in a world brimming with complexity few creatures
embody harmony like the honeybee with tireless
precision she dances from bloom to bloom each
motion guided by millennia upon millennia of
instinct each act in service to the whole and
then There are the beekeepers, watchful stewards
of this ancient symbiosis. Part agriscientist,
part poet, they move along their hives with the
efficiency of mow, levy and curly, tending to
the bee's needs as best they can comprehend,
and with the infrequency of a waterfall in the
Sahara, sometimes running off flapping and flailing
like a penguin on a hot sidewalk. This is their
journey. Welcome, welcome to Be Love Beekeeping
presented by our good friends over at Man Lake.
You know, keeping Varroa in check is important
all year round, but especially in the fall as
we prepare our bees for winter. So what's your
plan? Do you know what your mite loads are? If
they're high, what will you do and when? Can
you even spell IPM? I don't claim to have all
the answers. In fact, nobody has all the answers.
But today we're going to have a discussion with
Amber Leach from Veto Pharma about their newest
treatment option. first a few fun beekeeping
stories told in the beekeeper's own words. I
didn't think it was funny but somebody watching
would have laughed their off. It's a cautionary
tale about keeping the ground around your apiary
and the path to and from the apiary clear of
obstructions. I was carrying a full super from
the apiary to be extracted. I had a tangled garden
hose laying across the path. The scene is set.
The predictable happened. I dropped the box,
lurching and stumbling with the hose around my
ankle. The frame spilled out. I landed in the
pile of frames and got honey all over me and
my bee suit. The good news was the bees didn't
automatically come after me they were more interested
in the honey and in just it seemed like a split
second I was covered with bees. Running away
wasn't going to work. Fortunately the honey had
the bees preoccupied so I hobbled a few feet
away took off the bee jacket which was covered
with bees and left it and the bees hanging on
a tree branch. My honey smeared bee -covered
pants were a different problem not so easily
solved. I couldn't take them off outside. My
wife thought it was hilarious while she was hosing
me off. Alright next story. My friend came to
visit. He was afraid of bees but wanted to see
my hives. At the time I would do my inspections
in shorts and a t -shirt. I gave him my beekeeper
hat and veil and he watched from about 30 feet
away while I opened the hive and took out a frame.
Of course the bees completely ignored me and
flew all the way over and stung him. This is
just further evidence that bees sense fear. I
had one more, but it involved someone throwing
up before they could get their veil unzipped
and off. Let's just leave it at that. Hey, I'd
like to welcome our very special guest today,
Amber Leach, coming to us from the Denver area.
Good morning, Amber. Good morning. How are you?
I'm great. How are you today? Fantastic. We don't
have snow yet so I can't complain. Well we don't
have snow yet so I can complain because I love
the snow. You're just on the other side of the
mountains from me. Yeah we love the snow as long
as we're prepared with firewood and we're not.
I'm not quite there yet either. So and we do
a lot of our heating that way I love it. That's
how we do too. Yeah so are you up in the mountains
or down in the Denver metro area? So we're south
of Denver about an hour in Monument. So we're
about 7 ,500 feet. So we get snow a lot of times
before the rest of the front range does. You
are high up there. Now, have you been a beekeeper
for a long time? About 11 years. About the same
as I have, but I'm sure you know 10 times more
than I do because you happen to work for Vito
Pharma. Would you just tell us what your position
is there and a very brief what the products are
that you guys sell? Sure, I'm North American
sales manager. So when I came on board, I was
responsible for both the US and Canada. And about
a year ago, I handed Canada off to some other
folks that were one more fluent in French. And
it was much easier for them to get in and out
of those places that I couldn't get to. A lot
of times there were conflicts with shows and
conventions. We wanna make sure that we're. able
to get as many places as possible. So now I'm
just responsible for sales and management in
the U .S. But you speak a little French because
your company is based in France. Zero French,
but I'm working on my Spanish. We have a really
multicultural team, which makes it really, it
makes it interesting for meetings, a lot of different
accents and a lot of different backgrounds. So
everybody brings their expertise to the table.
