WEBVTT 00:00:00.240 --> 00:00:06.660 in a world brimming with complexity few creatures 00:00:06.660 --> 00:00:12.839 embody harmony like the honeybee with tireless 00:00:12.839 --> 00:00:17.699 precision she dances from bloom to bloom each 00:00:17.699 --> 00:00:22.399 motion guided by millennia upon millennia of 00:00:22.399 --> 00:00:28.800 instinct each act in service to the whole and 00:00:28.800 --> 00:00:34.560 then There are the beekeepers, watchful stewards 00:00:34.560 --> 00:00:40.479 of this ancient symbiosis. Part agriscientist, 00:00:40.840 --> 00:00:45.460 part poet, they move along their hives with the 00:00:45.460 --> 00:00:50.560 efficiency of mow, levy and curly, tending to 00:00:50.560 --> 00:00:54.219 the bee's needs as best they can comprehend, 00:00:54.859 --> 00:00:59.679 and with the infrequency of a waterfall in the 00:00:59.679 --> 00:01:05.599 Sahara, sometimes running off flapping and flailing 00:01:05.599 --> 00:01:12.180 like a penguin on a hot sidewalk. This is their 00:01:12.180 --> 00:01:22.260 journey. Welcome, welcome to Be Love, Be Keep 00:01:22.260 --> 00:01:24.700 being presented by our good friends over at Man 00:01:24.700 --> 00:01:27.750 Lake. Today's show features the conclusion of 00:01:27.750 --> 00:01:31.170 our discussion with the amazing Dr. Tom Seeley. 00:01:31.650 --> 00:01:33.950 We'll learn about everything from the tremble 00:01:33.950 --> 00:01:37.530 dance to drone congregation areas, Bee's various 00:01:37.530 --> 00:01:40.489 jobs in the hive, even the proper pronunciation 00:01:40.489 --> 00:01:44.269 of the word, I better just spell it, P -R -O 00:01:44.269 --> 00:01:48.709 -P -O -L -I -S, and a whole ton more. We might 00:01:48.709 --> 00:01:51.049 even find out if he has a wild and crazy story 00:01:51.049 --> 00:01:54.069 to share. Now let's head back to Maine and our 00:01:54.069 --> 00:02:01.030 discussion with Dr. Tom Seeley. Tell me how beekeeping 00:02:01.030 --> 00:02:03.670 has changed over the years, since you've been 00:02:03.670 --> 00:02:07.790 doing this for 56 years. And I don't mean to 00:02:07.790 --> 00:02:10.310 pronounce it like that as, well, you must be 00:02:10.310 --> 00:02:13.770 100 years old, but that's a long time. And people 00:02:13.770 --> 00:02:16.330 I've talked to, old timers, are like, it used 00:02:16.330 --> 00:02:19.340 to be so easy. Yeah, it used to be that the American 00:02:19.340 --> 00:02:21.800 fowl brood was common and New York State had 00:02:21.800 --> 00:02:23.520 a regular inspection. You're required to get 00:02:23.520 --> 00:02:25.759 your colonies inspected every year. I haven't 00:02:25.759 --> 00:02:29.180 seen an American fowl brood in decades. Maybe 00:02:29.180 --> 00:02:32.000 that's unusual, but I think American fowl brood 00:02:32.000 --> 00:02:37.219 has gone way down in its incidence. Chalk brood 00:02:37.219 --> 00:02:39.909 was when that first came in. That used to be 00:02:39.909 --> 00:02:42.590 a real problem. I don't know what the experience 00:02:42.590 --> 00:02:44.789 of others is, but I haven't seen it in a long 00:02:44.789 --> 00:02:48.129 time. And I think that's a good example of how 00:02:48.129 --> 00:02:51.449 natural selection worked. There was very strong 00:02:51.449 --> 00:02:54.169 selection in favor of colonies that could handle 00:02:54.169 --> 00:02:55.969 chalkbrood, because we didn't really have any 00:02:55.969 --> 00:02:58.629 treatment for it. Another key feature of this. 00:02:58.800 --> 00:03:01.479 treatment -free beekeeping is letting colonies 00:03:01.479 --> 00:03:05.439 swarm. That brood break is hugely valuable. And 00:03:05.439 --> 00:03:07.800 I think for Kirk Webster in Vermont, he doesn't 00:03:07.800 --> 00:03:10.620 have his colonies swarming, but he's making splits 00:03:10.620 --> 00:03:13.360 of them all the time because he sells a lot of 00:03:13.360 --> 00:03:16.280 three -frame or five -frame nucs. He rears his 00:03:16.280 --> 00:03:18.819 own queens and he splits his colonies, so there's 00:03:18.819 --> 00:03:21.370 brood breaks. Oh, we've talked a little bit about 00:03:21.370 --> 00:03:23.889 swarming and swarm behavior, and this is something 00:03:23.889 --> 00:03:28.009 that you are absolutely an expert on, and I loved 00:03:28.009 --> 00:03:30.969 reading about some of your experiments on an 00:03:30.969 --> 00:03:33.789 island, what were you, seven miles off the Atlantic 00:03:33.789 --> 00:03:37.729 coast? Yep, a little treeless 100 -acre island, 00:03:38.310 --> 00:03:41.150 no natural nest sites. And I assume that the 00:03:41.150 --> 00:03:44.430 idea of that was you're far enough away that 00:03:44.430 --> 00:03:46.409 you're not going to get bees out there that aren't 00:03:46.409 --> 00:03:49.879 part of your experiment. and bees in your experiment 00:03:49.879 --> 00:03:54.539 can't just leave. And yeah, without trees, when 00:03:54.539 --> 00:03:57.879 you're learning swarming behavior, you were giving 00:03:57.879 --> 00:04:00.699 them places to swarm to, and those were their 00:04:00.699 --> 00:04:03.319 only options. What are some of the highlights 00:04:03.319 --> 00:04:06.759 of things that you learned? Well, one of the 00:04:06.759 --> 00:04:10.340 first things I wanted to do was figure out... 00:04:10.340 --> 00:04:13.669 I knew that bees avoid cavities... nest cavities 00:04:13.669 --> 00:04:16.689 that are too small. So in general, when I began 00:04:16.689 --> 00:04:19.269 my work on this island, and it was just as you 00:04:19.269 --> 00:04:21.110 said, it was an island where I controlled the 00:04:21.110 --> 00:04:24.850 options of the bees, the home site options. I 00:04:24.850 --> 00:04:28.490 would set up, instead of an observation hive, 00:04:28.629 --> 00:04:32.829 I had set up an observation nest box so I could 00:04:32.829 --> 00:04:35.509 see what the nest site scouts do when they go 00:04:35.509 --> 00:04:39.629 inside a potential home site. And I knew that 00:04:39.629 --> 00:04:42.529 the bees were very careful to avoid an a nest 00:04:42.529 --> 00:04:45.269 cavity that was too small. So I knew, well, how 00:04:45.269 --> 00:04:47.410 do they measure the volume of one of these cavities? 