May I have your attention, please? The following
is not the real Jeff Foxworthy. If when you get
stung by a bee, you apologize because you did
something wrong, you might be a beekeeper. If
you have lost more than five hive tools and your
lawnmower has found two of them, you might...
Be a beekeeper. If you have replaced the grass
on your front lawn with clover, you might love
bees. Welcome, welcome to Be Love Beekeeping
presented by our great friends over at Man Lake.
We have a fun program today as we're going to
learn about beekeeping in single deep brew boxes
with John Stevens up in northern Michigan. Does
it make sense in cold climates? How about warm
weather? One of the things I love about beekeeping
is we can learn from others, then we need to
make decisions about what's going to be the best
for our bees. Knowledge plus experience. plus
intuition, hard work, and an open mind makes
great beekeepers and happy bees. Hey, it's been
a while since we've had some new honeybee fun
facts, so let's get started with a few interesting
tidbits about drone bees. Did you know that drones
have larger eyes on top of their heads to help
them identify queens during mating season? Did
you know that during the mating period colonies
can have as much as 10 to 15 % drones in their
hives? So imagine a hive with 40 ,000 bees, that's
like 4 to 6 ,000 drones. Did you know that drones
don't have stingers? Did you know that during
the mating period as many as 25 ,000 drones from
dozens of different hives will meet in a drone
congregation area? to mate with queens from surrounding
hives? And as a follow -up, did you know that
only a handful ever get to mate with a queen?
Those that do die immediately afterwards? The
rest, well, they live for about a month flying
out each warm day in search of a queen to mate
with. Did you know that virgin queens typically
mate with 10 to 20 different drones? It could
even be more than that. And that mating happens
in midair? And maybe the worst part, did you
know that once fall comes, the worker bees will
kick the drones out of the hive in what is known
as the expulsion of the drones. There you have
the bees part of the birds and the bees. We have
a fun guest interview today and a wild and crazy
beekeeping story that has something to do with
grandpa and his boxer shorts. Let's welcome to
the show today John Stevens coming to us from
Michigan in the US. How are you John? I am fine.
I got a day off from being stung. Oh Or a little
bit of time off from being stung. So that's always
good I hope that was our chat here today that's
saving you from being stung. I want some of the
credit. Oh, yeah Yeah, I got 40 nukes out there
in the back be yard that I need to go into mark
their new queen. So I got to go in, mark all
the queens and then add a second box to the new
today. So I will probably be stung here in a
little while after we finish. Well, you're allowed
to wear protective gear. Yeah, but our day, our
temperatures right now are running low 90s. So
you wear minimal gear right now and marking queens,
you're bare handed. So yeah, absolutely. We're
going to get into a little bit about where you
be keep and what it's like and how hard your
winners are and some of that kind of stuff. But
since you jumped into what you're doing today,
I want to hear all about that. So when did you
create these nukes and how did you raise the
Queens? Give us some background. Well, the Queens
just kind of fell into my lap. A friend of mine
up the road, he runs roughly 1100 hikes or so.
He ordered 400 queens and ended up only using
300 of them. So he called me to try to get rid
of some of the excess and I ended up buying 40
off of him. I got a really good deal. So then,
yeah, I just ran around and see, I run all single
deep management style hive. So I have to be in
them. I have to be pulling brood out. So it kind
of coincided with me keeping them throttled back,
pulling brood out, waiting for the main nectar
flow. And so here I had all this brood and just
happened to get all these queens and put together
all these new. Nice. And you run about 170 hives?
Yeah. Right now we're just at that. Generally
by the main honey flow, I should have about 175,
180 production hives. Our main flow doesn't start
for maybe another two weeks. Another week and
a half, two weeks. The basswood, Russian thistle,
or knapweed, whatever you want to call it. We
have a lot of thistle around here. I don't know
the term knapweed. Is that the same as thistle?