And so I know a few words in many different languages,
thanks to my colleagues, but fluent in none of
those probably much to everyone chagrin i i english
is you know my first and only real language truthfully
and you sound like you're from the south somewhere
i am i was born and raised in west virginia and
i raised my kids in kentucky and we've only lived
in colorado really for about five years yeah
there's no colorado accent going on there hey
tell us about uh veto you guys are the anti -viroa
team What are your products for helping us fight
Varroa? So Vito Pharma has been around now for
about 44 or 45 years and their singular focus
has always been really apiculture and the proliferation
of the healthy honeybee population. And the strong
focus is at this point, that may change in the
future, but our strong focus at this point is
really Varroa mite management. from testing to
treatment. And we have a whole host of products
that are currently available and that are coming
down the pipeline to make that happen. One of
the things that we talk about a ton on this show
is testing. Test, test, test to know where you're
at. We are very agnostic as far as treatment.
We have some guests come on that are completely
treatment -free beekeepers. We have some that
are the opposite. We have some in between. And
our belief is to educate everybody and then let
them make their own decisions. So that's what
we're doing here. We're not doing an infomercial
for Veto, but really to just... Tell people I
mean everybody knows how big of a problem Veroa
is let's talk about another one of the solutions
But before we talk about that I want to talk
about Your Veroa easy check because I have to
admit I haven't used it yet. I Have the old -fashioned
court jar with the hardware cloth on top. Tell
me how the easy check works So the easy check
works similarly to a mason jar with hardware
wire, which is how I started when I was testing
my bees in the beginning. But you fill the container
up with the correct amount of bees, approximately
300 bees is what the measurements are. And there
are some lines in the lid that let you know that
you've put enough bees in there. It'll work three
different ways, really, with an alcohol wash,
which we would acknowledge that's industry standard.
And really our personal preference, just because
we don't have anything more scientific than that
even though it's not super, super reliable in
terms of science. It is the most reliable thing
that we have on the market across the board.
You can also do a sugar roll or a sugar shake.
And then we also have marketed a CO2 injector
which allows you to use CO2 to just kind of anesthetize
the bees and the mites fall off after that and
then the bees theoretically rejuvenate and you
can put them back in the house. There's three
different ways that you can use it. Alcohol,
Sugar and co2 and we we love when folks test
both before and after treatment So they can get
first a baseline and then after treatment Measurements
know. Okay. Did this my treatment work for me?
Is this the right time of year to use the mic
treatment and all the other variables that come
into play when you know whether or not you're
going to choose that same mic treatment next
year at the same time or a different time let's
get into that part of the topic because I believe
one of the problems that a lot of beekeepers
have is finding something that works for them
and then using it every year, year in and year
out. What is wrong with that scenario? We're
creatures of habit. So it's always a tough conversation,
especially with hard -headed folks. And I think
that pretty much applies to all beekeepers. I
think we all have a tendency to be a little hard
-headed and myself included. So I'm not pointing
the finger outward. I'm pointing it back at myself
too. So just like with antibiotic resistance,
some of the things that contribute to resistance
are virtue of how the bacteria and the antibiotics
work. But there's so much of that that is human
contribution. And I say that because my background
is in human medicine, human pharmaceuticals.
So it's really, really kind of shaped how I think
about an IPM. So the human contribution piece
is you use a product when it's not needed. So
kind of overkill, if you will, or using a product
too long, or not using the product long enough,
not using the product correctly. So there are
a whole host of things that can just make the
train come off the tracks. And all of those contribute
overall to your mites developing a resistance
to a particular miticide. So we really, I tease
whenever I'm at shows and I'm talking to beekeepers.
