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 great friends and partners in
beekeeping. Man Lake. The Big Island of Hawaii
is home to some of the best queen bee breeders
in the world. Today we're going to have a conversation
with one of the best of the best, Rebecca Cronus
from Hawaiian Queen Company. I recently visited
their facility then had a chance to sit down
and discuss what goes into the queen producing
business, how it's done, why genetics matter,
and why the Big Island may be the best place
on the planet to raise queens. First, a big shout
out to 9 -year -old Nicholas Bart of Santa Rosa,
California. If you haven't heard his story yet,
let me just give you a brief summary. The city
of Santa Rosa stirred up a hornet's nest of outrage
after ordering a 9 -year -old boy to remove a
4 -H beekeeping project from his home. But after
the beekeeping community and other residents
accused officials of overreacting, it appears
the city is reconsidering its position. Here's
a little more detail. When Nicholas Bard first
began raising bees in his backyard as a 4 -H
project, he had no idea what a learning experience
it would be. An incredible one, he said. It's
probably the biggest and best decision I've ever
made. His parents, Zachary and Sarah, they help
him, especially when the heavy boxes need to
be lifted. In fact, the entire family fell in
love with the bees. But at some point, a general
fear of bees led Santa Rosa to ban beekeeping.
And in March, after a neighbor complained, the
bards received a letter calling Nicholas's 4
-H project an illegal home occupation. The letter
demanded the removal of the bee colony and threatened
that a warrant would be issued. In the city's
ordinance it classifies honey bees in the category
of property nuisances. The bards appealed the
decision but the city stood firm. I think maybe
they just thought they would enforce it on us
and the problem would go away said Zachary Bard.
So we had them look back 30 years and you know
what they have never enforced the code until
now. That's when the beekeeping community got
involved including Etta Marie Peterson who mentors
young beekeepers throughout the county and is
affectionately known as Sonoma's queen bee. Peterson
estimated there are more than 100 hives currently
in Santa Rosa and she said it seemed like the
city officials she spoke to were surprised to
even discover that beekeeping was illegal in
their city. I said, this boy is nine years old.
This is not an occupation. It's a learning experience
through 4 -H. Peterson said the next guy up the
line disagreed and said that Nicholas had to
get rid of the bees. And I said, oh my goodness,
we have got to do something about this. But now
it looks like there's been a change of heart,
which could lead to a change in the law. We received
over 100 emails from people in support of beekeeping
in the city said Santa Rosa Public Information
Officer Misty Wood. We decided that instead of
going through that process we were going to find
a better path forward and that path forward was
a staff initiated zoning code amendment. Wood
said staff is now consulting with a local beekeeping
group to draft a new ordinance that would allow
limited beekeeping within the city limits. She
said it will probably be submitted to the City
Council for approval sometime next year. In the
meantime, Nicholas gets to keep his beehive.
And in wrapping up, I love this little Nicholas,
when he was asked which ran smoother, his beehive
or City Hall, he said a beehive definitely. I
mean they don't have waste, they're not bullying
anybody, and they don't even fight at all. So
maybe this is just a good lesson for all of us.
If you're having problems with your local government
over some outdated ordinances, get involved.
Get your whole beekeeping community involved
and see what you can accomplish. All right, now
sit back, relax as we spend more time on the
Big Island with another great and interesting
beekeeper. Hey, I'd like to welcome to the show
today Rebecca Cron. How are you Rebecca? I'm
doing well. Thank you so much for having me Eric
and I appreciate you taking the time for us to
talk for a while today because A couple of days
ago I got to spend a little time with you and
your husband Luis at your beautiful place in
Captain Cook on the Big Island of Hawaii at Hawaiian
Queen Co. That's you guys and you are a big Queen
producer and and really well known. as one of
the best out there and that's what we're going
to be talking about today is everything A to
Z about how to produce queens, what makes a good
queen, so that there's going to be good helpful
information both for people listening who may
need to buy some queens either for a commercial
operation or even as a hobby beekeeper if they
need a few queens or if you want to produce some
of your own queens. I'll bet Rebecca is going
to share some good tips. So that said, Rebecca,
give us a little background because your company's
been around for a while, your second generation.
