Plain Talk: Bare Bones Beekeeping (247)

Episode 247 – Plain Talk: Bare Bones Beekeeping

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Jeff Ott: Hey, everybody. Welcome to Beekeeping Today Podcast. We are looking for--

Jim Tew: Yes, Jeff.

Jeff: Jim?

Jim: Excuse me. Hold up.

Jeff: Wait.

Jim: You're the right guy, but you're on the wrong show. This is Honey Bee Obscura.

Jeff: Oh, what day is this?

Jim: Yes. Yet another gear slip.

[laughter]

Jim: You can't get this right, I'm going to stop asking you to help me out with these things. This is Honey BeeObscura.

Jeff: Honey Bee Obscura. All right. This is Thursday, so it must be Honey Bee Obscura.

Jim: Yes. I hate to cut you off, but--

Jeff: No. It needed to happen.

Jim: Right show, but wrong show, if you know what I mean.

Jeff: [laughs] Well, take it away, Jim.

Jim: Listeners, ignore all that. I'm Jim. This is Honey Bee Obscura. I want to tell you that you should know what's going on behind the scenes. Jeff has helped out, this will be what, the third time, Jeff?

Jeff: This is take 3.

Jim: What's this episode number? It's got to be 240-something. Listen, this is one I won't forget. We've done a lot of these, but we have done this one over and over again.

Jeff: 247, if we don't count all the takes. [laughs]

Jim: 247. Listeners, I wanted to talk about bare bones beekeeping. I'm doing it because I tell you in every episode that I'm not as young as I once was. I'm trying to be efficient in my bee management and coexisting with my bees, and I've not been able to make the equipment work. Jeff, what do you think I'm doing wrong?

Jeff: Jim, I don't think you're doing anything wrong. I think it's just the technology gods just were playing games this week.

Jim: I took it that way, too, that everything I had done and the honesty and my commitment to explaining the meaning of life was just too much for the listeners, and so the technology gods kept shutting it down. We're using high-tech in the office, in the lab equipment now that should work better. We'll get it right this time. Three times is the charge.

Jeff: I get it.

Jim: What I wanted to do was just talk about ways that as you get older and you get more restrained on time and commitment, that you can still keep bees. I've often said that saying someone's a beekeeper is like saying someone drives an automobile. There's a lot of different styles and models of beekeepers, and there's a lot of different styles and models of cars. That's where I was going. Jeff, are you okay helping me get through this since this is beating me up so much?

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Jeff: I am ready to go with you on this journey.

Jim: Thank you for helping so much. Listeners, I'm Jim Tew. I try to come to you here about once a week at Honey Bee Obscura where I try to talk about something to do with plain talk beekeeping.

Jeff: I'm Jeff Ott, visiting from Beekeeping Today Podcast.

Introduction: Welcome to Honey Bee Obscura, brought to you by Growing Planet Media, the producers of the Beekeeping Today Podcast. Join Jim Tew, your guide through the complexities, the beauty, the fun, and the challenges of managing honey bees. Jim hosts fun and interesting guests who take a deep dive into the intricate world of honey bees. Whether you're a seasoned beekeeper or just getting started, get ready for some plain talk that'll delve into all things honey bees.

Jim: Jeff, I got to tell you the truth. I didn't feel good about either of the episodes. I was really honest and very forthcoming about everything that's been in my life for the last two or three years. I'm almost relieved that the technology gods didn't smile on that because it's not as bad as I made it sound, but I have been forced, as the time has passed, never mind my personal situation, in my bee life to get more and more creative, or some might say more and more lazy, where you just cut corners.

You know that I was taught, you were taught, the listeners were taught that this is the traditional way to keep bees. You get ready for winter, and then you pack, and then you be sure you got 60 to 70 pounds of honey on, and you got a good queen, and you treat for mites, and you do all these things. At the bottom line, the bees are still the masters of their fate and the captains of their soul. When are we helping, and when are we hurting?