I hope that folks betray me to every other miticide
that's on the market. Because I work at Veto
Pharma and I get these products for free. So
in theory, I would never have to pay for a mite
treatment if I didn't value an IPM. And Veto
Pharma really values the IPM. We know that there's
room for almost every product that's on the market
at the table. And when that happens, which is
usually kind of a fantasy world for most of us,
I've never seen consistently folks doing what
theory says that you should do repeatedly. I've
never seen folks doing that, whether it's on
the commercial side or hobbyists. And never might
be a strong word, they're a handful. I wish that
that would be the takeaway from this whole discussion,
no matter what products folks are using. in their
hives. If you're testing before and after, then
it makes your choices as to what you're using
a whole lot simpler. Yeah, if you don't know
that it's working. Right. And I've had some beekeepers
in my area come to me and say, hey, I tested
my mite load is really low. We're going into
fall. What should I treat with now? And I say,
don't. If you don't have mites. White treat.
So that's another reason that we need to be doing
our testing. I don't claim to be any kind of
an expert on all of these chemicals. Tell me
a little bit about Ametraz that's in your Apivar
product, right? Correct. So Ametraz is a synthetic
active ingredient. It's been an industry standard
really for about 10 years. We launched Apivar
about 10, 11 years ago now. And it's been an
industry standard, but a lot of folks can also
get it. from Mexico and other places in a two
liter or one liter concentrated bottle and then
they apply it in a different way. And a lot of
times that's out of necessity. A lot of times
it's cost containment. A lot of times it's a
whole host of different reasons that it would
take a whole other podcast to cover that. But
amitraz is just an active ingredient that is
known industry -wide to be kind of the cornerstone
for mite treatment. Right. Now as we've all heard
about and we've talked about a lot here about
the bee die -off this winter, the winter of 2025,
and how bad it was here in North America with
over 1 .1 million colonies lost from commercial
beekeepers, the researchers looking into it have
determined one of the causes, and there's more
than just one, is amitras resistance. It almost
sounds like amitras worked so well that everybody
just started leaning on it too hard. Would you
say that's what happened? Where did this resistance
all of a sudden come from? The same place that
antibiotic resistance comes from. Misuse or overuse
is one of the highest contributors. That's not
to take away from the fact that there are true
pockets of of resistance that have been found
in Europe and in the U .S., but they're so few
and far between that a blanket statement saying
that there's a resistance to amitras as a whole.
And when I say whole, I mean the beekeeping industry
altogether. I think that that's probably a grossness,
an overstatement. We are our own problems, really,
at the end of the day. And you've come up with
an APE of R 2 .0. Tell me about that. So ApoVar
2 .0 is different enough from original ApoVar
that we will be phasing out original ApoVar eventually.
And we're working towards that currently. So
original ApoVar has 3 .3 % amatras and ApoVar
2 .0 has only 3%. However, each strip still contains
about 500 milligrams per strip. The strips are
easily manipulated. You can fold them over the
top of the frames because not everybody uses.
Langstroth Hobbs, we know that. Original Apivar
has just amitraz and then a plastic powder that's
combined to make a contact miticide strip. And
the new strip, the Apivar 2 .0 strips, have three
inactive ingredients and the amitraz. So one
of those is the plastic, one of those is a release
enhancer so that releases properly the way that
we have designed it to release. And then another
one is a moisture scavenger that helps maintain
the stability of the ametraus strip while it's
in the hive. And there's no withholding period.
I guess that would probably be the biggest attraction
to most folks is that you don't have to wait
to put your honey supers back on. Let's talk
about the things that we need to be careful of
wherever you're getting your ametraus. As far
as temperature, as far as honey supers, all these
things, what do we need to watch out for? So
it needs to be stored in a cool dry place once
you open it. It needs to be used within pretty
short order. It's good for two years from the
manufacturing date on the package. If you're
a beekeeper like me, we're getting into that
favorite time of year, honey harvest. But it
can be a lot of work. That's where Man Lake comes
in. They have everything you need to make the
job easier, cleaner, and more efficient. Removal
aids, refractometers, uncapping tools, extractors,
tanks, wax melters, even the jars and labels.
Plus they have free shipping on glass containers.
Whether you're a hobbyist with two hives or a
full -blown commercial operation, Man Lake has
it all. And don't forget your discount code MLBlove10.
