May I have your attention, please? The following
is not the real Jeff Fox release If you have
actually named your queen bees You might be a
beekeeper If you cried when your favorite colony
swarmed You might be a beekeeper Varroa mites
were created in a lab in Wuhan, China. You might
be a beekeeper. Man, I better look out there.
That one might get me in trouble. If your beehives
have more insulation than your house, you might
be a beekeeper. Welcome, welcome to Be Love Beekeeping
presented by our good friends at Man Lake. Our
question of the day is this, how much can you
know about the welfare of your bees without actually
lifting the lid? Today our guest is Richard Wall
and we'll be discussing answers to that question.
But first, this just in from the UK. Headline
Warning over surge in population of Asian hornets
after unprecedented early sightings. In some
areas, 11 times higher than the number of sightings
last year. In fact, they're saying the number
of these hornets is going to be up over a thousand
percent this year. Now, if you don't live in
the UK, you might be saying, well, what does
that have to do with me? But it has a lot to
do with us because if you're a beekeeper here
in North America or other parts of the world,
you may be next. Now let's clarify something.
These are not the Asian giant hornets, also known
as murder hornets. These Asian hornets are mostly
known by the term yellow -legged hornets. They're
not quite as big as the murder hornets, but they
can be every bit as devastating. In fact, one
of these hornets can kill up to 50 bees in a
single day. Now these hornets have traveled from
Asia to Europe, In fact, they've been found in
about 15 different countries, and there is reason
to be concerned about these. No matter what country
you're in, they may be coming. I know here in
the United States, they've been spotted in Georgia,
South Carolina, and some of the other southern
states. The people down there are working to
eradicate them. We wish them the best. We hope
they'll throw every resource possible at this
problem so that they don't spread everywhere
else. In some countries, like Spain and Belgium,
they have seen numbers increase from a handful
of nests to over 10 ,000 nests in four years.
So these things can really spread like crazy.
Research published in November of 2023 suggested
in France, which is the worst hit country in
Europe, that upwards of 29 % of the country's
bee colonies are at risk of being wiped out every
year by these Asian hornets. So let's keep a
heads up. Let's be vigilant. But now let's turn
to something positive and fun. We're going to
have a great talk with Richard. I'd like to welcome
to the show today Richard Wall, coming to us
all the way from the great state of Michigan.
Good morning, Richard. How are you? I'm fine.
How are you? I'm doing great. We have such a
fun topic today. We're going to be talking about
the article that just came out in Bee Culture
magazine, the May edition 2025, that you wrote
about everything that we can learn from observing
a hive entrance. You called it observations at
the hive entrance. Before we jump into it, would
you just give us a very brief idea of what your
beekeeping background is like or anything else
you'd like to tell us to get to know you? Well,
I got started with bees 16 years ago with no
intent to do so a Swarm landed in a backyard
pine tree I found a beekeeper and I was going
to give him a give him the bees and at one point
he said Or you can give this a try if you would
like Those words changed my whole last 16 years
of my life because I thought what the heck you
know bees living in the wild Set up a hive in
the back. Maybe get some honey in the fall. What
could be easier? I was totally naive when I got
into it and That's how I got started Most of
us were that naive it looks so simple And it
is not there's so much to learn the topic that
we have today is cool because you don't have
to be an entomologist or a PhD or something to
understand this. And for people that have been
beekeeping for years and years, it may give you
pause to think about some things and to spend
a little bit more time just enjoying observing
the bees. And for people that are new to beekeeping,
I think you're going to learn a lot here. So
let's jump right into it. One thing that I love
is your recommendation on having the hives close
if if this is possible for you close to your
house so that it's easy to go out and observe
them regularly. Tell me a little bit about that.
That's kind of how I got started because I had
no mentor. I didn't know clubs or classes or
conferences even existed when I started, so I
was just kind of do it on trial and error and
a few things I could find in. the internet and
beginner books. But I did spend a lot of time
observing the bees coming and going. And then
every time I would inspect, I'd always watch
them for a little bit before I went into the
hive. And I feel I learned a lot by doing that,
just seeing what they were, how their actions
were out at the entrance, on the porch entrance.