00:04:47.970 --> 00:04:50.550 So one of the experiments I did on this island 00:04:50.550 --> 00:04:53.670 was I built a nest box. It was a cylinder that 00:04:53.670 --> 00:04:56.430 I could rotate. Because I could rotate the walls, 00:04:56.610 --> 00:04:59.529 I could make it, I could shorten the amount of 00:04:59.529 --> 00:05:02.649 walking a nest site scout had to do to walk around 00:05:02.649 --> 00:05:06.350 to make us, to trip around inside the cavity, 00:05:06.389 --> 00:05:08.790 or I could make it longer. The cylindrical nest 00:05:08.790 --> 00:05:11.740 box that they walked into which was mounted on 00:05:11.740 --> 00:05:14.620 a turntable thing so it could be rotated smoothly. 00:05:15.240 --> 00:05:18.540 It was right on the threshold of being big enough. 00:05:19.480 --> 00:05:22.920 So if I made the bees walk more, if walking was 00:05:22.920 --> 00:05:26.439 how they measured it, then if I made it walk 00:05:26.439 --> 00:05:30.660 more, then they should think it was good, really 00:05:30.660 --> 00:05:33.560 good. If I made it so they had to walk less than 00:05:33.560 --> 00:05:37.160 they normally had to walk to get around from 00:05:37.160 --> 00:05:40.259 where the... light is, where the entrance is, 00:05:40.439 --> 00:05:43.000 back to the entrance place, then they should 00:05:43.000 --> 00:05:46.000 think it's too small. And that's in fact what 00:05:46.000 --> 00:05:49.220 happened. If I made a nestsight scout not have 00:05:49.220 --> 00:05:52.699 to walk much to circumnavigate the cylinder, 00:05:52.980 --> 00:05:54.860 she didn't like it, she wouldn't go back and 00:05:54.860 --> 00:05:58.720 dance. If I made her walk more, a longer distance 00:05:58.720 --> 00:06:00.920 to walk to circumnavigate this cavity, she would 00:06:00.920 --> 00:06:02.579 go back and she'd dance. She thought it was the 00:06:02.579 --> 00:06:05.319 right size, it was big enough. So that was one 00:06:05.319 --> 00:06:08.800 of the features of working on this island. There 00:06:08.800 --> 00:06:11.160 was a downside, too, though, Eric. There were 00:06:11.160 --> 00:06:12.980 two lobster fishermen. They had their houses 00:06:12.980 --> 00:06:17.800 on this island. And my bees were pretty desperate. 00:06:18.800 --> 00:06:21.540 So one of my early swarms, I think it was my 00:06:21.540 --> 00:06:26.079 first swarm, they found the chimney of one of 00:06:26.079 --> 00:06:29.060 the lobster fishermen. And they liked that. They 00:06:29.060 --> 00:06:31.500 liked that place a lot. And I had been told to 00:06:31.500 --> 00:06:34.420 never go over to Rodney Sullivan's place because 00:06:34.420 --> 00:06:36.839 he He didn't like people poking around his house. 00:06:37.079 --> 00:06:40.399 But I had to, and introduced myself. And the 00:06:40.399 --> 00:06:42.259 fierce Rodney Sullivan, once he learned that 00:06:42.259 --> 00:06:44.279 I knew about bees and could get rid of them out 00:06:44.279 --> 00:06:48.879 of his chimney, he was a very accommodating gentleman. 00:06:49.579 --> 00:06:51.939 So it just involved getting a ladder up on the 00:06:51.939 --> 00:06:54.560 side of his house and sealing off his chimney, 00:06:54.720 --> 00:06:57.240 putting some screen over his chimney. That's 00:06:57.240 --> 00:06:59.519 the kind of stuff on the island. The island became 00:06:59.519 --> 00:07:02.509 a laboratory, because I... I controlled the options 00:07:02.509 --> 00:07:06.389 of what the nest site scouts could look at. Any 00:07:06.389 --> 00:07:09.970 other interesting tidbits that you learned that 00:07:09.970 --> 00:07:12.250 beekeepers can use? You mean from the island 00:07:12.250 --> 00:07:15.350 or in general? Yeah, from the island. I mean, 00:07:15.370 --> 00:07:19.569 you learned about the size of a box that swarms 00:07:19.569 --> 00:07:23.189 light, right? Yeah, and the main thing I learned 00:07:23.189 --> 00:07:25.709 on the island with respect to that was how they 00:07:25.709 --> 00:07:28.069 assess the volume of the box. I already knew 00:07:28.069 --> 00:07:30.839 that they wanted They were avoiding really small 00:07:30.839 --> 00:07:33.040 cavities and really large cavities. They had 00:07:33.040 --> 00:07:36.199 a size around one deep hive body that was the 00:07:36.199 --> 00:07:39.100 sweet spot for them. A lot of the other things 00:07:39.100 --> 00:07:41.920 we learned on the island, and here's one that's 00:07:41.920 --> 00:07:44.800 again useful. We learned, we studied a lot how 00:07:44.800 --> 00:07:47.319 the swarms organized their movement once they 00:07:47.319 --> 00:07:49.399 finished their decision making. We could take 00:07:49.399 --> 00:07:52.620 a swarm out to the island. We could watch, again, 00:07:53.060 --> 00:07:54.899 we could watch what the scouts are doing at a 00:07:54.899 --> 00:07:58.910 prospective home site. And we could also watch 00:07:58.910 --> 00:08:01.230 what they're doing, of course, back at the swarm. 00:08:01.550 --> 00:08:04.050 One of the things that we studied really closely 00:08:04.050 --> 00:08:06.930 was once the nestsite scouts have finished making 00:08:06.930 --> 00:08:09.170 a choice, they've built up, they've reached, 00:08:09.990 --> 00:08:12.509 found a site that's become popular enough, how 00:08:12.509 --> 00:08:15.050 do they then tell all the other bees in the swarm 00:08:15.050 --> 00:08:18.329 cluster to get ready to take flight? And so we 00:08:18.329 --> 00:08:20.470 learned that they make a special sound. It's 00:08:20.470 --> 00:08:25.290 called piping. It sounds like... We learned that 00:08:25.290 --> 00:08:27.850 that's the warm -up signal. And then we learned 00:08:27.850 --> 00:08:30.449 that they have another signal. Once the nest 00:08:30.449 --> 00:08:32.549 site scouts have gotten all of the other bees 00:08:32.549 --> 00:08:34.990 in the swarm cluster warm enough, they