Jeff: That's a really good question. I think we need to draw a distinction early on in discussion where this isn't necessarily hands-off beekeeping you're talking about, where you just put bees in a box in the back, and you'll just let them go wild. Because when you are looking at your bees in your bee yard, you're looking at them with years of experience watching what's going on and dealing with bees to help you understand which colonies might need an additional hand, might need an additional touch.

Jim: That is superb. There are people. I don't know them, but I've read about them, and I've came across this on the web. They do exactly what you said. They're putting up bird boxes for bluebirds, and they're putting bees in a beehive, and they've got some flowers, and they let things go themselves. I'm not that person. I'm looking at the landing board. I'm watching the seasonal activity, not just of the hives. I'm watching goldenrod come into bloom here, and fall asters start, and you feel the briskness in the air, and you see the first signs of the leaves changing.

That has nothing to do with bees, but it has everything to do with bees because you know you're going to be getting that stink honey coming up here for the fall flow, and that is the last hoorah for this year. On one hand, if you want to be this minimalist, bare-bones beekeeper-- just so you know, my first idea on this topic was getting rid of computer apps and giving up on all the digital technology and just going back to bare bones. Then, [chuckles] you know when I write articles, Jeff, this happens too. You've got a topic and you start writing, and 2,300 words and 6 pictures later, you think, "Wow, how did I end up here." These podcasts frequently do that.

Really, this has nothing to do with filling your trash can full of electronic gear, but it has everything to do with conserving your energy and staying in beekeeping till the bottom of the ninth inning in life. There's always something to do with your bees. I watch the landing boards, and you're exactly right, if I see twisted wings, if I see chalkbrood mummies, if you see too many spiders, if you see those bees matted out front, right now they're washboarding like crazy. I hope I can live long enough to know what in the world that behavior is. I've always said that you can tell a lot by looking, but at some point, you've got to violate the bee's sanctity and you've got to open it up.

Jeff: Knowing when to open them up is an art. I don't know whether it was you, or Kim, or somebody back in Ohio somewhere, but it was a beekeeper who could just stand out front and he could walk right up, and after observing a colony for a little bit, say, "That colony is queenless" just by watching the landing board. That's the kind of experience in the bare bones beekeeper that I would like to get to at some point.

Jim: Well, I would like to get to that, too.

Jeff: [laughs] Oh, wait a minute.

Jim: I can tell a lot. "These bees are ugly. These bees are really ugly. Can you tell that? They're not happy. None of these bees are smiling." No, I can't do that. To me, what I'm able to do is not like some kind of witchcraft mysticism. It's just looking at bees for all these years. I would love to get off the subject. I saw a little handful of bees this past summer. I'm going to probably write an article about it. They were just going crazy on the side of the hive. I went and had a look at it, and there was a queen in the middle of it. I did a podcast on it. She was there, and those bees were dancing all around her.

I thought, "Oh my star, this is a swarm that's leaving, and the queen hasn't gone yet." Yes, they did leave, and they're gone, and she's still gone. Those kind of things where you just happen to be there when the bees are doing their natural thing are really insightful to me. Now, Jeff, you and most of the listeners want to produce honey. They want to keep good, gentle stock in the colony. They want to suppress swarming. They want to do everything by the book that we've all learned to do all through the years. I suppose that's what I'm picking at. That's what I'm chipping at.

Where can I cut corners at 77 years old and still enjoy beekeeping and have them mean as much as they've always meant to me, and keep them in my life, and keep me in their life at a reasonable amount?

Jeff: Jim, that's a great goal. I don't know why you can't just do that. You have the experience. You have the ability to-- You know what it feels to hive and whether it's too light or it feels just right for your location. You have the skillset, so I think it's just like, sit back and enjoy it, and don't worry about it.

Jim: Well, you're very kind for saying that, but please, please, could I reserve the right to be wrong sometimes?

[laughter]

Jim: Yes, I have times, and yes, I have a hive monitor on an electronic scale to help me out. Let's take a break, and when we come back, I'm going to specifically ask you if you have any ways to legitimately cut corners to make your life easier and your back as healthy as possible.

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Jim: Do you have any things, Jeff? Do you have any secrets? Do you have any little things that you do that helps you get through? First of all, do you have anybody who helps you, or are you a solo beekeeper?