So we're going to delve into almost like a checklist
of things here, about 10 things, but let's start
with overall. What is the overall thing that
we can learn just by observing bees? You know,
how they're coming in and out of the hive. When
you observe, if you see pollen being brought
in, that's an indication and you see a lot of
activity, that's an indication that the hive
is probably pretty strong. It's got a good queen.
Otherwise they're not going to be bringing in
pollen unless they have brood to raise and brood
to feed and so When you see pollen being brought
in in the rear legs, that's the first indication
that you get a pretty strong hive Shouldn't be
the only indication shouldn't preclude inspections,
but it's certainly a good indicator and None
of what we're going to talk about today precludes
inspections. We need to do those regularly correct
But if we do them too often, we're actually not
we're doing a disservice to the bees. But you
can look at your bees every day if you want to.
The overall thing is some of that behavior. And
I love seeing the pollen coming in. That's one
of the most beautiful things there is. Would
you mind touching on and I'll help fill in some
blanks if you need it about that overall behavior?
For example, sometimes. I can tell from a few
feet away, these girls are just in kind of a
bad mood today. A lot of that has to do with
the noise they're making. You can watch the front
of the hive and if they're just coming and going
and doing their thing, there's probably not much
wrong in the hive. But you'll see a lot of fanning
going on, and especially in the summer hot days.
And what they're trying to do is ventilate the
hive. by ventilating, they're moving air through
and they're taking care of the specific moisture
and humidity level that they need, as well as
the ventilation, reducing the nectar into the
honey that they've stored in the comb to that
18 % that we're after before we can collect the
honey. So they're very busy and there's a lot
of bees usually just sitting on the porch fanning
to take care of those actions. What does that
look like exactly? Well, the bees will be standing
with all six feet on the porch and the bees,
the wings will be moving to an almost imperceptible
so fast that they're almost imperceptible. The
bees might be facing inward or might be facing
outward, depending on which way they're trying
to get the airflow to go. And there'll be a good
number of bees just sitting on the porch doing
that fanning. Another action that the fanning
serves is if they have their butts raised up
a bit. They have this what's called a Nazanov
scent cell between the second and third abdominal
break on their back, and they may just be putting
a scent out to encourage other bees to come back
to their hive. This is especially important if...
you've moved a hive or you've caught a swarm
or something like that, fanning with the butts
raised indicates that they're trying to pass
the queen's scent out to the other sisters that
recognize it so they come back to the correct
hive. I don't remember if this was in the article
or not, but to me it kind of goes with fanning,
and that is bearding. Tell us a little bit about
what you know about bearding. Bearding is an
action that the bees take if the humidity and
the temperature in the hive generally gets a
bit too great. One of my first actions, the first
summer I had bees in a single deep hive, somewhere
in early August and July, I saw a heavy bearding
outside the hive. And being uninitiated at that
point, I thought, well, there's probably not
enough room. I'll give them a second deep. really
what they needed was a better ventilation. In
order to accomplish that, now I know that if
I raise the top of the outer cover on the front
edge and put a stick across there, it allows
for more ventilation up through the inner cover
and out, and it decreases the necessity of them
veering and moving so many bees outside. Because
what you want is you want to have the bees working
inside the hive as much as possible and not hanging
around outside. It's just one of the things I
learned in the process of my beekeeping, that
if they have better ventilation, in addition
to the fanning that they're doing, it will cut
down on the bearding and you'll have more worker
bees working rather than just hanging around
outside. That makes sense. All right, let's talk
about guard bees. Guard bees is another element
of the bees standing on the porch and they'll
usually be one or two and you can actually, if
you observe. the bees come in going, you'll see
one or two that are normally facing away from
the entrance, and those bees may come out and
bump returning bees, or even if they perceive
you as a threat, they may come up and bump your
head or buzz around yourself, especially if you
get a veil on, or even if you don't have a veil
on. And I've had bees bump my head, and they're
the guard bees. They're usually standing with
their front legs raised, their front of the body
raised, and they're just checking the returning
bees to see that they're the ones that really
belong to the hive. And if they don't, they'll
go out and attack them or fight with them not
to let them into the hive. And so that way they
know that they're at the bees with the right
pheromone or at the right hive, and they're allowed
to enter, especially if they have a load of pollen
or nectar with them. They just serve that purpose
to keep other bees or robbers or a lot of times
I see it with the yellow jackets in the fall.