have a 00:08:34.990 --> 00:08:37.110 takeoff signal. It's called the buzz run, where 00:08:37.110 --> 00:08:40.409 a bee runs across the surface and burrows into 00:08:40.409 --> 00:08:43.009 the swarm cluster while buzzing her wings. So 00:08:43.009 --> 00:08:46.090 we learned a lot about how they... organize the 00:08:46.090 --> 00:08:48.950 takeoff of the swarm. And we also studied how 00:08:48.950 --> 00:08:52.169 they steer the swarm to its new home site. Again, 00:08:52.210 --> 00:08:54.149 because we had control of all these things. We 00:08:54.149 --> 00:08:56.350 knew we could set up a swarm on one side of the 00:08:56.350 --> 00:08:59.210 island. We could put up the nest box down a road 00:08:59.210 --> 00:09:02.409 on the island and follow the movement of the 00:09:02.409 --> 00:09:04.769 swarm during its flight and video record it. 00:09:04.889 --> 00:09:08.409 The video recording was very tricky because you 00:09:08.409 --> 00:09:10.769 have to have the swarm fly right over your video 00:09:10.769 --> 00:09:14.179 camera. So it's looking straight up. And I worked 00:09:14.179 --> 00:09:16.840 with an engineer from Ohio State who was a whiz 00:09:16.840 --> 00:09:20.500 at this kind of thing. It became very clear how 00:09:20.500 --> 00:09:23.679 the scout bees steer a swarm. They do it by shooting 00:09:23.679 --> 00:09:25.759 through the top of the swarm in the direction 00:09:25.759 --> 00:09:28.620 that they want the swarm to move. And when a 00:09:28.620 --> 00:09:30.580 scout bee shoots through it, she gets to the 00:09:30.580 --> 00:09:33.620 front of the swarm, then she flies back slowly 00:09:33.620 --> 00:09:36.940 and underneath the swarm until she's in the back 00:09:36.940 --> 00:09:39.179 again and then she'll shoot through it again. 00:09:39.580 --> 00:09:43.039 So they keep pointing the way. So those are some 00:09:43.039 --> 00:09:46.419 of the things, how the swarms move. So much of 00:09:46.419 --> 00:09:49.360 the biology of swarms is hard to study unless 00:09:49.360 --> 00:09:51.899 you know where the swarm is. You can watch the 00:09:51.899 --> 00:09:54.639 swarm and you know where it's going. And then 00:09:54.639 --> 00:09:56.960 we learned how they organized the move into the 00:09:56.960 --> 00:10:00.600 home site. And when these scout bees go out and 00:10:00.600 --> 00:10:03.279 they come back and they're somehow communicating 00:10:03.279 --> 00:10:05.980 with the swarm and they're doing it by dancing 00:10:05.980 --> 00:10:09.590 and pointing and And you can explain it much 00:10:09.590 --> 00:10:12.950 more scientifically than I can. But I don't get 00:10:12.950 --> 00:10:17.409 how a collective decision is made. I mean, we 00:10:17.409 --> 00:10:20.610 use human terms and you even use the human term 00:10:20.610 --> 00:10:26.250 democracy and voting. But is it really like voting 00:10:26.250 --> 00:10:30.289 or is it more like convincing or is it, I don't 00:10:30.289 --> 00:10:32.559 know, how does it really happen? Let me begin 00:10:32.559 --> 00:10:35.019 to answer that, Eric, by saying why I use the 00:10:35.019 --> 00:10:38.820 word democracy. I use that term because it is 00:10:38.820 --> 00:10:41.100 a collective decision -making process. There's 00:10:41.100 --> 00:10:43.980 no one individual that gets to, there's no, there's 00:10:43.980 --> 00:10:47.080 nobody that's the supreme decider in this thing. 00:10:47.320 --> 00:10:49.659 It's dispersed among all the Nessite scouts. 00:10:50.240 --> 00:10:52.840 Including the queen, by the way. She's not the 00:10:52.840 --> 00:10:56.759 supreme decider. She's not the supreme leader. 00:10:57.139 --> 00:10:59.679 She's passive in the decision -making of the 00:10:59.679 --> 00:11:02.309 new home site. You might say it's... It's a form 00:11:02.309 --> 00:11:04.970 of democracy where it's like, you know, in our 00:11:04.970 --> 00:11:07.490 own election system, we vote, but it ultimately 00:11:07.490 --> 00:11:10.929 comes down to the electoral college that actually 00:11:10.929 --> 00:11:13.909 makes the votes that get counted. So in other 00:11:13.909 --> 00:11:18.490 words, you don't have 20 ,000 bees in a swarm 00:11:18.490 --> 00:11:22.710 all raising their left wing and saying, yeah, 00:11:22.710 --> 00:11:24.870 we want to go that way. You have an electoral 00:11:24.870 --> 00:11:28.250 college of all these scouts that are saying, 00:11:28.570 --> 00:11:31.549 Hey, together we have found the best spot. Let's 00:11:31.549 --> 00:11:37.009 go everybody. Yeah, it's about 5 % of the swarm. 00:11:37.470 --> 00:11:40.350 This are the nest site scouts. They're the oldest 00:11:40.350 --> 00:11:44.970 bees, elderly bees in the swarm. And they do 00:11:44.970 --> 00:11:47.950 have a real debate on the swarm because different 00:11:47.950 --> 00:11:50.610 bees will come back from different sites. The 00:11:50.610 --> 00:11:53.570 way the best site wins in this competition is 00:11:53.570 --> 00:11:57.600 that the nest site scouts adjust how long a waggle 00:11:57.600 --> 00:12:00.120 dance they perform, how many dance circuits they 00:12:00.120 --> 00:12:03.259 will perform in relation to the goodness of their 00:12:03.259 --> 00:12:06.320 site. If a bee comes back from a humdinger of 00:12:06.320 --> 00:12:08.799 a nest site, she might do 200 dance circuits. 