It's in the show notes. For $10 off your first
$100 purchase. Most of the things to look out
for are storage and Application to make sure
that you're doing it correctly and it's it's
honestly I think one of the easiest products
to use for a new beekeeper So I don't think that
there's a whole lot to it that you can mess up
unless you just Kind of go cowboy or go rogue
and decide not to follow the directions that
are on the label every I think it's really straightforward
I think it's really simple and a lot of times
I think it might be one of the best things to
suggest for a new beekeeper because it's hard
to mess it up speaking of new beekeepers, let's
say somebody is a buying a package of bees next
spring. I think a lot of people assume when they
get their bees, they're completely clean. There's
going to be no mites. I'm starting from scratch
with no mites. There's no resistance. I don't
have to worry about any of that kind of stuff.
Is that the case or is that a false assumption?
I think like everything else in life, but I know
I'm not trying to skirt your question, but I
think it just depends. I think it's important
to know where your bees are coming from. If you,
if you live, Out this direction. There's a really
good chance that if you're buying packages or
nukes that they're coming out of California They're
coming straight from almonds and that just depends
on On the beekeeper what they use how they how
they use the product if you are In the middle
of Kansas and you're getting bees locally probably
you can count on on Knowing your beekeeper. You
can know the source so Again, it just depends.
But those are all great questions to ask. Have
they been treated? What have they been treated
with? Where are they coming from? Is it coming
from a commercial operation? Are these local
bees? So there are just a ton of questions and
the list just gets longer and longer. You know,
the longer you do this, the more you realize
I have way more questions than answers. So my
list of questions just continues to get longer
and longer. That's perfect. The more questions,
the better. I guess the point I was trying to
get at, I have found. You can buy a package or
a nuke that's come from somewhere else or even
locally to you that already has mites in it and
So don't assume that these are clean that they
don't need to be treated or that they don't have
any resistance Or that you know, they don't have
any other disease or some something like that
because they can hopefully they don't But they
often can Sure, in a lot of times, in a commercial
operation, when the bees are ready to come from
California to us in the form of packages and
nukes, it's a whole process of just shaking bees
into packages. So to assume anything about those
bees, you don't assume that they're queen right.
You don't assume that they've had enough to eat.
You don't assume that they have no mites. You
have to treat it just like you would any other
beehive. And if you get a package and there's
only 10 ,000 bees in it, nobody wants to kill
300 bees immediately. And I don't necessarily
think that that should be everyone's approach
right out of the gate, especially if you are
getting bees. Some places it's warmer than others
and you can get your packages in February, March,
April. Here sometimes we don't see package deliveries
until June. And again, it'll just depend on your
geography. And one of the best pieces of advice
that I can give. anybody who's a backyard beekeeper
or a hobbyist or even a sideliner, growing into
a sideliner, is apprentice yourself to the key
opinion leaders in your area. Because I started
my beekeeping journey in the Midwest, in the
South, and when I came here it was like starting
over. Beekeeping at 7 ,500 feet is not at all
like keeping bees at sea level. So it's important
to know that the word's always and never. don't
usually apply to anything, but especially beekeeping.
Absolutely. What kinds of things have you learned
for those of us that haven't kept bees at 7 ,500
feet? Still might be interesting to hear. Oh,
gosh. Well, the year we moved here, it snowed
two feet September the 8th. So this time, five
years ago, we were getting pounded with snow.
I had strips in my hives and I had just started
my treatment because back in Kentucky, where
we moved from, we could still be getting a fall
harvest in September or October. So we knew that
it was gonna be colder, we knew that it was gonna
snow, but the day before that we were fishing
in 80 degree weather. So it was a shock to us.
So always be prepared to pivot, always try to
get ahead of the curve. It's really easy as a
beekeeper and I've done it, I've been guilty
myself. Summer gets away from you, and unless
you're a commercial beekeeper, and it can get
away from them too, but. If you're just a hobbyist
and you have kids and sports or you have weddings
or vacations planned, it's really easy for summer
to get away from you. And I've learned that you
have to be much more diligent. I thought whenever
I started my beekeeping journey that journaling
was silly, and I've learned that journaling is
not silly. I need to know exactly what's happening.
