varroa resistant bees. He talks about the issues of getting them into this country, sorting out the best lines – very varroa resistant, not defensive, healthy in all aspects and while producing honey! From there they did side by side tests with other domestic lines to see if indeed they would do well here and soon after, they helped to form the Russian Honey Bee Breeders Association to maintain the breed. Steve Coy is one of the producers from the breeder's association. He talks about what the association is doing and how they are working to increase its adoption. These are the bees in the US that you can buy that are resistant to varroa and this is their story! Links and websites mentioned in this episode: Russian Honey Bee Breeders Assn: http://www.russianbreeder.org Russian Honey Bees - The Book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Russian-Honey-Bees-Thomas-Rinderer/dp/1655328131 ______________ This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a new quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong"

Guest co-host and 2 Million Blossoms Editor, Kirsten Traynor and Tucka Saville chat this week, talking about treatment free beekeeping, having bees in Florida and Upstate New York, raising queens with Michael Palmer in Vermont, and working with Sam Comfort in Florida. They discuss raising queens, swarms, making simple, simple hive, being online and the whole community of beekeepers. Tucka is a commercial beekeeper and queen producer mostly in Florida with between 300 and 500 colonies. She sells nucs, and is absolutely in love with queens and everything about them. Oh and humming birds. There's lots of good information here from a working beekeeper, you will definitely want to hear. Listen today! Websites and Linked mentioned in this episode – Tucka's Instagram: Tucka.bee ______________ Kirsten's interviews are brought to you by BetterBee. BetterBee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. How do they do this? Because many of their employees are also beekeepers, so they know the needs, challenges and answers to your beekeeping questions. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, BetterBee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com This episode is also brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a new quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong"

On this day as the world is celebrating honey bees and all that they do, Dewey Caron, Kim Flottum and Kathy Summers share stories and memories of Ann Harman, a world bee celebrity who passed on May 1. Ann was an exceptional beekeeper, active in honey shows around the world, held key positions in the Eastern Apicultural Society, was a Welsh Honey Judge, and contributed to Bee Culture magazine for over 35 years. She traveled to 50 some countries as a volunteer instructor, was instrumental in publishing several key beekeeping reference books, still had time for her horses, cats and dogs. Ann will be missed by the beekeeping industry and by beekeepers around the world. We know that wherever she is now, it will be better with her being there. Thanks Ann. ________________________ This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a new quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong"

This week, get out your traveling bee suits, because we are going to visit three different beekeepers in across the country. This time of the year, beekeepers in the US and northern hemisphere are all very busy, but are they all doing the same? Are they all experiencing the same things? In this episode we set off to find out. We talk with beekeepers from North Carolina, Northeast Ohio and the western slope of the Rockies in Colorado. Each of these beekeepers have a unique, and somewhat tricky environment to raise bees and they are as much different from each other as they are alike to each other. We brought them all together and their conversations and observations are fascinating! First, we meet Mark Smith, in Locust, North Carolina who is a chemical free Beekeeper. Not treatment free, but chemical free. He raises his own queens and lives in a very isolated location so varroa isn't a constant threat. He hasn't bought a bee since 2011. Then we travel north to Northeast Ohio, near Kent and meet up with Tracy Alarcon. He too raises his own queens, but isn't even close to being isolated. He has lots of migratory beekeepers driving by all season so has constant varroa pressure. He's looking for hygienic behavior in his bees and does all the right things for honey and pests. Then we head out west to visit with Ed Colby on the western slope of Colorado. Ed runs about 100 colonies and has them in yards ranging from 5500' to 9000', which gives him a six-week difference between bee yards in the spring and fall. Does he worry about varroa? You bet. His whole operation is overrun with commercial area outfits so he has constant varroa pressure. We hope you enjoy listening to their stories. ______________ This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a new quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong"

This episode is our first with guest co-host, 2 Million Blossoms editor, Kirsten Traynor. Kirsten will be our guest co-host on a regular basis bringing us interviews with young and upcoming personalities and researchers in the world of beekeeping. In this first episode, Kirsten introduces us to Sarah Red Laird. Sarah Red-Laird, probably better known as The Bee Girl. She's very visible in the beekeeping community for her work with kids and bees at National, Regional and local beekeeper's meetings. But there's so much more! She works hand in hand with local farmers using regenerative agriculture, diversity in plantings and providing food for the soil, and food for bees. Bee pasture and bee nutrition are a big part of what she's involved in, along with local farmer's unions and getting everybody involved. But then add in her work with local chefs and bakers and brewers and millers using the diversity of grains these farmers are growing for some fantastic farm to table events. Sarah Red-Laird is all of these things - beekeeper, teacher, land use coordinator and foodie. Listen to this talented and dynamic part of our beekeeping universe. We wrap up the show with a recognition of the passing of longtime friend and advocated of beekeepers worldwide, Ann Harmon. We will miss you, Ann! Websites and Linked mentioned in this episode – The Bee Girl Organization - https://www.beegirl.org ______________ This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a new quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong"