00:12:09.279 --> 00:12:11.960 If she comes back from one that's okay but not 00:12:11.960 --> 00:12:15.500 great, she might do 20. And if it's a poor site, 00:12:15.500 --> 00:12:18.659 she won't do any. Different strength of the advertising 00:12:18.659 --> 00:12:23.240 of the different sites means that the best site 00:12:23.240 --> 00:12:28.309 gets the most additional scout bees recruited 00:12:28.309 --> 00:12:31.850 to it. This decision -making process goes on 00:12:31.850 --> 00:12:34.509 with this differential buildup of nest site scouts 00:12:34.509 --> 00:12:38.669 here versus there. But whichever site first gains 00:12:38.669 --> 00:12:42.289 what I call a quorum of nest site scouts, and 00:12:42.289 --> 00:12:45.029 I don't know quite how the bees sense a quorum, 00:12:45.570 --> 00:12:48.289 but it means there's enough bees going to that 00:12:48.289 --> 00:12:51.250 site. Enough bees are encountered at that site. 00:12:51.389 --> 00:12:53.870 That tells the nest site scouts who are having 00:12:53.870 --> 00:12:56.710 these high encounter rates with fellow nest site 00:12:56.710 --> 00:13:00.370 scouts at a site. That tells those bees, our 00:13:00.370 --> 00:13:04.230 site has attracted enough popularity that we 00:13:04.230 --> 00:13:06.769 consider it the winner. And then those bees, 00:13:06.990 --> 00:13:09.269 those nest site scouts come back to the swarm. 00:13:09.730 --> 00:13:12.590 They just shut down the debate by switching from 00:13:12.590 --> 00:13:15.169 doing waggle dances to doing these piping signals, 00:13:15.169 --> 00:13:17.750 which basically tells the other bees, we figured 00:13:17.750 --> 00:13:22.059 this out. Let's get ready to take off. Once everybody's 00:13:22.059 --> 00:13:23.919 launched into the air, those nest site scouts 00:13:23.919 --> 00:13:26.659 point the way, steer the other bees by pointing 00:13:26.659 --> 00:13:30.500 the way to fly to the new home site, the chosen 00:13:30.500 --> 00:13:34.460 site. It's absolutely amazing. It just is mind 00:13:34.460 --> 00:13:40.940 -boggling. I agree. I agree. This is a complexity 00:13:40.940 --> 00:13:45.860 of behavior by insects that is absolutely astonishing. 00:13:46.039 --> 00:13:48.659 And I think of all of the different behaviors 00:13:48.659 --> 00:13:51.389 that worker honeybees do, I think these nest 00:13:51.389 --> 00:13:54.789 site scouts are, they are doing the most complicated 00:13:54.789 --> 00:13:58.149 task, performing the most complex task. Finding 00:13:58.149 --> 00:14:00.870 the sites, differentially recruiting to the site. 00:14:01.039 --> 00:14:03.840 sensing whether the site is a winner or not. 00:14:03.879 --> 00:14:06.340 If it is the winner, then going back and moving 00:14:06.340 --> 00:14:08.919 the process from the decision -making stage to 00:14:08.919 --> 00:14:11.179 taking the action to make the flight to the new 00:14:11.179 --> 00:14:14.399 home site, and then guiding the flight and then 00:14:14.399 --> 00:14:17.320 marking the site when the swarm cloud gets there 00:14:17.320 --> 00:14:19.919 by releasing the assembly pheromone. Yeah, it 00:14:19.919 --> 00:14:23.519 is... It is breathtaking. And that is why I wrote 00:14:23.519 --> 00:14:25.620 a whole book on this subject. You know, you might 00:14:25.620 --> 00:14:28.000 think, how can you write a whole book on swarming? 00:14:28.159 --> 00:14:30.340 Well, you can't because that decision -making 00:14:30.340 --> 00:14:33.279 and that whole collective decision -making process 00:14:33.279 --> 00:14:37.259 is just so utterly amazing. If you're a beekeeper 00:14:37.259 --> 00:14:40.039 like me, we're getting into that favorite time 00:14:40.039 --> 00:14:43.080 of year, honey harvest. But it can be a lot of 00:14:43.080 --> 00:14:46.100 work. That's where Man Lake comes in. They have 00:14:46.100 --> 00:14:49.169 everything you need to make the job easier. cleaner 00:14:49.169 --> 00:14:53.250 and more efficient. Removal aids, refractometers, 00:14:53.690 --> 00:14:57.269 uncapping tools, extractors, tanks, wax melters, 00:14:57.350 --> 00:14:59.889 even the jars and labels. Plus they have free 00:14:59.889 --> 00:15:02.350 shipping on glass containers. Whether you're 00:15:02.350 --> 00:15:05.750 a hobbyist with two hives or a full -blown commercial 00:15:05.750 --> 00:15:08.809 operation, Man Lake has it all. And don't forget 00:15:08.809 --> 00:15:11.909 your discount code MLBlove10. It's in the show 00:15:11.909 --> 00:15:15.669 notes. For $10 off your first $100 purchase. 00:15:17.110 --> 00:15:20.440 There's no other animal on the planet other than 00:15:20.440 --> 00:15:23.840 honeybees that have this kind of, where anybody's 00:15:23.840 --> 00:15:27.000 found anything like this ability to perform collective 00:15:27.000 --> 00:15:29.480 decision making. We are it. None of the ants, 00:15:30.759 --> 00:15:32.840 none of the primates, none of the birds. I mean, 00:15:32.899 --> 00:15:35.460 there are many social birds. The ants are all 00:15:35.460 --> 00:15:39.220 social. It's just humans and honeybees that can 00:15:39.220 --> 00:15:41.840 do this kind of thing. And that's pretty cool. 00:15:42.019 --> 00:15:44.899 I think that's really cool. It is really cool. 00:15:45.159 --> 00:15:48.419 Your book... piping hot bees, you talk about 00:15:48.419 --> 00:15:52.460 20 mysteries of bee behavior solved. We don't 00:15:52.460 --> 00:15:54.820 have time to go into all 20. You want to pick 00:15:54.820 --> 00:15:57.399 a favorite one of those to talk about? That's 00:15:57.399 --> 00:16:00.440 like asking which is your favorite child. You 00:16:00.440 --> 00:16:02.799 mean you don't have a favorite? I tell each of 00:16:02.799 --> 00:16:05.960 my kids they're the favorite. Okay, well, let 00:16:05.960 --> 00:16:08.240 me collect my thoughts a little bit about that. 00:16:08.940 --> 00:16:10.360 What I'm thinking the way I'm going to answer 00:16:10.360 --> 00:16:13.299 your question, Eric, is I might emphasize one 00:16:13.299 --> 00:16:17.039 that is a behavior that is not much discussed 00:16:17.039 --> 00:16:20.820 in any of the beekeeping books. Well, there's 00:16:20.820 --> 00:16:23.759 several chapters in there devoted to this house 00:16:23.759 --> 00:16:26.220 hunting process. That's fun. I'm proud of the 00:16:26.220 --> 00:16:28.399 first chapter because it was the very first scientific 00:16:28.399 --> 00:16:30.600 study I did. It was how the bees are sensitive 00:16:30.600 --> 00:16:33.360 to carbon dioxide, the carbon dioxide level inside 00:16:33.360 --> 00:16:36.740 their nest, and they will ventilate the nest 00:16:36.740 --> 00:16:40.320 carefully if the CO2 level gets too high. One 00:16:40.320 --> 00:16:44.220 of those jumps out is the chapter about resin 00:16:44.220 --> 00:16:47.889 work. That's something that is pretty obscure 00:16:47.889 --> 00:16:49.769 when you're doing your beekeeping, because it's 00:16:49.769 --> 00:16:52.330 only a small number of bees, but they're bees 00:16:52.330 --> 00:16:54.730 that are dedicated to go out and collecting resin, 00:16:54.769 --> 00:16:57.029 and it's really cool how they organize their 00:16:57.029 --> 00:16:59.509 work. I admire those resin collectors, because 00:16:59.509 --> 00:17:02.049 they're special. There aren't very many of them, 00:17:02.049 --> 00:17:04.130 but they do a very important task of getting 00:17:04.130 --> 00:17:07.730 that antiseptic material into the nest. And we're 00:17:07.730 --> 00:17:10.740 talking about propolis now. Yeah, that's right. 