Jeff: Generally, I'm a solo beekeeper. If I get into a situation where I have to move colonies, like I had before the spring to help when we moved, I have a buddy I can call, and he's very helpful and is able to give me a hand when I need it.

Jim: Just let me say, that's one good friend, buddy.

Jeff: He's a beekeeper, so he appreciates the help, and I'm sure I'll get the call one of these days.

Jim: All right. "Can you come over and help me unplug my toilet here? That's a good friend.

Jeff: [laughs] I think he'd draw a line somewhere.

Jim: All right, so you're a solo beekeeper. What do you do, if anything, that makes your life easier, or are you still young enough just to push through it?

Jeff: No. I call myself a time crunch beekeeper because I have so many other things going. In many ways, I want to minimize my time in the hives as much as possible while maintaining them so that they're healthy and able to survive the winter and be productive. One of the things I've done, I was cringing when you talked about throwing away the scales and sensors and such, is I rely on the scales and the sensors in my bee yard to help me determine the health of my colony without having to open it and disturb them. I think it was probably you years ago said, "The less you're in a colony, the better the bees are because every time you go into a colony, it takes them a day to repair everything the beekeeper breaks."

I've kept that in mind all these years. As much as I enjoy going through a hive and inspecting and looking in the cells and everything, I know that I'm taking a day of productivity away from those bees. I rely on the sensors to minimize my time in having to inspect colonies to see if their queen right, if they're gaining weight, and what brood box are they in? Are they up top? Are they down below? I can tell all that by the sensors. I can tell when they swarm. If I have empty equipment, I can tell when there's a colony that's moved in. That's what I've done.

Jim: I think all that is superb. I completely support that. I don't have as much technology as you do. I think that you and I can say that technology is going to do nothing but grow. In the future, you can sit in the house in front of your computer screen and get a visual of what your bees are doing, and weights, and CO2 levels, and humidity levels, and everything, just like you can with those weather stations you put on top of your shed out in the backyard now. You also hit some interesting points and kept right on going. You were very complimentary about my perceived talents a bit ago, that I'm afraid I don't have.

If you're a brand new beekeeper, you've just been doing this, this is your first year, second year, third year, I always give those people a pass. You've got to learn what's going on in there. There's not but one way to learn, and that's to be inside a beehive. On one hand, we're saying the more you open them, the more damage you're doing, but if you don't have a clue what's happening inside the hive, then you've got no other way to learn other than to open them up, stumble around, crush your own coins. "Is this American foulbrood? Oh my stars, what is this?" You've got to get through those phases to become a comfortable, confident beekeeper so that you can do this stand around, bare bones, minimalism.

Jeff: You're absolutely spot on correct. Thank you for correcting that because I do draw on my experience of [chuckles] everything you said, everything from discovering a colony that is amuck with American foulbrood or cleaning out dead outs in December because they had the varroa that just wiped them out and they couldn't survive the first chill, to doing inspections and doing a mite wash and finding the queen in there. I've made those mistakes. Like you said, I expect I'll continue making them. If I don't make them, I'd be surprised if I didn't make them, so I don't even go there.

Yes, you're right. I wouldn't tell anybody to get a colony, put all the sensors in it, and walk away from it, if that's the first year of beekeeping.

Jim: The other thing, as you were talking, I had said this in the two episodes that will never air, strangely, that an observation hive really gives me a fix. In a sense, if you're going to be a minimalist beekeeper, a bare bones beekeeper, then nobody said it that I read about, but I want an observation hive. I want to know what they're doing because you can infer, from the observation hives, what's happening inside the dark hive that you're not opening. An observation hive is not natural. It's not minimalist, let alone those bees are probably educationally, in many ways, sacrificial.

Jeff: My very first beehive was an observation hive that I got in sixth grade. It sat on my desk in my bedroom. That is some of the best learning I could have ever done as a kid to learn about bees and get excited and grow into beekeeping. Observation hives are wonderful. Again, I don't recommend them as a first hive. [chuckles]

Jim: Oh, no. No, no, no. Now I'm wrong. Thank you for pointing that out.