Dr. Jeff Pettis left the USDA some time ago to pursue other avenues of research. His current work is studying issues with queens, primarily longevity, affect of pesticides, virus interactions, shipping problems and more. Relatedly, he is working with drones, which of course play a big role in how queens produce. He's looking at sperm issues, affects of pesticides, mating problems, heat stress and mating success. He's also working with varroa resistance to miticides, affects of miticides on queens, workers and drones and essentially what is working, and what isn't and why. In-between research projects, he is expanding his beekeeping operation with his son, running up to 75 colonies, doing some local pollination work, and producing and selling his honey at local outlets. In his 'spare' time... he has been serving as the Bee Health Commissioner for the International Beekeeping Association Apimondia for the past 8 or 9 years, and in 2019 was the first American Elected President of that group. His goals are to establish better communication between the group and the worlds beekeepers and to concentrate on global honey fraud, a major issue everywhere. Listen in and learn much more about Apimondia and what the future holds as the first American President takes over with a new and exciting agenda. Websites and Linked mentioned in this episode – Apimondia: https://www.apimondia.com Google Scholar for Dr. Pettis: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C48&q=jeff+pettis&btnG= The Hive Butler: https://www.thehivebutler.com ______________ This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a new quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong"

Fifty years ago today, at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, there was a celebration of the very first Earth Day, sponsored by then Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson, who had organized the event as a teach-in on campuses across the country. It was scheduled for the weekend between spring break and finals week, always an exciting weekend, with students both excited about spring, and serious about the upcoming exams. 20 million people took part across the country, and by the end of 1970, the a bipartisan federal government passed several environmental measures, most notably the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency. Really, 50 years ago today was the birth of the modern environmental movement. By 1990 it had grown to a global movement with over 200 million people celebrating in 140+ countries, and today, more than a billion are, as much as possible, making note of this most auspicious celebration. So we could think of no better guest today than Dr. Johnathan Lundgren, a leader in the Regenerative Agriculture movement that is slowly beginning to be noticed. His work with soil microbiomes and overall soil regeneration, the restoration of cover crops and plant diversity creating a living roof, the value of compost and the marriage, again, of crops and animals is making betters soils, better crops, better farmers and beginning to produce healthier honey bees. We had Dr. Lundgren as a guest in March 2019 where he talked about the beginnings of his program and what he was finding. This time he has a much bigger crew, more than a year's results under his belt, and a three year+ program with the almond industry, and farmers from Canada to Nebraska and beyond. His programs have gained much positive attention plus garnered some significant findings. It's becoming obvious that the future of modern farming lies in his regenerative agriculture findings. Websites and Linked mentioned in this episode – Blue Dasher Farm - https://www.bluedasher.farm Ecdysis Foundation - https://www.ecdysis.bio Earth Day Organization - https://www.earthday.org ______________ This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Stay Safe Everyone! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong"

Sit back and listen while Jeff and Kim talk with Kim Eierman, founder of EcoBeneficial, and the author of The Pollinator Victory Garden, How To Win The War on Pollinator Decline with Ecological Gardening. If you've been thinking of starting some plantings for pollinators in your backyard, you couldn't find a better place to gather information on the how, when, where and why of what to plant for all pollinators, anywhere and everywhere. Kim's book is full information for all kinds of plants for all kinds of pollinators. Lists by region, county, even zip code. And every kind of flower for birds, bees, bats, butterflies, beetles, flies and all the rest. Native plantings, developing pollinator pathways, and resources galore. Everything you'll ever want to know about creating pollinator gardens of all sizes is in this book. Kim Eierman shares more information in just a half hour than you can find almost anywhere. We also have an audio postcard from Rich Morris, of Broodminder who we interviewed earlier on Season 2, Episode 2! So queue it up, sit back and enjoy! Websites and Linked mentioned in this episode – EcoBeneficial: https://www.ecobeneficial.com The Pollinator Victory Garden on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1631597507/ The Hive Butler: https://www.thehivebutler.com Listener's Questions Luke V. asked about this swarm. What do you think? Let us know! ______________ This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong"

