Repetition Beekeeping (158)

Episode 158 – Repetition Beekeeping

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Jim Tew: Beekeepers, hi, it's that time of the week again. I'm here with Anne Frey, and we've come up with a topic that I don't think I've ever written about or thought about, or talked about, and that's repetition and beekeeping. I guess one could say repetitive beekeeping. I can't take credit for it, Anne, this was your idea, but it's a clever one.

Anne Frey: I was just trying to think of what would be useful to beginners. It all comes down to practice.

Jim: I don't want to say it, what I'm thinking, though, that practice makes what? It makes for perfection.

Anne: I did not claim it would make perfection.

Jim: No, you're right. Hi, I'm Jim Tew.

Anne: I'm Anne Fry from Betterbee.

Jim: We're coming to you to discuss the idea that if you do something often enough, you've just about got to get better at doing it.

Anne: Yes, I'll agree with that.

Introduction: You are listening to  Honey Bee Obscura, brought to you by Growing Planet Media, the folks behind  Beekeeping Today Podcast. Each week on Honey  Bee Obscura, hosts Kim Flottum and Jim Tew, explore the complexities, the beauty, the fun, and the challenges of managing honeybees in today's world. Get ready for an engaging discussion to delight and inform all beekeepers. If you're a long-timer or just starting out, sit back and enjoy the next several minutes as Kim and Jim explore all things honeybees.

Jim: Anne, I'd never thought about it, but I do want to start off in an odd way. I had a surgical procedure done several years ago, and out of the blue, the surgeon said, "I've done this so probably a thousand times." He said, "So I'm pretty comfortable with this procedure that we're about to undergo here." I was reassured by that he's done it over and over again. Experience just has a peculiar advantage to it. There's just no way to learn, is there? Without doing it over and over again.

Anne: You wouldn't have trusted him if he blurted out that it was his second time.

Jim: I wouldn't have trusted him at all. [laughs] I do like the concept of repetitive behavior for accomplishment. You mentioned when we started, that you thought that beginner beekeepers could profit from the concept of experience or repetition.

Anne: This whole hobby, which it is for most beekeepers is a hobby, is it has so many aspects to it, which are so foreign to normal life. Using this hive tool, this basically a thin pry bar to move these frames and boxes, which is not like anything you do in typical life, it's a whole skill. There's ways that people might feel that it would work fine, but if you don't do it and try with the guidance of somebody else who's done it before a few ways and then practice them, then you're just going to be fumbling every single time.

Jim: I completely agree with you. There's just so many things that you have to acquire skill for because while you were talking, I was thinking there is an elephant in our room, and that elephant is that if you'd really do something wrong, the bees will admonish you for it. While you're trying to learn to use that pry bar, it comes with an element of retribution if you screw this up. That hangs over you like a cloud, especially when you're brand new and you got all those new beekeeping protective gear on and those thick gloves, and you're trying to do something that someone described to you. It just doesn't come easy sometimes, does it? It can be frustrating.

Anne: Or you just have read about it in a magazine article or took a class once, and then they say, "Go to it." Hopefully, they have a mentor that they can copy and watch. Other than that, just repetitiveness, getting back out there to do it again and again is going to improve you.

Jim: The thing that I have caught myself doing, and I didn't know I was being repetitious, that was looking at the activity at the hive entrance throughout the year. Not at any given time, throughout the year. Over time, not even opening a hive, not lighting a smoker, doing nothing at all. One of the most common ways and easy ways to learn beekeeping and learn bee behavior is just watching what they're doing on their own. Are there sunken, partially eaten pupae on the landing board, or are there little white chunks on the landing board, an indication of chalkbrood? Do you see a bee crawling around with deformed wings? Is there the pleasant sound in the air of bees humming?

After over and over and over again, and you know the season, and you've seen this before, you begin to have an expectation for what you should be seeing.

Anne: Yes, is it normal or is it something to be concerned about? Is it something you got to go ask for help? Take a picture or a short video and ask for help on what you saw. Observation is totally the naturalist who is just out there observing the world like Thoreau, or observing wolves in the  Yellowstone, just that is his job. That's all he does is observe them. That person is learning the most, more patiently than lots of people are, who just want to get going and assume they know what's going on.

Jim: We got on those gloves. We'll stay in the beginner category here for a bit. We've got on those gloves, we've got the protected gear on. You got the veil on with the screen that makes it a little bit difficult to see the finer points of bees and beekeeping through that screen. You're trying to light a smoker because that'll be the next phase. You've decided to open this beehive, you're geared up, you're lighting the smoker. Even at that point, there is no standardization. There's smoker fuels to be considered. There's the amount of fire you allow to come out of the pot before you begin to snuff it. Even that results in a repetitive learning process that this is what's always worked before.