00:17:10.759 --> 00:17:12.799 Well, I call it resin, but when the bees mix 00:17:12.799 --> 00:17:15.940 it with beeswax, then it becomes propolis. Yeah. 00:17:16.140 --> 00:17:18.160 Okay, and did I pronounce that correctly? Because 00:17:18.160 --> 00:17:20.019 I've heard it pronounced three different ways. 00:17:20.460 --> 00:17:24.440 Propolis, propolis. I think if you looked up 00:17:24.440 --> 00:17:26.380 in the dictionary, but you'd say that you'd probably 00:17:26.380 --> 00:17:29.819 find both ways are valid. I say pro because pro 00:17:29.819 --> 00:17:33.019 means in front. Polis means city. So it's in 00:17:33.019 --> 00:17:35.019 front of the city. That's a very old name. It 00:17:35.019 --> 00:17:38.299 goes back to the Greeks, I think. Propolis. Okay, 00:17:38.400 --> 00:17:40.519 go ahead and talk about the resin collectors. 00:17:40.920 --> 00:17:43.079 Well, the resin collectors are really special. 00:17:43.400 --> 00:17:46.000 They have to find these resin sources, which 00:17:46.000 --> 00:17:49.180 are usually coniferous trees, and they're not 00:17:49.180 --> 00:17:52.200 marked the way nectar and pollen sources are, 00:17:52.539 --> 00:17:55.420 with bright colors and bright smells. They may 00:17:55.420 --> 00:17:58.220 orient to the resin -y smell, but somehow they 00:17:58.220 --> 00:18:01.400 find these sources and then they have to pack 00:18:01.400 --> 00:18:04.640 it into their pollen baskets on their hind legs, 00:18:04.819 --> 00:18:07.680 and then they come into the nest And they can't 00:18:07.680 --> 00:18:10.299 offload it themselves. Whereas all of the nectar 00:18:10.299 --> 00:18:12.019 collectors and the pollen collectors and the 00:18:12.019 --> 00:18:14.640 water collectors, they usually unload their materials 00:18:14.640 --> 00:18:16.880 in the bottom of the nest. That's where those 00:18:16.880 --> 00:18:19.539 materials are needed. The propolis bees, they 00:18:19.539 --> 00:18:21.960 go up to wherever the propolis work is being 00:18:21.960 --> 00:18:24.359 done. And it's often near the top of the nest. 00:18:24.799 --> 00:18:28.720 And then they stand around until one of the propolis 00:18:28.720 --> 00:18:31.829 handlers choose off the propolis off of their 00:18:31.829 --> 00:18:34.170 body. So they have to be pretty patient. It's 00:18:34.170 --> 00:18:37.009 kind of you might think of it as somewhat nasty 00:18:37.009 --> 00:18:39.269 work because you're dealing with this gooey stuff. 00:18:39.869 --> 00:18:42.609 And then you have to be patient. You have to 00:18:42.609 --> 00:18:44.910 go to part of the nest that's unusual wherever 00:18:44.910 --> 00:18:47.930 the propolis work is being done. And so I admire 00:18:47.930 --> 00:18:50.309 those little bees. Once I watched I was following 00:18:50.309 --> 00:18:52.609 one of these resin collectors or propolis collectors. 00:18:53.490 --> 00:18:55.730 It seemed like she got fed up with not getting 00:18:55.730 --> 00:18:58.829 unloaded for like an hour and so she somehow 00:18:58.829 --> 00:19:01.990 she got started to get the resin off her hind 00:19:01.990 --> 00:19:05.069 legs and stick it on the gooey surface where 00:19:05.069 --> 00:19:09.170 it needed to be used. So that's the kind of little 00:19:09.170 --> 00:19:13.049 observation that I think is very endearing and 00:19:13.049 --> 00:19:16.309 also very revealing about the behavioral flexibility 00:19:16.309 --> 00:19:20.069 of a worker honeybee. They have jobs and they 00:19:20.069 --> 00:19:22.450 focus on one thing at a time, but sometimes they 00:19:22.450 --> 00:19:26.369 have to show some enterprising, some ingenuity 00:19:26.369 --> 00:19:29.970 in completing their job, their work. Do those 00:19:29.970 --> 00:19:32.930 jobs change a lot during their lifetime? I know 00:19:32.930 --> 00:19:35.670 most bees start off as nurse bees and then they 00:19:35.670 --> 00:19:38.490 move on to something else but are you gonna have 00:19:38.490 --> 00:19:41.910 a resin collector the next day be a guard bee 00:19:41.910 --> 00:19:44.809 and the next day be something else? I don't have 00:19:44.809 --> 00:19:47.230 a firm answer on that Eric but what I did what 00:19:47.230 --> 00:19:49.930 I can say is I think once you're a resin collector 00:19:49.930 --> 00:19:52.750 you're a resin collector and I know the bees 00:19:52.750 --> 00:19:55.579 that are water collectors They tend to also be 00:19:55.579 --> 00:19:59.339 specialists. These are forager HBs. And I think 00:19:59.339 --> 00:20:02.140 maybe the logic there, why they've organized 00:20:02.140 --> 00:20:05.039 it this way, is that resin is a material. They 00:20:05.039 --> 00:20:07.039 don't need a lot of it, but they need kind of 00:20:07.039 --> 00:20:10.619 a trickle of it to get the nest all coated in 00:20:10.619 --> 00:20:13.380 the right places and snugged up, sealed up. I 00:20:13.380 --> 00:20:16.599 think that's part of the logic. If you get working 00:20:16.599 --> 00:20:19.440 on collecting resin, you stay a resin collector. 00:20:20.059 --> 00:20:23.509 With respect to water, Again, in our studies, 00:20:23.670 --> 00:20:26.250 it looked like the water collectors are specialists. 