Yeah, it's like it's of the thistle family. But
around here, it was called star thistle, if you've
ever heard of star thistle honey. But really,
it's Russian knapweed. Or anything like that,
but it is a honey producing crop for us big time
So we're just waiting for that bloom usually
around the fourth of July a little after Now
you mentioned that you run all single deeps.
Give me an idea of why because even though I
you know, I'm only a hundred and seventy five
hundred and eighty hives I Consider myself kind
of a commercial honey producer. I am in it for
the honey and a single deep will produce more
honey than running a double. Double deeps, they,
you know, they store a lot in the double deep
to start with. Good 35, 40 pounds each. And with
a single, you're putting that honey super right
on top of that brood nest and they just put everything
up above it. So of course your honey production
increases. And when it comes time to find a queen,
see what's going on, doing any checks, it's one
box. So it really cuts down on the labor and
doing inspections and stuff like that. So I assume
you use queen excluders. Oh, yeah. You have to.
Or else it's not single brood management. It
would be single deep into medium management.
Yeah. And that's another thing I don't have.
really brood comb in my honey supers and stuff,
you know, so it's It just keeps your honey supers
clean Get a little pollen now and then and how
much more maintenance does it take to keep everything
just in one brood box? Yeah, I tell a lot of
new beekeepers because they see that I run singles
and It's like they are labor intensive though
because everything is so condensed into that
one box They are prone to swarming, so you have
to be on top of them. My schedule is I go all
the way, like every nine days, through all of
them hives. I'm on a rotation, my yards. Today
I'll go to this yard, do everything I need to
do. I generally try to keep them at about four,
maybe five frames of brood until the honey flow
starts, and then it's just hands off and let
them go. So all that time, you know, I'm still,
I just captured 10 virgin queens off of a frame
day before yesterday. So I have to go around
either later today after I get those 40 nukes
done and round up. I think two of those virgins
have died. So I only need like eight frames of
bees to get in a nuke box and put that virgin
in and see if she'll get out and get mated. So
you're just pulling frames of brood anyway. You
mentioned you only keep about four in a box,
right? So you're just pulling everything that's
extra and putting it in nucs? Right now, that's
my single deeps. Some of them could have six,
seven frames of cat brood. Well, if that hive
reaches maximum population before the honey flow,
well, they're gone. So what I do is I just keep
going in. and keeping them throttled back, you
know, trying to keep the population down and
just keep the hive stable until the nectar flow
really starts in earnest and then just turn them
loose. And then you let it go. Yeah. That's such
an interesting philosophy. I like that because
it seems like most beekeepers, it's like, hey,
the biggest we can do, the more bees we can do
is all the better. So right, so I think that's
an interesting way to do it. Yeah in a double
deep, you know, they're so much more forgiving
because Queen has more real estate. They have
more room to put up store, you know, I mean,
it's just They're just more forgiving for that
aspect but when I started seeing like Ian Stepler
up in Canada There was a guy years ago Devon
Ron from Canada and stuff. These guys were all
doing single bird management and One year back
when I first bought the poly hives, I tried like
10 or 15 singles through the winter and those
poly singles all survived and my poly double
deeps had issues of, you know, dying off. So
they actually overwintered better in that smaller
condensed cavity. But they didn't run out of
food? No, no, the poly hives create a different
environment. You know, it's a field insulated
cavity. Warm bees eat less honey. Same thing
with your house. If your house is super insulated,
your furnace will run less, less fuel. Same thing
with the bees. Now when we're ventilating the
wood boxes and you know, you got air just chimneying
right through them, you're losing all that heat.
They're eating more. more honey to generate that
heat so they do eat more. My singles generally
will go through the winter here in northern Michigan
on about five, maybe six frames of capped honey
in a single beat. I try to run mostly barnolian
genes, you know, I go for the darker bees and
Although those 40 queens were just all Italian,
so I weeded those out of my operation, but now
I just got them back. I think you did say mostly.
Do the Italians not overwinter as well for you?