Anne: Yes, certainly. I have to admit that when I was about one or two years into beekeeping that I'd nearly quit just because my smoker always went out. Then without doing any beekeeping, I spent an entire day just lighting my smoker and trying to figure out what was working and what wasn't working and how long it would last after that.

Jim: It would be so easy to get off the subject on something as simple as using a smoker. It is the gadget in beekeeping that I just love to hate. I wish that we could have come up with something after all of these eons in beekeeping to eliminate the need for smoke. It's hard to light at first, like you said, they would seem to go out right at the point that you really needed it. I'm losing control here. The bees are getting stingy and you grab that smoker and it's out.

Anne: No smoke.

Jim: It's no small deal to refire that thing. You got to take it apart, start all over. Then by then, the situation really is out. One of the points other than looking at the entrance and watching what bees are doing and learning from that is when you physically open it, get the smoker going in such a way that you can have confidence in it. That's only acquired as you so poetically said a bit ago, just with time and experience passing and passing.

Anne: I'm glad you said that about confidence because just the act of repeating all these different details ends up giving you confidence. Then you yourself would probably end up becoming somebody's mentor because of that, and all that experience. A big thing about becoming a good beekeeper is confidence, and it can't all be because of your veil and your gloves.

Jim: You've been stung so many times in so many places and have experienced that so many times that you develop an aura. Can I say that? You develop an aura about you. You can just tell, If a beekeeper is suddenly stung on a fingertip, they don't drop the frame. The hive tool doesn't go flying. There's no immediate panic. Everything stays under control and that's just the results of having to do this over and over again.

Anne: There's another good example. We've all gone through that earlier phase of the hive tool goes flying exactly like you say. Then after that, it's just like, "Ugh," and it's brushed off and you keep working.

Jim: This is beekeeping humor, but when you are experienced, and I would never laugh at another beekeeper, stings are always uncomfortable and unpleasant. When those kinds of things happen and you see someone just shamelessly beat themselves about the head and neck, all because of a bee sting or a bee in their veil or whatever, you want to say, "Just calm down. Sure, it's going to hurt a little bit, but it'll pass. It's just beekeeping. You've made some fundamental mistake.

You didn't put duct tape over that little hole at the bottom of your veil," or whatever it is, lets you go wow just for the moment. The repetitiveness of beekeeping gives you, lets you grow and develop that aura and it does not happen overnight. If someone thinks, "I'm good at this, I'm just a natural." No, you're not. If you haven't paid the price in time and repetition, then you're going to screw something up.

Anne: You'll go on for years and then screw up a new and different thing and learn about that.

Jim: Let's take a short break and hear from our sponsor and we'll be right back with more repetition and beekeeping.

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Jim: After you finally get inside the hive, there are just so many ways. When you pull a frame out, first of all, I almost always go for the outside frames because it's just so common for the queen to be somewhere on those center four or five frames. If the brood nest is balanced and everything's in sync, great chance she's going to be somewhere near the center. If it's a queen that you really want, and even if it's a queen you don't really want, you don't want to just kill her out there without plans. I'd pull out one of those edge frames and then work the frames over so that you've got some space in the center to pull that frame out neatly and cleanly to keep from rolling the queen off.

Anne: Standard way.

Jim: Standard way to do it. It's traditional beekeeping, but how many times? I'm in a hurry. It's just a five-frame nuke. I'm just going to have a quick look. I'll pull that center frame out, and then there she is, and there's the burr comb, and then it's one of those days. It's just experience that even though I'm good to go, I'm pumped up, the smoker's really working well, you've still got to go be patient and stand by the protocol-

Anne: Don't get Cocky.

Jim: -for getting safely into it. Don't get cocky. That's exactly it. Do you agree with this? When you pull that frame out, the first thing you do, even subconsciously, is scan it. Just look for anything.

Anne: I can't not scan that. I've been trying to teach some newer helpers not to spend so much time looking at that frame or the next one which just has pollen on it. It is hard to not scan it at all, but you get used to the fact that she's probably not going to be on that one or the next one, and you just do a super quick scan, and you move them aside. You morph into a newer beekeeper as time goes on. No need to stare at every single frame the same amount. Just going so far as pulling those frames up, you've already jumped farther ahead than I was going to with my ideas about experience and repetition. Jim, can I add in a little detail that I've noticed that a lot of beginners need help on?

Jim: Oh, I wish you would. Please do.

Anne: When I was much more of a beginner, but I was working for an experienced beekeeper, I noticed that he would pry the one deep away from the other deep brood chamber. Then he would move his hive tool across the front of the hive doing little movements in the crack. I was wondering why he did that, and he said he didn't even realize he was doing it until I asked. What he was doing was pushing down the frames from the lower brood box that were trying to rise up with the upper brood box, just that little centimeter in with the tip of his hive tool and going pry, pry, pry, pry.