They'll attack a yellow jacket that's come because
it doesn't have the pheromone. It doesn't have
the sense of those guard bees are facing outward
in a different stance than your standard fanning
bees. So let's remember guard bees. That's actually
a good thing. Yes, they're taking a stance to
try and preclude any invaders or any aggressors
from coming in. And like if you had critters
or skunks or something, they'd be the first ones
to go out and sting. They're the first ones that
are going to come up and bump on your veil. If
you're wearing a veil, if they feel it, feel
that you as a beekeeper are being a little rough
and you're a threat to the hive, they have a
specific duty. and usually those are bees that
have matured beyond the two or three week stage
and have gotten to the point where they're taking
on other duties other than just nurse bees or
clean up bees inside the hive. I think this is
a good time to throw out a little recommendation.
Not everybody can do this based on where their
hives are sitting, but if you can, it just makes
sense to work your hives from the back. True.
sneak up on them from the back instead of straight
from the front, which just alerts the guard bees.
Hey, there's this gigantic creature coming towards
me. If you work from the back and you very calmly
and quietly take off the lid and start doing
your business, it usually takes a lot longer
before they get alerted. And that's a nice thing
because they don't just, you know, one or two
come and give you a bump. If there's a problem,
they alert everybody else. Correct. A little
puffer to a smoke really decreases that alarm
pheromone, and it also calms the bees. And lots
of times, if the hive is just going about its
business, if I open the hive and start pulling
out frames and they continue to go about their
business, I don't even have to use smoke. because
they've gotten to recognize me, I think, based
on the years I've worked with the bees. They're
much calmer if you're calm and not nervous and
not threatening them and definitely one of you
working from the back of the hive rather than
the front. Because if you're standing in front,
you become a perceived threat rather than quietly
working from the back of the hive. There is a
behavior that is interesting that can happen
in the middle of the winter on a warm day or
very early spring. You're not going to probably
see this happen in July. What are cleansing flights?
OK, cleansing flights are when the bees need
to go outside and defecate. In my instance here,
we have some winters where it'll be below freezing
during the day during the night for days on end.
And bees do not make a habit of relieving themselves
within the hive if they can possibly avoid it.
Some bees can go up to 60, 70, 80 days without
relieving themselves if it's a very cold period
of several months. And then you'll get one of
those white winter snows. And usually we have
a very warm, sunny day after the snow. And that's
when, if it's above freezing and warm enough
for the bees, they'll come out and you'll see
all these yellow and brown spots on the snow.
And what they've done is they're coming out and
defecating in the snow and relieving themselves
because it hadn't been a chance to do that for
maybe weeks on end when they were cooped up in
the hive. So cleansing flights are very obvious
if you have white snow. In the winter probably
not so obvious if you're in an area where you
don't have snow on those warm days They'll come
out and in mass Just one after the other after
the other come and go come and go and relieving
themselves because they haven't had a chance
to do that cooped up in the hive for Weeks or
maybe even a month on end and by the way, they're
talented. They can do that mid -flight. Yes They
don't have to stop. And anyway, we won't go into
all that detail. I had a couple of years ago,
we had a very long, very cold winter here where
I am. And most of my bees didn't make it. And
there was five months straight where it was not
warm enough for them to take a cleansing flight.
And I wondered if that had something to do with
them not making it through that winter. Do you
know anything about that? I'm going to say possibly
yes and possibly no because I've had the good
fortune of twice in the past six years going
a perfect hundred percent through some pretty
cold winters as was the case this past year.
This year, this last fall, I went into the fall
with 11 hives and I still have 11 hives that
are very active. I'm getting ready to probably
in another week do splits. And a lot of that,
I think, has to do with the insulation. A lot
of it, I think, has to do with the winter feeding.
But even more so, it's having the mites under
control in late summer, early fall as your winter
bees are being raised so that the mite population
is not spreading viruses and disease within the
hive. Let me just take a minute here to thank
our presenting sponsor, Man Lake. One of the
things I love about Man Lake is their commitment
to education because that commitment shows how
much they want you to be successful at beekeeping.