Well, Italians are a better honey producer, but
they go into winter with such a super large cluster
that, yeah, they just don't seem to. the overwinter
as well up here. So I mean, I'll overwinter these
40 newts and then they'll probably be sold in
the spring if I don't need some of them to replace
dead outs or something. But I'll probably try
to keep those Italian genetics out of my production.
Go ahead and sell them. Yeah. So you're in, we're
in Michigan. I know you're Northern somewhere.
I'm Northern Michigan and right in the snow belt.
You would have Traverse City, Michigan up by
Traverse Bay and all that is about 30, 35 minutes
from me. And then Gaylord, Michigan, that's another
big town. That's right dead center of the state.
They're about another 30 minutes or so. But where
I'm at in the, it is the like snow capital. Last
year we had the 249 inches of snow. So my hives,
literally just become bumps in the snow. I'll
see the stakes of the T -post for the bare fence
around the yard, and then I have to just kind
of look for where the little bumps are, where
the hives are. You don't worry about ventilation?
No. When I switched to the polystyrene hives,
I had to throw away all my conventional beekeeping
wisdom, and it just... go to a tree cavity mentality
to where the bees go into a tree cavity, it's
a sealed cavity, and they go in, they stabilize
it, and they control that environment. Man thinks
they need all this ventilation and all this stuff.
They do if they're in a box that they can't stabilize.
You can take a wood box and if you build a two
-inch styrofoam box that's all glued together
and slip it over it, You've now mimicked a tree
cavity and The bees will do great. They will
deal with any moisture. They will deal with if
it's too hot too cold, you know They do it but
actually I have videos because I do have a YouTube
channel and I have a little video. I'm not sure
if it is on YouTube though. It might just be
the Northern Michigan beekeepers site but my
buried hives because they are so warm inside,
there's so much heat coming out the entrance
that it literally melts a big cavity underneath
the snow. Quick break to thank our presenting
sponsor, Man Lake. Whether you're a beekeeper
or not, you know that nutrition is key for healthy
honeybees, native bees, and other pollinators.
The Man Lake app is a great resource for determining
pollinator friendly plants that thrive in your
area, and its plant identification feature is
super helpful and fun. When I see a plant covered
in bees, I fire up the app on my phone, I find
out what that plant is, and then I can put them
in my own yard. The bees love it. If you haven't
already downloaded the Man Lake app, give it
a try today. Oh, and by the way, it's free. The
bees are able to access that cavity. For one,
I'm not going to say it's super warm, but it's
not super cold. So they'll come out and do cleansing
trips outside the hive in that cavity that's
underneath the snow. It is just amazing that
I went to dig them out to do the acylic acid
in winter and dig down to this big old open cavity.
How big a cavity are we talking about? Generally,
my hives are two boxes on a two -way pallet.
And between the two hives melting that cavity,
it will be a cavity all the way across the front
between the two hives, maybe a foot tall, 8 -10
inches out from the front of the hive. Super
large. I mean, it is a super, super large cavity.
And it just allows the bees to come out, go to
the bathroom and go back in. That's amazing.
I never heard of that. There are times when my
hives get completely buried in snow in the winter.
And I thought it was my job to go dig out the
entrance so that they could get some air. But
you're saying, nah. Of course, I'm not running
Polyhives, but you're a pretty good salesman
for them. By the way, you're not hired by them
or anything, right? We're not doing an infomercial
here. No, no. OK, I'll tell you, I started with
the superior brand, Superior B, which is made
in Ohio. And I went with them to start because
of being American made here. And then now they've
gotten a little pricey. And I now run. blue sky
or the Paradise Bee box, which that was invented
in Finland in 1962. So that box has been around
for a long time, but I do run those now. And
I know the gentleman that has started the hive
IQ brand because I do presentations on these
hives. So I have a sample of each one that I
use. I don't run the Hive IQ because it's from
Australia and it's only a nine frame box. So
my 600 honey supers don't fit on top. So I have
to stick with the other brands because even though
I'm running that poly hive, I run wooden honey
supers all summer long. And the styrofoam lid
just keeps moving up as I'm adding the boxes.