And if I have it at my fingertips, it's much
easier to reference that. So I've learned to.
try to get ahead of the game faster and more
consistently and to document everything because
my memory isn't what I would like for it to be,
unfortunately. I think we're all in that boat.
Join the club. What kinds of things do you do
to prepare your views for winter? It's almost
completely centers around mic control. I know
that It's really easy to get caught up in, especially
if you're a hobbyist and you don't necessarily
look at your beekeeping journey as a business
venture. And sometimes we see them as a hobbyist.
A lot of times my beekeepers will see them as
pets or the girls or the ladies. And the real
difference in a hobbyist and a commercial beekeeper
is that it's just business to a commercial beekeeper.
They don't have time to gingerly put the the
honey supers back on and avoid crushing the bees.
Sometimes the bees die. And hobbyists are more
inclined to go slower and to avoid trying to
kill the bees. Do you use any kind of insulation
or anything like that on your hives? I know a
lot of people do wrap their bees. I don't here
in Colorado. I never did in the Midwest and in
the South because our winters are really, really
mild. And that's not to say that there's not
need or room. Some of my Canadian friends, some
of the folks up north in the Dakotas, those guys
I know do rap sometimes. Sometimes they have
their bees in an indoor facility, but bees have
been in existence way before we decided to put
them in a box and then in our backyard. They
are quite capable of making it through the winter.
They're quite capable of keeping themselves warm.
They've been doing that well before we got involved.
When you consider the human contributions to
that, if you put them in a box and you're feeding
them sugar water and it's freezing outside, that's
not gonna work for your bees. Or if you put them
in a box and then you take all of their honey
and they're left with no food all winter and
now they have no place to go, they are going
to starve to death. So that's when weather really
makes a difference, at least in my experience.
But I sometimes will build a windbreak because
it does get pretty windy here in Monument. But
aside from that, I make sure that I don't take
all other resources and I make sure that their
mite loads are as close to nonexistent as I can
get because from the first snow, which could
be September the 8th, to snow melt, which could
be June of the following year, that's a long
time to try to live on just a few frames of honey.
So I try to make sure they have at least a box
and a half of honey going through the winter.
All right. Let's have a little fun. You've been
beekeeping long enough. You have to have some
kind of a crazy or embarrassing or painful story
that you can tell us about. Anything come to
mind? I have one that probably covers all three
of them. I used to teach like a beekeeping 101
at the local library back in Kentucky. And one
of my students quickly became one of my friends.
She was quite adept and one time had asked me
if I would check on one of her hives while she
was on vacation. I was glad to do it. I was glad
to help. No matter what the books say, we don't
always do that, right? We always tease that the
bees didn't read the books. Well, sometimes even
when the beekeeper reads the books, we don't
follow the rules. And I was checking on one of
her hives and I'd been in this hive with her
previously. It was unexpectedly very hot. In
just about a three week period, it had gone from
just an easy hive to inspect to really hot. And
I hadn't zipped my veil up all the way, and one
immediately got in my veil and stung me on this
really tender area under your chin. And I did
exactly what you're not supposed to do, which
is rip my veil off. And it was just a human reaction.
I knew better. And within, I don't know, a minute,
these bees were all over me. I mean. I've never
experienced anything like it. They were all over
me. I probably had 10 or 15 bee stings all on
my head and neck area. My son was just up on
a little hill not too far away by the lake and
there was nothing for me to do except head towards
the car. But as I did, now I'm bringing all these
angry bees with me to him. So I'm trying to yell
ahead, you know, get in the car. And at seven
or eight years old, he was, I think he thought
I was dying. So he was pretty scared and then
when I get to the car, I'm not allergic to bees,
one or two or three stings at a time that I know
of. But with 15 or 20 stings and my face was
swelling quickly, like from here to my neck,
it looked like kind of a turkey, like I had no
neck. It was just swollen full of inflammation
and the local hospital was 25 miles away. So
I called a couple of girlfriends and I'm like,
listen, if you don't hear from me in pretty short
order, you should probably. come looking for
me and they knew where I was. So they were, they
would have to like reverse engineer, um, the
route to get to me, but I'm not going to lie.