One great resource is their mobile app. You know,
it's not just for shopping. It's packed full
of all kinds of helpful information, including
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and plant bee healthy plants for their area.
It's free, so download the Man Lake app today.
And speaking of shopping, don't forget your discount
code MLBlove10. It's in the show notes. For $10
off your first $100 dollar purchase. Now back
to the guest. The cold itself, bees have survived
in the cold for for years in the woods and natural
environments. So if we provide a little bit of
insulation, a little bit of winter feed as they
require it and make sure the mites are under
control, I think there's a good chance that most
of people's hives, if they did those things,
would survive. through even some very pretty
cold winters because we have some pretty nasty
winters here in Michigan too at times. Amen to
all that and congratulations on having such good
success. You've figured some things out. All
right bees have all kinds of duties during their
lifetime in the hive. Undertaker bees you called
them. What do they do and when is that in their
life cycle? A bee's life cycle normally starts
by emerging from the capped brood cell. And when
the bee emerges, its normal first duties are
as a clean up bee, it cleans up its cell and
surrounding cells, as well as becoming a nurse
bee and a caretaker of other bees that are just
emerging. Those bees need to be fed. They need
to be bred. They need their area cleaned up.
And that normally goes on for maybe a week or
two to two weeks. At about the end of two weeks,
when large group of bees emerge, that's when
their wax glands develop. There's six to eight
wax glands underneath their abdomen that develop
and they can then go on and draw a new comb with
those new wax bits that they produce. And then
somewhere in the, I think it's 18 to 20 day time
frame, there'll be doing orientation flights
and start to look at working outside the hive.
This is the period when they've gotten into older
duties such as undertaker bees and undertaker
bees are the ones that are going to carry dead
bodies out of the hive. Bees basically wear themselves
out after six to eight weeks in the summer, maybe
even a little shorter because they're making
so many foraging flights as they get further
along in their life. The last few weeks of their
life, that's not only what they're doing is coming
and going, bringing nectar, bringing water, bringing
resin and pollen back into the hive. And they
work so hard, they literally wear themselves
out until they don't have the energy and they
just die. Well, some of them end up dying in
the hive. And so other bees have to be designated
as undertaker bees in order to carry those dead
bodies out of the hive. Because the winter bees
last a lot longer, often four to six months because
of the lesser activity, you'll see on warm days
pretty large expansion of the undertaker bees
carrying out dead bodies. It's not unusual in
warmer winter days to see an alarming number
of dead bees just outside the hive entrance because
the bees that are taking the undertaker duty
are dragging all those dead bodies out. The more
dead bodies they can gather the hive, the less
moisture less potential for disease to be spread
inside the hive. So if you've got a good colony
that's got good undertaker bees and a strong
colony going into winter, you'll see that the
bottom boards are almost clean when you inspect
them at the first time in spring, because those
bees have been cleaning out that bottom board
and moving all the dead bees out. The other thing
that's pretty obvious in the fall is you'll see
them dragging live drones out of the hive. And
the drones are driven out of the hive in the
fall because their only purpose in the whole
structure is to mate with virgin queens. Well,
going into winter, late fall and winter, there
are no more virgin queens. The hive's not going
to be producing new queens at that time. And
so the drones, as the male bees' only purpose
is to mate, gets kicked out of the hive. And
you'll see many of them kind of struggling as
they're being dragged out of the hive in the
fall. And that's another purpose of the undertaker
bees is to eliminate as many drones as they can
in the fall. They don't eliminate all of them,
but they eliminate a pretty good percentage of
them because all they're going to do is use up
resources because there's no mating ritual that
has to go on as you go into the fall and winter.
Oh, the life of a drone. I don't know what to
say besides that. Anyway, this undertaker bee
thing, it's kind of a good lesson, especially
for new beekeepers, because sometimes you see
a bunch of dead bees around the entrance of the
hive and go, oh, no, oh, no. But once again,
it's actually a good thing. It's good behavior
on their part to be cleaning out the hive and
keeping things as sanitary as they can. OK, one
of the most beautiful things that I love to observe
is orientation flights. Now, if you're new to
observing bees, it may look like mass chaos.