Once winter comes and I pull all the honey, the
lid comes back down and it's a sealed cavity.
And it's one deep box and that's it all the way
through winter. And summer. Any supplemental
feeding? I will feed them in the fall just to
make sure that they, you know, they are up on
stores. But I was telling my wife this year,
I may cut back on feeding because I had so many
full honey supers. honey frames in that deep
in the spring that I was literally pulling frames
out and putting drawn comb in just so the queen
would have a place to get started up laying.
It just they do not consume that much honey when
they are super warm. You're kind of blowing my
mind here, John. I love it. Oh, I know. I mean,
and that's why just when we think we have this
figured out. A lot of the stuff I do and talk
about is a lot different than what people conventionally
believe. That's one thing I've learned in beekeeping
is just keep open -minded because when you think
you've got it figured out, something either better,
different or something else comes along and we
need to keep open -minded to it. You also mentioned
that you treat with OA during the winter. Yeah.
Tell me about that when and how. Well, my mite
protocol is basically through the summer, I don't
do mite washes or anything like that. I strictly
just look at drone group. My single deeps, they
build most of the drone comb on the bottom of
the frames. So, you know, if I'm scraping off
some drone comb or something, I'm always investigating
if I have mites or not through the summer. Then
when I pull my honey in August, second week of
August or so we get started, I will take and
drop Apivar strips at the same time. You know,
I'm putting a bee escape on so the bees are coming
out of the honey supers down into the single
and I have the Apivar in there. Then once that
runs its course, I remove that. But I know that
there are bees or mites that didn't, you know,
get affected. So at Thanksgiving in November,
because of the warm cavity, the bees are wall
to wall moving around. There's no cluster, even
if it's cold, snowy. And I will go in and do
a round of acylic acid vapor on all of them.
That will knock down a lot of mites. I've had
monitors in hives and I know that those follies
will keep brood in them until about the second
week of December. So until all of that brood
is emerged, I still have mites. Right, the vapor
didn't take care of mites under the cap root.
Under the capping, right. So I know there's going
to still be maybe a few mites in there. So I
go back at Christmas and I'll do another round
because everything will be emerged around the
second week of December. So once I do that round,
the monitor showed me that shortly after that
the temperature drops in the hive to like about
a 60 degree cavity temperature and they closed
at that temperature until about the second week
of February. The second week of February the
monitor will show that the the brood nest temperature
is going back up or the ambient air in the hive
and I will go back usually around Valentine's
Day and do another round of acylic acid. or anything
that may have survived at that point. And then
basically I come into spring pretty clean. I
don't do any other mite treatments, nothing until
again, I mean, if I'm going through a hive and
I open some drone brood and I see mites, well,
yeah, I'm gonna do something to mitigate that
at the time. But for the most part, I don't see
mites all summer long. Mostly fall and winter
then for you. And just for our listeners that
are a little newer at this, that doesn't work
for everybody. It depends where you are. It depends
on your mite load. You may need to be treating
sooner than that. Right. Well, what don't work
for everybody is if you've got bees in a wooden
box and it's five degrees outside, they are clustered
as tight as a basketball. And if you blow acetic
acid vapor in there, you're just dusting the
outside of that cluster. You're not hitting the
bees that are in the center or where the mites
would be down staying warm too, you know. So
it's really ineffective more or less in an uninsulated
cavity. I have videos showing opening my hives
in February. No up to the top of the hive. I've
dug it out, opened it up. I have four mil plastic
as an inner cover so they don't glue those lids
down. So you can see the bees through there and
they are wall to wall, working, walking around,
having a good time. I say in my presentation
that bees are supposed to be able to stabilize
their environment and maintain it with minimal
effort on their part. and have access to every
square inch of their cavity on any given day
of the year. They are not supposed to cluster
height like that. If they're in a cavity that
they can stabilize and maintain and do what they
need to do, then they are active. But they're
not active in the sense that, oh, they're gonna
eat all the honey. You have to remember your
winter bees have already filled their fat bodies
and they're ready for winter. go through winter.