00:20:26.650 --> 00:20:29.009 And I think, again, it's because when there's 00:20:29.009 --> 00:20:31.250 a need for water, you really have to have bees 00:20:31.250 --> 00:20:33.710 that are ready to dive in and start the water 00:20:33.710 --> 00:20:36.269 collection, lest the nests overheat. Those two 00:20:36.269 --> 00:20:37.990 are a little different. That's my sense of the 00:20:37.990 --> 00:20:41.190 situation for those two materials, resin and 00:20:41.190 --> 00:20:44.029 water. You're the expert on behavior, and I'm 00:20:44.029 --> 00:20:47.259 curious about all of it. I also, I can't help 00:20:47.259 --> 00:20:49.460 it, I just realized I'm trying to come up with 00:20:49.460 --> 00:20:53.440 something to stump you. So here's another one. 00:20:53.940 --> 00:20:56.819 It shouldn't be too hard. How do they decide 00:20:56.819 --> 00:20:59.960 who does what? And so that they have just the 00:20:59.960 --> 00:21:02.119 right amount of water collectors and just the 00:21:02.119 --> 00:21:05.380 right amount of resin collectors and we don't 00:21:05.380 --> 00:21:09.119 need 5 ,000 guard bees, we need a handful of 00:21:09.119 --> 00:21:12.420 guard bees. Is there just something innate in 00:21:12.420 --> 00:21:15.079 them that says, oh, we need more guard bees, 00:21:15.079 --> 00:21:17.519 I'm going to do that now? Or do you think there 00:21:17.519 --> 00:21:21.200 is actually some sort of collective decision 00:21:21.200 --> 00:21:24.359 -making on this? Yeah, that's a question that 00:21:24.359 --> 00:21:27.220 I don't think anybody has a good answer to. What 00:21:27.220 --> 00:21:31.099 I can say is that there's a lot of work, not 00:21:31.099 --> 00:21:34.299 done by me, but by a gentleman named Rob Page 00:21:34.299 --> 00:21:37.200 and Gene Robinson, and they find workers that 00:21:37.200 --> 00:21:40.099 are in different patrilines. That is to say, 00:21:40.500 --> 00:21:43.019 that have different fathers. And you may know 00:21:43.019 --> 00:21:45.680 that a queen bee tends to mate with 10 to 20 00:21:45.680 --> 00:21:47.880 different males. So there's a lot of genetic 00:21:47.880 --> 00:21:52.579 variation among the worker bees. Rob Page and 00:21:52.579 --> 00:21:55.079 Gene Robinson find that the bees that are involved 00:21:55.079 --> 00:21:58.359 in water collecting are from some patrilines. 00:21:58.519 --> 00:22:00.759 The resin collectors primarily come from some 00:22:00.759 --> 00:22:03.799 other patrilines. So some of it is genetics. 00:22:05.200 --> 00:22:08.500 But some of it may also be experience. If you 00:22:08.500 --> 00:22:10.880 grow up in a hot hive that might predispose you 00:22:10.880 --> 00:22:13.140 to be a water collector, something like that. 00:22:13.559 --> 00:22:16.799 Or a hive that's getting into the fall and then 00:22:16.799 --> 00:22:18.539 that's when they start to really seal up their 00:22:18.539 --> 00:22:21.319 nest. If you're born in the fall, maybe that 00:22:21.319 --> 00:22:24.380 some way that timing and the need for the resin 00:22:24.380 --> 00:22:27.799 somehow gets into the brain of a worker bee and 00:22:27.799 --> 00:22:30.920 steers her to take up that task. You know, these 00:22:30.920 --> 00:22:34.359 are just speculations, of course. So based on 00:22:34.359 --> 00:22:37.019 that speculation, I'm going to further speculate. 00:22:37.200 --> 00:22:43.019 Can we speculate that a queen bee is choosing 00:22:43.019 --> 00:22:47.460 drones to mate with based on, well, I need genetics 00:22:47.460 --> 00:22:50.599 of a couple of water collectors and I need genetics 00:22:50.599 --> 00:22:53.519 of a couple of resin collectors and I need these 00:22:53.519 --> 00:22:58.380 other genetics? Am I going way too far now? Yeah, 00:22:58.640 --> 00:23:00.960 I'd say, Eric, there's no evidence that especially 00:23:00.960 --> 00:23:03.519 with respect to the characteristics of the offspring 00:23:03.519 --> 00:23:05.980 of a male, probably most beekeepers have never 00:23:05.980 --> 00:23:09.240 watched had the very special experience of going 00:23:09.240 --> 00:23:11.940 to a drone congregation area or a mating area 00:23:11.940 --> 00:23:14.940 and seeing what goes on up there. The queen comes 00:23:14.940 --> 00:23:18.839 in and a bunch of males, there's a comet of males, 00:23:18.900 --> 00:23:22.240 maybe 50 or 100 that chase after the queen. One 00:23:22.240 --> 00:23:25.259 grabs her, they mate, and then she flies on, 00:23:25.259 --> 00:23:27.700 circles around, comes back, mates again. It's 00:23:27.700 --> 00:23:32.220 just, it seems very clear that she has no selection 00:23:32.220 --> 00:23:36.500 process, no ability to assess. the different 00:23:36.500 --> 00:23:40.240 drones with their behaviors, quality of their 00:23:40.240 --> 00:23:42.160 offspring or anything like that. It's just bang, 00:23:42.200 --> 00:23:44.480 bang, bang, bang, bang. So much more random. 00:23:44.900 --> 00:23:47.519 And we do know this is probably why the honeybees 00:23:47.519 --> 00:23:49.559 are, well, you probably know this, they're remarkable 00:23:49.559 --> 00:23:51.480 for their multiple mating. There aren't many 00:23:51.480 --> 00:23:54.339 insects that mate with, where the female will 00:23:54.339 --> 00:23:57.400 mate with 10 to 20 different males and then mix 00:23:57.400 --> 00:24:00.890 up the sperm to get a... to get a blend of offspring, 00:24:01.190 --> 00:24:03.769 but honeybees do that. And only one time in their 00:24:03.769 --> 00:24:07.130 life and then be done. Yeah, that's right. That's 00:24:07.130 --> 00:24:10.190 incredible. Maybe that a queen might go out on 00:24:10.190 --> 00:24:12.930 multiple flights and if she doesn't get, if the 00:24:12.930 --> 00:24:14.829 weather is bad, she has to turn around, she might 00:24:14.829 --> 00:24:18.130 make another flight. But yeah, it is a remarkable 00:24:18.130 --> 00:24:20.710 sight. Once I was lying on the grass underneath 00:24:20.710 --> 00:24:23.009 the drone congregation area, it's in a little 00:24:23.009 --> 00:24:26.869 