I was concerned. I was concerned. My son was
concerned. I think my friends were concerned.
It turns out to be that just, you know, some
Benadryl and a good rest helped, but I didn't
look like myself for at least a week. I looked
pretty deformed. It was my fault. I knew better.
You know, it wasn't my first year. We always
claim it's our fault. Can't be the bee's fault.
Even though they were hot that day. Anyway, that
sounds scary. You don't have a picture of yourself
all swollen up, do you? I don't. I didn't take
one. No, but by the time I got to the car and
got my veil off, my hair was just completely...
I looked like I'd just gotten out of the shower.
It was... I was a sweaty mess. Okay, I thought
you were gonna say you ran and jumped in the
lake. No, but, you know, if I had been thinking
at all, I might have. Isn't it funny the things
that we do when we panic? It was yeah, it was
it was sheer panic We had somebody on the show
a while back that when he was a new beekeeper
Had something sort of like that happen where
one bee got inside his veil and that's never
happened to you That's a whole new experience
when you actually see the back of the bee instead
of the underside of the bee Yeah, and and usually
they're not coming for you. They actually want
to get out of the veil. But anyway This guy freaked
out a little bit differently than you, though.
He started hitting at it like this until he finally
gave himself a bloody nose and a fat lip and
did more damage than the bee would have. But
anyway, glad you're okay. Yeah, that's a little
terrifying. Yeah, I made it out unscathed minus
the 15 or 20 bee stings. But that's a lot of
bee stings at once. A lot of bee stings. Yeah,
I'm still not allergic. Knock on wood. All right,
before I let you go, I'm just curious. I know
you work with all kinds of beekeepers. As far
as working with commercial beekeepers, is there
anything that you've learned from them that you
might want to share with hobbyists and sideliners?
One of the things I think commercial beekeepers
are so much better at than we are is that they
see it as just business. the finances of it to
how they take care of the bees so they don't
coddle the bees. I'm not saying that we need
to be abusive to the bees and none of my beekeepers
are that I've ever met. But to say I don't want
to kill 300 of my bees to do an alcohol wash
because that just seems brutal. Having a hive
die through the winter is much more brutal and
it's heartbreaking if you only have one hive
or you only have two hives or no matter how many
hives you have really but If you wake up in spring
and you have no halves left because of your own
negligence, and that's really what it is. If
you're not testing before and after and if you're
not treating, if you, and I know some folks that
do treatment free very successfully, but that's
not what I would advise for a first or second
or third year beekeeper. That's something that's
well into what I think is a journey where you've
gained enough knowledge to manage that. And you
have a much different lifestyle than a commercial
beekeeper. To answer your question, I think that
we have to look at it as a business because it
is an investment. If you have one hive going
into the winter, you might have $750, $800, $900
invested in this hive. So 300 bees dying in a
mite wash. Well, it sounds harsh and it sounds
brutal. It's much more cost conducive to approach
beekeeping that way than to buy a new package
in the spring. So if commercial beekeepers could
teach us anything is that it has to be just business
because you take the emotional piece out of it
and then you, I think you're much more successful
if you're not so concerned about the here and
now. You have to be thinking three and four and
six months ahead and that's how you approach
your treatment and your testing. I think commercial
beekeepers are so much better at that than we
are as hobbyists. I like to try to get inside
the mind of the bees too. and think what would
they do if they truly understood the situation.
I think they would send 300 bees out and jump
in your tester because that's what they do, right?