And then my stores in the singles, I don't see
that drop until they start raising brood. The
winter bees have went through winter. They didn't
really need to eat no honey because they had
stocked up their fat bodies. But then once they
start raising brood, well, then they got to start
dipping into the stores and everything like that.
And that's another plus to the insulated cavity.
is because most pollen is stored on the outside
frames, you know, out towards the outer edge,
so the nurse bees have to access that. Well,
if you're in a wood box that they're clustered
tight and it's February and they want to start
trying to raise brood, well, any pollen or anything
that they need to do that better be within that
cluster. Whereas in the polyhives, the insulated
cavity, Nurse bees walk over a couple frames,
get their pollen, whatever they need. They have
access to every square inch. To me, it's a whole
different way of beekeeping. I tell people, I
think for a hundred years or so, we've been keeping
bees wrong, you know, with all the ventilation
and moisture boards and all that stuff. And I
did it for the first eight years of my beekeeping.
And then every one of those eight years, I mean,
I was buying bees, buying bees in the spring,
replace all the dead outs. And 11 years ago I
switched to these poly hives and I have not had
to buy bees in the spring since because the survival
has always been good enough to make more bees
and go to win -win for me. So give me an idea
of the survival rate. Do you have any numbers?
I went into winter last year with about 173 hives
and I think I lost 25 or 26. Nice. I don't get
in the fall, I don't... usually get to every
hive to make sure it's clean right and everything
before going in, you know, you're cleaning out
a dead out and you can see the symptoms of, oh,
we had a land worker in that hive, you know,
that hive just crashed because there was no queen.
But as far as the actual keeping the bees warm
and the bees surviving with honey and all that,
how many times have you looked at a dead hive
and they're clustered? and right next to them
was frames of honey. And you think, well, how
come they just didn't move over there and eat
that honey? Well, they were in such a cold environment,
they couldn't move. Yeah. When you see bees that
have starved and there's honey still in the hive,
that is a very frustrating thing. Right. So yeah.
And another thing that plays into this poly hive
situation and being the insulated cavity is Bees
need water to drink, just like every other living
creature. So, if they're in a cold wooden bot,
and you are ventilating all their moisture out,
you have moisture boards wicking all that moisture
away, and for one though, they're clustered so
tight, if there was water somewhere, they wouldn't
be able to walk over and access it. For one,
it would be frozen, more likely. But I have,
again, little clips, little video clips of the
moisture hanging from the plastic inner cover
that I have and the bees literally walking over
there and taking a drink because that water is
room temperature. It's the same ambient temperature,
you know, of the ambient air within that cavity.
They've had it stabilized. It is going to condense
a little bit, but it's their drinking water.
That's how they're self sustainable through the
winter. And man thinks we know what we're doing
by, oh, you know, I mean, I tell northern people
up here, if you think the bees could be ventilated,
then go home and put a four foot square in your
living room ceiling and see how comfortable you
are through the winter. It ain't going to happen.
Well, and you've mentioned your YouTube channel
a couple of times and we'll stick a link to it
in the show notes. in case people want to see
some of those videos. Yeah, it's, you know, it's
just John Stevens. But I go by farmer John Stevens
on Facebook. And so the YouTube channel to handle
to it is at farmer John Stevens, because there's
a ton of John Stevens on YouTube. But yeah, I
mean, if I come across interesting stuff, I drop
it on that channel and My presentation from the
Michigan Beekeepers Association's fall conference,
that's on there describing this polyhive concept.