Tell us about orientation flights and how can
you tell the direction they're actually going
on orientation flights? There's there's several
different cases when you'll see a lot of activity
out of the hive. One is swarming, and that's
probably the most chaotic, which should get into
at some other point. Orientation flights is a
little bit alarming because you see all. Bees
are making a circular pattern, normally looking
back at the front of the hive, maybe flying a
little further away, making another circle, circular
pattern and looking again. And in many cases,
there'll be dozens, if not hundreds of bees doing
this at the same time, because that queen that
was laying eggs is probably laying 1500 to 2000
eggs. It can lay that much in a day. So she may
have laid dozens or hundreds of eggs in the same
time frame and all those bees have emerged close
to the same time. So in a warm morning day, you
may go out and look at your hive mid morning
and there'll be all these this activity just
outside the front of the hive. And what those
bees are doing is they're getting their navigation
skills down to figure out what the environment
looks like around their hive to get the. sense
of the pheromone smell to come back to the hive
and to just orientate themselves in relation
to the sun and the other environment around them
so that they know which hive to come back to.
And this is somewhat amazing because in my case,
like I said, I have 11 hives sitting in a row
and you may see one hive doing this and no activity
in the others. And then the day later you see
a different hive do it with all this orientation
activity and none others. And they're just in
that particular hive. getting oriented to the
location of the hive, the color of the hive,
the scent of the hive, so that when they go out
in greater distance in relationship to the sun,
they can find their way back to the hive that
they came from. And Richard, have you ever thought
about this? These bees have actually never been
outside at all. In fact, inside the hive is quite
dark. Right. I mean, this is a big jump from
living in this tiny little pretty dark quarters
to all of a sudden. you're going to go out and
fly and do your job. You need orientation of
some sort. It'd be like a person living in a
cave and one day coming out and seeing what the
world looks like outside. But that's the nature
of the insect is they have the means to do that.
And they're smart enough to know that they need
to maybe make several orientation flights. They
may go back in the hive and continue with. Queen
helping duties or cleansing duties or something
like that and come back out and do another orientation
flight. They may do this three, four times before
they actually go out and forage to a greater
distance. But it's an important feature of the
hive that they can orient to where the hive is
located and know how to get back to the hive
that they belong to. All right. One of the last
things that we're going to talk about is robbing.
And if you haven't seen this behavior before,
explain to us what it looks like. Robbing is
one of the three things that you'll see that
looks chaotic outside the hive. I mentioned swarming,
which is a whole different issue. And then the
orientation flights. Orientation flights are
condensed usually within 5, 10, 15 feet of the
hive as the orientation gets further and further
out. Robbing is another condition where you'll
see a lot of fights going on outside the hive,
but even more so. along any of the cracks of
the hive or the joints between two different
deeps or supers, the bees from a different hive
will be looking for those cracks and crevices
to find their way in to rob from the hive they're
attacking. This happens in particular with the
weak hive, sometimes with a new starter nuke
hive that doesn't have the strength to defend
itself and The robbing is a very chaotic fighting
event often between bees, especially with a stronger
hive against a weaker hive. That's why it's well
advised that if you're working with open hive
to cover the part that you're now working with
a sheet or just a part of the outer cover or
something and only have a minimal amount open
because bees can sense when honey is available
and a hive is open. And if it sits open too long,
you might induce robbing, especially if you've
got a hive that's not found any nectar in a while
or there's a dearth going on and they want to
get more honey for their own hive, it can increase
the potential for a robbing event. The other
thing to do is use an entrance reducer and reduce
to the smallest size so the gargbees have smaller
rate to reduce or you can throw a sheet over
the hive. and just close it up for a day and
then come back and check it to make sure that
you haven't lost that colony. Robbing can occur
to the extent that one hive will totally eliminate
the weaker hive if you're not careful and you
have robbing going on. Another feature of robbing
that causes robbing is outside feeding. A bucket
of some type of feed that's set outside the hives
is a real inducement for introducing robbing
among other bees. That's why I like to use enclosed
containers or inside feeders or a super around
a jar feeder that's sitting over the inner cover
opening because then only the bees and no other
yellow jackets and other critters can get to
the honey and it precludes any potential for
other bees to get into this robbing mode. Are
there any other things that we could be looking
for outside the hive that may be signs that there
is something wrong? You know, diseases or mites
or queenless, anything else that we can observe
that maybe should alert us that, hey, I need
to dig into this hive today and figure out what's
going on? Well, the advice that I've always I
learned fairly early on was that if you have
more than one hive, and you see one hive's activity
considerably different than the others, it's
probably worth checking out. Outside observations
on the porch should never take the place of whatever
routine inspections, whatever your inspection
schedule is. If I do my spring inspections and
I find that I've got a queen and I got a good
egg and larva and brood pattern and she's doing
well and I continue to see the bees on the outside
bringing in pollen, I may not open and inspect
every frame for a couple of months, maybe two
months, maybe even a little more than that on
end, unless I suspect that there's a problem.