Sue Cobey, Tim Lawrence and Steve Sheppard join the podcast this week to discuss their new three-part video series on how to develop an effective and productive honey bee breeding program. Topics discussed in the series include record keeping, drone population, selecting from a large population of colonies, evaluating colonies for specific traits, artificial insemination, developing drone comb and protecting from varroa, avoiding inbreeding, keeping diversity in the population, questions to ask queen producers, sperm preservation and much more. The three new films are 1) An update on Instrumental Insemination, 2) Sperm preservation and the 3) Techniques and science of honey bee selection and breeding. Websites and Linked mentioned in this episode – Sue & Tim's Honey Bee Insemination website: http://www.honeybeeinsemination.com WSU video on Selection Methods and Honey Bee Breeding: https://vimeo.com/380776410 WSU Bee Lab: http://bees.wsu.edu New World Carniolan FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/New-World-Carniolan-bees-106187637408691/ The Hive Butler: https://www.thehivebutler.com ______________ This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong"

The world's largest hornet, The Asian Giant Hornet was discovered in the State of Washington in the fall of 2019. Also known as the Japanese Hornet, the Yak-Killer Hornet or the Giant Sparrow Bee, this ground nesting giant is as big as your thumb, and just loves eating honey bees. Honey bee larvae that is. It just kills all the honey bee adults in a hive to get to the larvae, leaving behind devastation beyond belief. Control is stopping the spread of queens in the fall, which means finding nests in the summer. Listen in as Sven-Erik Spichiger, the Washington State Entomologist, and North America's leading hornet hunter and expert fills us in on all the details. What to look for, when to look, how to trap them and more. Hope that getting rid of this pest happens in Washington this season, but be ready for them if not. Websites and Linked mentioned in this episode – WSDA Asian Giant Hornet Website: https://agr.wa.gov/departments/insects-pests-and-weeds/insects/hornets USDA Asian Giant Hornet Fact Sheet: https://cms.agr.wa.gov/WSDAKentico/Documents/PP/PestProgram/Vespa_mandarinia_NPRG_10Feb2020-(002).pdf Washington State University Extension AGH Site: https://extension.wsu.edu/wam/asian-giant-hornet-found-locally-what-we-know/ The Hive Butler: https://www.thehivebutler.com *** Newly Added Links *** How to Identify Different Wasp Species: https://entomologytoday.org/2020/05/11/big-beautiful-confusing-deciphering-true-hornets-vespa/ ______________ This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a new quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong"

In this bonus episode, Jeff and Kim talk about the just announced discovery of a new race of honey bees, uncovered in the Solomon Islands, Apis gigantica-nordquist, on the smallest uninhabited island, Vangunu. Vangunu, the smallest, uninhabited speck of land in the Solomon Islands is the home to one of the largest rats in the world. But it turns out it is also the home to the largest honey bee species in the world. When loggers felled a tree on Vangunu late last year, a large honey bee colony came down with it. A typical honey bee is the size of a paperclip. These honey bees are about the size of a tube of lipstick or roughly three times the size of Apis Mellifera. Listen today on the first day of April about this latest discovery in 2020, a year that will go down in history as one of the weirdest and wildest, ever.

This week we meet with Kelly Kulhanek, a BIP Sentinel Apiary Scientist. Since gearing up in 2015, this program monitors colonies in 30 states with over 100 beekeepers. Once enrolled, you'll take samples from your hives and have them tested for varroa, nosema and anything else the BIP people find for over 6 months a year. This is a perfect educational tool for bee clubs everywhere, teaching members how to take samples, letting them see what else is going on around them and being able to make informed decisions about colony health and management. You can sign up for 4 or 8 hives. In return, you'll receive a sample kit and record keeping info from the same colonies, all season long. At the end you'll have a season's worth of detailed records, healthy hives and peace of mind. Perhaps a greater value is that the program has beekeepers all over the US taking samples, throughout the season and anything that isn't supposed to be here in the US will get found. A perfect early warming program. Visit their web page for lots more info. Websites and Linked mentioned in this episode – Bee Informed Partnership - www.beeinformed.org BIP Sentinel Program - https://beeinformed.org/citizen-science/sentinel-apiaries/ Bee Club Basics (on Amazon) - https://smile.amazon.com/dp/1080790209/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_AK7EEb9Q4B8NC ______________ This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global Patties is a family business that manufactures protein supplement patties for honey bees. Feeding your hives protein supplement patties will help ensure that they produce strong and health colonies by increasing brood production and overall honey flow. Global offers a variety of standard patties, as well as custom patties to meet your specific needs. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode! We want to also thank 2 Million Blossoms as a sponsor of the podcast. 2 Million Blossoms is a new quarterly magazine destined for your coffee table. Each page of the magazine is dedicated to the stories and photos of all pollinators and written by leading researchers, photographers and our very own, Kim Flottum. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments: [email protected] Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of The Beekeeping Today Podcast. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com Thank you for listening! Podcast music: Young Presidents, "Be Strong"