[laughter]

Jim: No, I'm talking about I don't want to open my bee hives any more than I have to, but I need a bee fix to know what they're doing in there. I'd use the observation hive for that. If I were a one-to-five-year beekeeper, I would not need it because I'm going to be pawing around inside the hive, worried about how much drone brood there is or something. I don't know any secrets, but I chose this topic, it was not really in this vein. I do bizarre things.

I use the bucket on my little tractor and I try to get the bucket to the level of the deep, and I try to push the deep over in the bucket of the tractor. That can't be [chuckles] considered to be normal beekeeping, but it does keep me from having to-- well, take out one frame at the time. That's like choosing to die a slow death when you've got a big, boisterous bee hive and you're trying to take out one frame at the time that's propolised in solidly. Yes, that makes good sense in a book. It is really hard to do on top of five deeps, reaching up over, trying to break that frame out of the propolis seal enough to get it down to 6 frame that you can pick it up and get it off without causing a hernia.

Jeff: Do you ask me and I'll ask you, do you have a friend you can call to help you out when you have to break apart those five deep hives?

Jim: One of the things I did wrong in the first two segments was I was too truthful. Yes, I have friends, but I would just about sacrifice a kidney before I'd call because I really need for it to be something that I need them over here for with their time, their expertise, their equipment. It's not like they were just sitting at home saying, "I sure hope Jim calls me today to come help him with his bees." I do have friends, but I will move heaven and earth to get it done myself or to figure out a way in an Egyptian type levers, and fulcrums, and ramps to do whatever it takes to get it done myself.

You really went straight for the throat. If I'm moving bees, I got to call them. I won't try to move bees by myself, and get them off the truck, and in the field or in the orchard. I will have to call them for that. For me to move bees, it's got to be a big deal now. I just can't do it alone.

Jeff: Especially your colonies because you keep everything in deeps. One full box is going to be close to what, 90 pounds?

Jim: Well, you know what, it's almost no difference to me between 60 pounds and 90 pounds. I can't really pick either one of them up.

Jeff: [laughs] I know.

Jim: I don't know how much that helps. Kim always wanted to use 8-frame mediums, I think. He thought he could handle those. That's an odd equipment configuration that he was sold on. I've told a dozen times, I have been cursed in life. My dad left me. I inherited several thousand brand-new deep hive bodies from his inventory. I've still got enough deeps to last me about 10 more years. I've just always kept bees and deeps, and not because it's the right way to go or a good thing to do. It's just because it's what I had.

Jeff: Bare bones beekeeping, it's doable. Finding the way that works and keeps the bees healthy but saves our sanity and our bodies, that's a challenge because everyone's a little bit different. I think you don't need to have every gadget and every tool and every--

Jim: That's true. Even though I want every gadget and every tool, I don't have to have it. I want it-

Jeff: True.

Jim: -but I don't have to have it. Someone's going to write us. Someone's going to contact us and tell us we didn't do the right description of this. I always enjoy talking with you. I appreciate you helping me slog through this one on this bare bones concept. Listeners, there really was an audio problem. It wasn't so dramatic. It wasn't so revealing that the great censors cut it.

[laughter]

Jim: There really was an audio issue. Ironically, just with my family over the holiday weekend, and my daughter said, "I was listening to a podcast, and the audio was just terrible, so I just turned away from it and found another podcast." Jeff, when you contacted me and said that we still have that ringing sound, that pervasive throughout the audio track, I thought about my daughter's comment. Beekeepers, do what you got to do to keep bees, and do what you have to do to enjoy keeping bees.

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Jim: Please keep listening to us while we try to hold your hand and help you through this. Jeff, I'm sorry you got off on a bad foot on this whole production, thinking you were in the right place at the wrong time or the wrong place at the right time. I know you were kidding. It's fun. It's fun. I enjoy talking with you, and it's good to have company.

Jeff: I enjoy talking with you. No matter where I am, if I'm with you, it's a good place.

Jim: Yes, I enjoy the company. Thanks for listening, everybody. We'll talk to you next week, same time, same place, different subject. Bye-bye.

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