The reason you would suspect a problem is that
you don't see the activity outside the hive.
You don't see the bees coming and going the way
you would expect, and this comes with experience.
I spend a lot of time in my first few years just
watching the bees and getting a feel for what
was going on inside the hive before I'd open
it by watching what was going on outside the
hive. And that helped me learn a lot about what
to expect when I did open a hive later on. But
if there's a dirth and no nectar or there's a
queen problem, problem with using, relying totally
on outside inspections is the problem has probably
existed for two to three weeks before you've
caught it. And so inspections are not to be.
replaced by observing outside. But watching what's
going on outside, especially when you have two
or three hives that you can compare, really should
alert you to the need for an inspection. If you
see a drastic difference in activity from one
hive to the other, especially a lack of activity,
that's a key indicator that there may be something
wrong within the hive. You mentioned swarming
a minute ago, and I want to finish up with this
one. What is swarming behavior going to look
like from outside the hive? And if you observe
it at that point, is there anything you can do
about it? Or is it too late? Yes and yes. Swarming
activity, the first time I saw, I went out and
was checking, going to check my hives and I observed
bees just in mass, wave after wave, leaving a
hive. And I really Thought it was swarming, but
I really didn't know the first time I saw it
and so in an area maybe 50 60 feet wide 40 50
feet in front of the hive 2 to 3 feet to 12 feet
was just total chaos with bees all over the place
and this Exodus of the bees leaving the hive
continued more and more bees in this chaotic
huge area out in front the hive and then Suddenly
the queen, which I learned later is going to
be one of the last to leave. She leaves and once
she joins this chaotic, huge, chaotic flying
of bees outside, they coalesced into about a
six to eight foot wide mass and then departed
to the south. The rabble rouser bees or the scout
bees that were leading them finally had the queen
join them and when the queen join them off they
go. That's what I witnessed the first time. I
just stood there mesmerized and watched it as
I lost a swarm out of one of my hives. The second
time I saw that was probably two or three years
later. And as soon as I saw this mass exodus
starting, I pulled, it was in two deeps, and
I pulled the top deep off and I interrupted that
tendency of whatever the bees were leaving. Started
pulling frames from the bottom deep that had
brood on them and basically did a split on the
spot. with the swarm trying to coalesce. Well,
as the queen is one of the last out, she stayed
on the bottom deep because I think I interrupted
the process by removing frames. And so I had
the queen that was going to swarm and the swarm
resettle on the bottom deep. In the meantime,
I pulled some frames up, put some new frames
in, took the second deep and set it aside as
a second hive to allow them to make a queen with
some of the brood frames and managed to catch
the swarm mid midstream. So you can, if you catch
it in the middle, because that whole process
that I talked about in the first element probably
didn't take but maybe five, no more than 10 minutes
at most, maybe five minutes that whole event
was over when I lost the swarm to the south.