They have guard bees that are willing to risk
their life to protect the hive and during the
busy time of the year you may have a thousand
bees emerge in one day anyway. 300 isn't that
many when you look at it that way. Yeah, if a
queen can light 1 ,000, 1 ,500 bees in a day,
the 300 really is impacting her production. It's
not at all. And at the shows where I am, not
the commercial shows, but the ones where I'm
talking to hobbyists and backyard beekeepers,
that's the thing that I get all the time. Or
they'll treat before, excuse me, they'll test
before, or they'll test after, but they won't
test both. I'll give you an example because I
think this is really important. I had a beekeeper,
a very, very knowledgeable, very experienced
beekeeper message me not long ago. And they had
some hives that their counts were really high,
40s, 50s, 60s. And at that point, it's a ticking
time bomb. But they use Apivar. And they tested
for efficacy midway through the treatment period
and found that their might loads were still really
high, 10, 12, 20. To put it in real world terms,
you have asked a product to work in a situation
that was unthinkable. Ape of R is an Ape of R
2 .0, even though it works faster. You get the
maximum result at about week three. So it's a
little bit faster than Ape of R, original Ape
of R, but. If you have a beehive that has miteloads
that are that high, a slow release product, which
is what Apivar was intended to be, that's not
your best option because you have a hive that's
ready to implode already. So he was very frustrated
that Apivar didn't work the way that he said,
the way that we have said that it would work
and so on and so forth. But my message to him
was it did work. It worked really, really well.
It just didn't work in a way that's going to
get your beehive through the winter. Because
if you go from 40 or 50 mites down to 10 or 12
mites in a four week period, the product's working.
But you can't test in the middle of it to see
what the efficacy is because a long release treatment
requires all of that time to do the work that
it was designed to do. So if you don't test before
and you experience a product or what you think
is a product failure, is it really a product
failure? Or was your mite load so high that no
product would have worked? And a lot of beekeepers,
because they don't want to kill their bees, they'll
say, well, we know we have mites, so we're just
going to treat anyway. And I get that. I do.
And to be honest, that was how I approached my
first year or two in beekeeping. I don't want
to kill my bees. I know that I need to treat.
I know that I have mites. I'm just going to use
something. And the first year, I started with
three halves. I used Apigard. Two of my hives
died. I hated Apogard. I thought Apogard was
the worst product in the world. Fast forward
three or four more years. I love Apogard. Apogard
is part of my IPM. I've just learned that I was
the problem, not the product, not the bees, but
that I didn't test it properly. I didn't treat
correctly. And at all, all fingers point back
to me. When a first or second third year beekeeper
tell me, you know, my hives died. It's hard to
say this, but it's almost always unequivocally
the beekeeper's fault. It was my fault. It was
the fault of a lot of my colleagues who started
in a very similar fashion that I did. So for
something to be the fault of a product or other
circumstances outside the hive is much less likely
than it is a beekeeper problem, truthfully. And
that's hard to say. It's hard to hear. That's
one of the things that I've learned from speaking
with commercial beekeepers is they don't wait
until fall to treat. They're testing clear back
in July and they're and they're treating in July
if they need to and August and September. So
that come October or November, you know, whenever
they're buttoning up for winter, the mites aren't
a problem. They're not trying to go from a 40
to a six. you know, overnight, which is just,
as you're talking about, isn't reasonable for
any kind of treatment. Right. So start early.
Hey, I'm as guilty of this stuff as anybody.
We all are. Start early. Start early and consistent.
I have some folks that are testing five and six
times a year. That's, you know, thousands of
bees at the end of the day. It's better than
hundreds of thousands of bees, which is what's
going to happen if you don't test. Absolutely.
Thanks for all your wisdom, Amber. I've really
enjoyed it. If anybody wants to reach out to
you, I'll put a link to Veto Pharma in the show
notes. And hey, keep in touch. Thank you. Thank
you. And if anybody has questions, please provide
my email address. They're welcome to reach out.
Will do. All right, Amber, take care. Thanks,
you too. Thanks for joining us on Be Love Beekeeping
presented by Man Lake. If you like this content
I hope you'll share it with a friend, follow
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up for our newsletter at BeLoveBeekeeping .com
Also, just a shout out to Vita B Health for their
support, we appreciate them. 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.