Nobody teaches that to beginners, and it's one of my favorite little details to pass on to somebody who's in their second year or beyond when things get sticky.

Jim: Was he doing that by feel, or was he actually bending over looking into the colony? I tend to do it by feel.

Anne: He was doing it by feel, too. He had to hold that top box tipped up a bit with his left hand. He just used his right hand and the tip of the hive tool and felt for the frames, but you can also just squat down and do it the other way if you can't hold that box up. There might be a second person holding it for you.

Jim: I'm begging for mercy at this point. If that's at full deep, and then that thing weighs 60 or 70 pounds, and you're holding it gently an inch and a half up with one hand, and you're trying to bend over at the same time to look into that small crack, it can be demanding, especially as you get a lot of miles on your body. It can be demanding, but if you don't do that, then those frames-- you're exactly right, Burke almost stuck those frames together.

Anne: It's going to be more than 60 pounds then.

Jim: Yes.

Anne: Another thing that he taught me in that case was two hive tools. You're not lifting it, you're just keeping it up with the one hive tool. Then the second one is in your dominant hand, prying the little frame ends downwards.

Jim: Oh, I got it. One's used as an actual pry bar, the original intent of a hive tool. Then the other is used to snap the frames loose that may be stuck together there.

Anne: Yes, and that might be more ergonomically efficient to keep that heavy box up to use the pry bar instead of those lovely tiny handholds.

Jim: Would you say that experience is the same thing as repetition? Does repetition result in experience?

Anne: Yes, that's what I would say. You can repeat things year after year and still be like at a kindergarten level of beekeeping, you'd be a kindergarten every year. Does that make sense?

Jim: Perfect sense. I have a lot of examples I won't go into because I would be insulting beekeepers, but just installing 2000 packages doesn't make you an expert beekeeper, it makes you really good at installing packages.

Anne: Yes, good example. You can become experienced through repetition or you might never become experienced even with repetition, but I think repetition is part of the key to all the success.

Jim: I want to push the concept a little bit. I don't mean to make this turn negative, but can repetition ever turn into anything approaching, for lack of a better word, boredom? If you've done this so many times so often, you've raised so many queens that you really enjoyed queen production for the previous four or five or 10 years. Sometimes I think that that experience, that repetition feeds and grows the interest in other subjects. In my case, in beekeeping. It's been my experience anyway.

Anne: Yes, I agree. You might be out there week after week, month after month, year after year, and you're outdoors, you're doing beekeeping, but it's becoming old. Then you start to get into botanizing or bird watching just because you've gotten so much outdoor time, or you might completely change from caring about honey to making candles or entering honey shows. There's so many little details that you can add on. You've already covered queen rearing, but that is one that people usually finally get to at the end of their career because it's one of the more difficult ones.

Jim: It is tedious. There's no other word for it, but that was exactly what I was trying to get to, is that it's been my experience that as I finish, complete, or tire of a particular subject in beekeeping, something has always been there to pick it up. Candle making has little to do with honey production, has little to do with queen rearing, so all of these things are still stimulating in beekeeping until you think you've finished that subject area. It's just a long journey. I've done this for a long time, and I still haven't gotten tired of beekeeping.

I will admit that I have moved on from some of the things that I used to do with passion, but there's always something right there to pick it up. If you want to talk about some of those old subjects that I used to have great passions about but I don't now, I can still go back and flip through my mental notes and be passionate again.

Anne: I used to love actually building wooden frames. I felt bad when I got so many hives that I used more plastic just for expediency. Then I realized a few times I got back to needing to build some wooden frames for a class or to help somebody out, and I realized, I'm really past this. I don't enjoy building wooden frames anymore. There's always something different to do. You can take a master beekeeper course if you're feeling like you know everything there is to know, and then you'll really be tested.

Jim: That's a good way to wind this down. Once you think that you've gotten the experience over time and with repetitive procedures that would give you an ultimate smoothness, then test yourself. See if you've reached a sophisticated advanced level where you do have the demeanor of a confident bee-managing person. Just test it. See what you've got. I enjoyed talking about it. I'd never thought about it, that practice does make perfect. Then once you're perfect, then you want to try something else, and so you keep evolving in this whole thing.

Anne: I don't know if I'll ever get perfect, but I'm having fun still.

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Jim: That's a good thing to say. I'm not striving for that. No way. In fact, I can tell beekeepers that once you become an old beekeeper and your vision begins to fail, you really go back and almost slip some in many ways. Marking queens, for instance, it's not as easy as it used to be, but now I'm beginning to complain, so I better stop. I've enjoyed talking to you about it.

Anne: Thanks, Jim. It's been fun.

Jim: I hope we can do it again sometime. Thank you. Talk to you later.

Anne: See you.

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