valley on the Cornell campus and a queen crashed 00:24:26.869 --> 00:24:29.829 on the ground. Somehow she just crashed on the 00:24:29.829 --> 00:24:32.089 ground. But I went over and grabbed her, and 00:24:32.089 --> 00:24:33.990 I was a beginning beekeeper. I thought, oh boy, 00:24:33.990 --> 00:24:36.650 now I got a queen. I can make a split and make 00:24:36.650 --> 00:24:41.210 a new colony. And then I realized, no, if I don't 00:24:41.210 --> 00:24:43.349 let this queen fly home, there's going to be 00:24:43.349 --> 00:24:46.109 a queenless colony. So I let her go. It is amazing 00:24:46.109 --> 00:24:49.390 to see the frenzy of drones chasing a queen and 00:24:49.390 --> 00:24:53.130 sometimes. How would one find a drone congregation 00:24:53.130 --> 00:24:56.329 area? I've never seen one. Yeah, I think the 00:24:56.329 --> 00:24:59.380 only way that people have found them is to walk 00:24:59.380 --> 00:25:02.619 around with a helium or hydrogen balloon on the 00:25:02.619 --> 00:25:06.160 end of a fishing line or fishing pole and with 00:25:06.160 --> 00:25:09.200 a queen and a little cage, queen cage. And just, 00:25:09.200 --> 00:25:11.859 yeah, just, they're not, they're fairly abundant. 00:25:11.980 --> 00:25:15.079 They're not really rare, at least in hilly country. 00:25:15.400 --> 00:25:17.759 I think it's just hit and miss. It's just poking 00:25:17.759 --> 00:25:23.160 around. Did you say a queen in a cage on a helium 00:25:23.160 --> 00:25:27.039 balloon and a fishing pole? Yeah, the fishing 00:25:27.039 --> 00:25:30.000 pole. So you can raise and lower your helium 00:25:30.000 --> 00:25:33.259 balloon. And you just have the queen hanging 00:25:33.259 --> 00:25:36.579 down below the helium balloon. It's remarkable, 00:25:36.839 --> 00:25:39.859 Eric, just how sharp the boundaries are. These 00:25:39.859 --> 00:25:41.519 drone congregation areas, they're maybe about 00:25:41.519 --> 00:25:44.420 100 yards in diameter. But when you get to the 00:25:44.420 --> 00:25:47.019 edge, the drones just stop coming. I don't know 00:25:47.019 --> 00:25:49.480 what it is. It's a great mystery. What's going 00:25:49.480 --> 00:25:52.240 on there? And it's fun to lie beneath one and 00:25:52.240 --> 00:25:55.220 see the queen come in in a comet form. All right. 00:25:55.220 --> 00:25:58.160 I have so much appreciated all of your time today. 00:25:58.160 --> 00:26:01.019 We're going to wind down here. I did forewarn 00:26:01.019 --> 00:26:03.420 you of one thing, and that is that I wanted to 00:26:03.420 --> 00:26:05.920 hear some kind of a wild and crazy beekeeping 00:26:05.920 --> 00:26:10.480 story from Dr. Seeley, and I loved your comeback. 00:26:10.700 --> 00:26:14.079 You want to tell everybody what you said? My 00:26:14.079 --> 00:26:15.880 memory is not very good, Eric. What did I say? 00:26:16.180 --> 00:26:20.700 It was something like, I am a scientist. I control 00:26:20.700 --> 00:26:23.079 things. There shouldn't be anything wild and 00:26:23.079 --> 00:26:26.500 crazy. Oh, that's it. Oh, yeah, that's right. 00:26:26.680 --> 00:26:29.660 Yeah, that is the nature of my work with the 00:26:29.660 --> 00:26:31.940 bees. It's usually trying to set something up 00:26:31.940 --> 00:26:34.859 so I can get the bees to give me an answer. But 00:26:34.859 --> 00:26:37.700 also personally, you're a beekeeper and you love 00:26:37.700 --> 00:26:41.839 bees. So tell us something fun. Well, one of 00:26:41.839 --> 00:26:45.920 the things that I really enjoy is extracting 00:26:45.920 --> 00:26:48.819 honey. I just and I remember doing that with 00:26:48.819 --> 00:26:50.960 my daughters when they were little and they were 00:26:50.960 --> 00:26:55.500 just so Well, fascinated that you could see that 00:26:55.500 --> 00:26:57.579 they were used to jars of honey But here there's 00:26:57.579 --> 00:27:00.079 an extractor and there's a gate and you open 00:27:00.079 --> 00:27:03.220 that up and that just is this gush of honey that 00:27:03.220 --> 00:27:05.900 comes out I think that's not about bee biology. 00:27:05.960 --> 00:27:08.319 That's about beekeeping and it's it's always 00:27:08.319 --> 00:27:10.359 I always thought that was pretty thrilling pretty 00:27:10.359 --> 00:27:14.339 sweet It's definitely part of the joy is seeing 00:27:14.339 --> 00:27:18.819 that Yeah, and maybe dip a little finger in oh, 00:27:18.819 --> 00:27:21.619 yeah, you have to test the quality, don't you? 00:27:22.230 --> 00:27:25.650 Yeah, yeah. Sometimes we get a big goldenrod 00:27:25.650 --> 00:27:28.069 flow and it tastes a little weird. Other times 00:27:28.069 --> 00:27:30.369 we harvest it in the summer and it tastes a little 00:27:30.369 --> 00:27:33.910 better. I guess I would come back and stress 00:27:33.910 --> 00:27:38.170 that deciphering the tremble dance was like a 00:27:38.170 --> 00:27:41.490 very special thing for me because my hero, Carl 00:27:41.490 --> 00:27:44.509 von Frisch, who deciphered the waggle dance, 00:27:45.630 --> 00:27:47.980 he once wrote I think it tells the other bees 00:27:47.980 --> 00:27:50.019 nothing. I've never been able to figure out any 00:27:50.019 --> 00:27:52.299 meaning to it. And he observed it and described 00:27:52.299 --> 00:27:57.119 it back in the 1910s, 1910s. And for 50 years, 00:27:57.119 --> 00:27:59.440 he wondered, why do these bees, why do some of 00:27:59.440 --> 00:28:01.160 the foragers that come back from his feeding 00:28:01.160 --> 00:28:04.119 station, why didn't they do it? Why do they do 00:28:04.119 --> 00:28:07.220 this trembling movement instead of a waggle dance? 