And then a few years later I saw a swarm and
fortunately When I was working with some nukes,
this is the third time I saw it in my hives the
swarm coalesced and landed on a bush maybe 20
feet away from me and I was able to get a stepladder
and Bucket and capture it and put it in the new
hive and the thing that was interesting about
the third time I saw the swarm is there was a
secondary swarm the afternoon out of that same
hive I witnessed both of them with a virgin queen
and So I got another bucket another empty hive
and ended up catching the the virgin queen who
was at what they called an after swarm after
the first swarm which was probably twice as big
a size as the after swarm was but still two swarms
out of the same hive on the same day and three
times in my career i've been in the yard when
i've actually seen a swarm First one I lost,
the second one I stopped in the middle, and the
third one I caught them after they landed in
the bush. So it's an interesting thing. And I
think the thing that amazed me is the whole process
is over in probably not much more than five minutes.
Do you ever just take some time, take a chair,
just sit out by the beehives and watch them?
I do that as often as I can. You know, a sunny
warm day, I'll go out and... I don't necessarily
sit in a chair, but I'll sit and watch the bees
coming and going. It's a relaxing thing to do.
It's interesting to see what they're bringing
back in, whether their bodies are somewhat seem
to be engorged when they're bringing back in
nectar or water in their honey crop, because
they do look a little larger in the abdomen when
they are carrying stuff back in. And it's just
relaxing to hear the constant low buzz of the
bees, knowing that they're not upset, you're
just observing them. And they come and go and
don't seem to be minding me. They're watching,
standing and watching them for a while by myself
without interfering with them. And it's just
a very relaxing thing to do. And on the other
side of the coin, you learn a lot by just watching
them coming and going. I think it's something
that we don't do often enough, most of it, especially
if we've been beekeeping for a long time. I'm
gonna put out a little challenge for everybody.
This week, just in the next few days, do that
sometime, maybe early morning, maybe evening
at dusk or something when it's nice and. calm
and pleasant and take a chair take a beverage
if you want and just relax and spend some time
reminding yourself of the joy and the peace that
comes from bees and that's a challenge for commercial
beekeepers too because they don't it's a business
i get it but enjoy the bees as well okay last
thing richard before i let you go do you have
a wild and crazy beekeeping story you want to
share with us Well, by the second year, at the
time I was a high school teacher and I had a
freshman student who was just every, he knew
I had B's that first year and he was just full
of questions. So I told him if he could get his
parents to buy him the woodenware, I would give
him a swarm or I would buy a package and I had
already arranged to buy two packages that second
year and I would give him one. Well, to my surprise,
his parents got him the woodenware. And so in
the second year of my beekeeping, I'm not only
learning myself, but now I'm trying to help him
do his beekeeping. So by my third year, which
was his second, he had reached the point where
he was going to be able to take some honey. And
so he tells me one day, yeah, I took my honey
supers off this like midweek Wednesday. with
the idea that come Saturday I was going to go
process the honey. But what he did is he set
the honey supers under an awning of the garage,
which was not enclosed. And he told me when he
went back that Saturday after having setting
them out on Sunday or on Wednesday, that the
bees had virtually taken every bit of honey out
of those honey supers and taken it back to the
hive, which surprised him and gave us both a
lesson in how fast they can quickly return. Whatever
you've taken away if you haven't extracted it
or put it in a place where they can't get to
it They are amazing. I keep saying it over and
over and over. Hey Richard wall Thank you so
much for being with me. Check him out and be
culture magazine. He has an article every month
Do you do every month? Yes, I do I've On my fourth
year of an article every month that's aimed at
the beginners. My pages are always in blue I
usually have on average about three pages and
any mistakes in there are mine because there's
not too much editing that goes on. I know the
read the articles, but I don't get many critiques
about change the sentence or do something here.
So it's my experience with my beekeeping starting
16 years ago, which is where most of this come
from a lot of things that I've learned and managed
to come across of my own doing. Thanks for your
time today, Richard. Appreciate it. Thank you
for having me. Thanks again for joining us here
on Be Love Beekeeping presented by Man Lake.
Remember right now to follow or subscribe and
share this podcast. Also a quick shout out to
Vita Bee Health for their support. Vita's Varroa
Control range of products includes Apistan, Apigard,
and now Varroxan Extended Release Oxalic Acid
Strips. Thanks guys. Enjoy spring everybody,
enjoy your bees, and remember, if you're not
just in it for the honey or the money, you're
in it for the love. See you next week.