Okay. Last but not least, in fact, probably my
favorite, John, can you give us a wild and crazy
beekeeping story that you've had? My brother
-in -law, who originally got us started in beekeeping
20 years ago, his dad would always help us in
the bees, and he even had a few hives of his
own and stuff. But you have to understand he
was probably 81 or 82 at the time. And he's out
in the bee yards with us. And all of a sudden
we're just hearing him going, no, no, no. And
he's got a bee going up his pant leg and he wore
boxer shorts. So, you know, she's got free reign
on her journey. And literally out in the bee
yard, he had to drop his trousers to get that
bee before she got right to the right to the
point. But we were just both kind of laughing
and didn't have cell phones at the time to get
any video of it. But so it's just the three of
you. Oh, well, it was at that time, you know,
but he passed away here a few years back. Yeah,
but thank goodness the whole family wasn't around
to witness that. Granddaughters, things like
that. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, the cars driving
by on the road was probably getting a show. But
what's that doing, wounding everybody? Was he
also running or was he just kind of jumping around
to get that beat? Oh, no, he was just standing
there dropping trousers, man. He was he just
had to get to it fast. So yeah, bees in the pants
is never fun. All right. Luckily, we didn't get
video of that one. We wouldn't be able to post
it if we did, but sounds funny. And well, no
father -in -law, we're not making fun of you,
but thanks for bringing fun to beekeeping. Last
thing, John, what do you love about honeybees?
I've been doing it 20 years and they teach me
something new. every year. I mean, it don't matter.
You'll think you know it all and you got it and
they will do something different. I don't know,
just the overall experience of it. And I think
with new beekeepers, one of the things is they're
afraid of their bees. They're all suited up.
They got the big thick gloves on and they're
just so scared of these bees and the bees sense
that. And the sooner you can just say, hey, these
are bees, and yeah, I might get stung, you'll
become a better beekeeper of it. I'm not saying
you have to go glove -less. I wear the Home Depot
orange and white gloves. They got like the rubber
coating on them and they're stretchy. I wear
those because I follow Bob Binney, who's down
in Georgia. I follow his mantra of, if I see
a queen, I mark her. You know, every queen in
my operation is marked. So, I wear those gloves
strictly to keep my hands from being sticky.
I used to go glove -free all the time, but I
never, never marked queens in the past. So now
that I'm marking every queen, I can just slip
them gloves off, I can grab her, I can handle
her. I'm not ripping her wings off because they've
snipped to the propolis on my fingers or anything
like that. So, you know, I tell them, you don't
have to be glove -less. And I get stung through
those gloves. I haven't tried those. I'm going
to give those a shot. I wear the nitrile gloves
and you can get stung through those. Oh, yeah.
But it is really nice when you're done working
some hives to just pull those off and throw them
away. Right. And yeah, you're not digging propolis
out of your fingers. I tried the nitrile gloves
for a while, but my hands just get so wet and
sweaty, you know, because when I go out to work
bees, I'm going to a yard to go through 30, 40
hives. That's just a long time. And those other
ones, they got, you know, they're the white material.
They kind of absorb the moisture, the sweat.
You still have the dexterity because they are
so tight. Yeah, I love them. You're selling me
on all kinds of things today. You should have
stock in Home Depot and in Poly Hives and all
this stuff. I watch other beekeepers and they'll
put on those black nitrile gloves. And I'm like
bees don't like black no no no that's one of
the things about the Home Depot gloves that I
Just don't really care for is and they've got
some black lettering on the back of them And
a lot of times the bees just target that black
lettering a little bit But but nothing bad and
the nitrile ones that I have they're just that
light blue color It doesn't seem to agitate the
bees at all right. They are thin enough. You're
gonna tear them now and then oh, yeah, you know
And yeah, the sweat is definitely an issue. I
tell the new beekeeper that'll make you a better
beekeeper because with those big leather bulky
gloves, you're crushing bees. Crushed bees make
for mean bees. You want to alleviate that problem.
So the moral of our discussion today is no big
heavy leather gloves and no boxer shorts. Exactly.
John, thank you for being with me. I appreciate
your time. All right. I'm glad we got to do it.
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. 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.