00:28:07.259 --> 00:28:10.680 And it was frustrating to him. So I'm very proud 00:28:10.680 --> 00:28:13.359 of being the person that figured out what the 00:28:13.359 --> 00:28:15.559 tremble dance is. And it's basically a call. 00:28:16.259 --> 00:28:18.839 It's when a returning nectar collector comes 00:28:18.839 --> 00:28:21.960 in, can't find a bee that will receive her load 00:28:21.960 --> 00:28:25.059 of nectar, and so she does a trumble dance to 00:28:25.059 --> 00:28:27.440 call for more of the middle -aged bees to work 00:28:27.440 --> 00:28:30.480 as nectar receivers. I'm very proud of that. 00:28:31.200 --> 00:28:35.619 That's a special, shiny discovery in my mind. 00:28:36.420 --> 00:28:39.480 That is really cool. There's so many ways they 00:28:39.480 --> 00:28:43.740 communicate. Yeah. I mean, dancing, trembling, 00:28:44.160 --> 00:28:48.329 pheromones. Shaking. Yeah. Yeah. The mechanical 00:28:48.329 --> 00:28:50.769 ones, like the tremble dancing, the waggle dancing, 00:28:50.910 --> 00:28:53.430 the shaking signals, the piping signals, all 00:28:53.430 --> 00:28:55.569 of those, those are the, we call those mechanical 00:28:55.569 --> 00:28:58.029 and we can see them. We're really good at, we 00:28:58.029 --> 00:29:00.289 humans are really good at detecting those. It's 00:29:00.289 --> 00:29:02.910 the pheromone, the chemical side, that's all 00:29:02.910 --> 00:29:05.089 invisible. That's really hard. And I haven't, 00:29:05.410 --> 00:29:07.890 I haven't, I didn't go down that route at all 00:29:07.890 --> 00:29:09.650 because I knew, even though I studied chemistry, 00:29:09.750 --> 00:29:11.789 I was smart enough from what I knew of chemistry 00:29:11.789 --> 00:29:14.289 that that stuff's hard. And so there's a lot. 00:29:14.430 --> 00:29:16.970 There's a lot of room there for the next generations 00:29:16.970 --> 00:29:21.170 to decipher the clinical signals. All right. 00:29:21.369 --> 00:29:24.029 Last thing, Tom, would you like to impart some 00:29:24.029 --> 00:29:27.349 wisdom on us? Just any last thoughts that could 00:29:27.349 --> 00:29:31.109 help us be better beekeepers? Yeah, I'd say that 00:29:31.109 --> 00:29:33.970 it's like any any craft. The more you know about 00:29:33.970 --> 00:29:37.950 it, the better you'll you'll be in pursuing it. 00:29:38.109 --> 00:29:41.309 A lot of beekeepers are very bookish. It's fascinating. 00:29:41.869 --> 00:29:43.730 If you look at the number of books that have 00:29:43.730 --> 00:29:46.589 been written about bees and beekeeping compared 00:29:46.589 --> 00:29:49.690 to, say, the number of books written about other 00:29:49.690 --> 00:29:52.750 activities, fishing or things like that, it's 00:29:52.750 --> 00:29:55.289 like night and day. So I guess what I would suggest 00:29:55.289 --> 00:29:58.589 is just enjoy reading about the bees. There's 00:29:58.589 --> 00:30:00.910 a lot to learn about them, but there are many 00:30:00.910 --> 00:30:03.970 very good books about them. So that's what I 00:30:03.970 --> 00:30:06.690 would say. On a personal note I do have one last 00:30:06.690 --> 00:30:10.089 question. I can read all the books. I can talk 00:30:10.089 --> 00:30:13.069 to a hundred other beekeepers and as you know 00:30:13.069 --> 00:30:17.210 I'm going to get 500 different answers. Now you're 00:30:17.210 --> 00:30:19.950 a scientist so you're all about the books. Tell 00:30:19.950 --> 00:30:22.269 me if you agree with my philosophy at all and 00:30:22.269 --> 00:30:25.509 that is that it's our job to learn as much as 00:30:25.509 --> 00:30:29.470 we can from as many different places analyze 00:30:29.470 --> 00:30:32.910 the sources, there still is often not one clear 00:30:32.910 --> 00:30:36.289 -cut answer. And so we need some intuition. We 00:30:36.289 --> 00:30:41.170 need to be in tune in some way with our Bs, sometimes 00:30:41.170 --> 00:30:43.930 to know what is going to be best for them, how 00:30:43.930 --> 00:30:47.329 we can best help them. Does a scientist agree 00:30:47.329 --> 00:30:50.829 with me on that one? I do, I do. Because yeah, 00:30:50.950 --> 00:30:53.710 it's the difference between Learning about beekeeping 00:30:53.710 --> 00:30:56.309 versus learning about the bee's biology. The 00:30:56.309 --> 00:30:58.869 bee's biology is what it is. It's either this 00:30:58.869 --> 00:31:01.829 or it's that. With beekeeping, every colony is 00:31:01.829 --> 00:31:04.750 different. Weather conditions change. The colony's 00:31:04.750 --> 00:31:07.029 strength changes. What's available for them to 00:31:07.029 --> 00:31:09.369 forage? That's a much harder one. And that's 00:31:09.369 --> 00:31:11.769 harder to communicate with the books. I'd say 00:31:11.769 --> 00:31:15.089 read the books, but also just work with an experienced 00:31:15.089 --> 00:31:19.490 beekeeper and keep good notes and study your 00:31:19.490 --> 00:31:23.500 colonies. Dr. Tom Seeley, I appreciate you so 00:31:23.500 --> 00:31:26.220 much and all the work that you've done and how 00:31:26.220 --> 00:31:28.579 much I've learned from you over the years from 00:31:28.579 --> 00:31:31.039 your books and things and what a pleasure to 00:31:31.039 --> 00:31:33.200 finally get to meet you and talk with you and 00:31:33.200 --> 00:31:35.640 I hope we can do it again someday. Please keep 00:31:35.640 --> 00:31:38.259 in touch. Thank you Eric and it's really been 00:31:38.259 --> 00:31:41.539 my pleasure and I feel honored to be invited 00:31:41.539 --> 00:31:47.630 and share this information. Thanks for joining 00:31:47.630 --> 00:31:50.690 us on Be Love Beekeeping presented by Man Lake. 00:31:51.130 --> 00:31:53.210 If you like this content I hope you'll share 00:31:53.210 --> 00:31:56.089 it with a friend, follow and subscribe to this 00:31:56.089 --> 00:31:59.450 podcast and even sign up for our newsletter at 00:31:59.450 --> 00:32:02.519 BeLoveBeekeeping .com Also, just a shout out 00:32:02.519 --> 00:32:05.059 to Vita B Health for their support, we appreciate 00:32:05.059 --> 00:32:08.099 them. Vita's Varroa control range of products 00:32:08.099 --> 00:32:11.720 includes Epistan, Epigard, and now Varroxen, 00:32:12.019 --> 00:32:15.599 extended release oxalic acid strips. Thanks guys. 00:32:16.140 --> 00:32:18.519 And remember, if you're not just in it for the 00:32:18.519 --> 00:32:21.039 honey or the money, you're in it for the love. 00:32:21.480 --> 00:32:22.460 See you next week.