Give us a little history. Yeah, great. So Hawaiian
Queen was founded in 1997 by my father, Michael
Cronus. He started it basically from ground zero.
He had been a beekeeper previously and saw a
perfect opportunity for producing queens in Hawaii.
Hawaii is a very unique place for producing queen
bees because of our weather. So we can produce
queens early in the year. We start shipping in
January when most of North America is still very
cold. able to produce queens in time for the
spring pollination, most specifically for the
almonds in Northern California. But Hawaiian
Queen was started by my father. He since has
passed away. My husband and I took over several
years ago and have kept the business running.
We have many, many years of experience in producing
queen bees that we've learned from my father
and from other really great employees that we
have, longtime employees that work with us in
this process. And I need to just interject a
quick apology. I believe I pronounced your last
name, Crone, and it's Cronus? Correct, yes, no
problem. It is a problem. I need to get this
stuff right, so I'm sorry about that. No worries.
Doesn't sound like a Hawaiian name, by the way.
How many queens do you produce every year? You
know, it depends on the year, like anything in
agriculture, but it's roughly around 60 ,000.
I know there are other queen producers on this
island that people have heard of, and I'm sure
they're all good, but... I'm trying to think
of a nice way to say this. I'm just going to
say it flat out. Why are yours the best? Or as
we say here, noca oi. So we focus specifically
on quality queens. So we're not a huge producer
of queens that makes us able to produce very
quality queen bees. We focus on the genetics.
That is fundamental in our operation. For the
last over 20 years, we've worked with Dr. Joe
Latchaw. He's out of Ohio. and he brings genetic
material, semen, over to Hawaii Island and artificially
inseminates all of our breeder queens. So that's
really specific to Hawaiian queen. We're able
to carry the genetics that Joe very carefully
selects in our line of queens. So we produce
Italians and Carniolans, and they all come from
Latchaw stock. Our queens are bred for gentleness,
productivity, and being able to hold up under
commercial conditions. I know many of your listeners
are hobby or sideline beekeepers. Many of our
customers are in that category, but a lot of
them are commercial. And our queens go to places
where they have to work really hard for pollinating
contracts. Our queens are good for that type
of commercial environment. And I would imagine
if they're strong enough to hold up in a commercial
environment, they're strong enough for a hobbyist
where it's a lot easier on them. Maybe I should
put it that way. Yeah, your hobby beekeepers
will love our genetics because they're so gentle.
I mean, most of our employees, they don't even
go out in a bee suit a lot of the time. They're
very, very gentle. All right, let's get into
the process. Tell us... maybe what a calendar
year is like for you. When are you doing what?
And you mentioned the winter months you're producing
the most bees, especially to be sent to the almonds.
Give us an idea of what's going on all year.
Because when I was there and this was October,
it was not all that busy. You sounded like you
were just ready to ramp up for your busy time.
That's right. Yeah. So Our season really runs
from producing big time as January through the
middle of June. That's when we are opening yards.
We started January with opening many of our mating
yards. We have eight to nine mating yards. And
we start steadily opening them in January so
that we are at our peak production by March,
which is the busiest time of year for shipping
queen bees. That's when the biggest demand is
on the U .S. mainland and into April for Canada.
So we ship all over the mainland U .S. and, as
I mentioned, into Canada via UPS or FedEx. You
know, after June, we're still we're still shipping,
but we're starting to close down our mating new
yards, some of them. So right now in October,
we're planning. It's amazing how much planning
is involved in producing queen bees. You really
have to have a year calendar to coordinate everything
that has to go into producing your queens. So
right now we're planning our calendar on how
to open all the yards with our employees, with
our manager, and we are getting everything ready.
to produce the Queen. So there's a lot of cleaning
up and just shop work that goes into it. So that's
October. That's when also we get all of our H2A
employees back. We have a lot of local US workers,
but we augment our workforce with international
workers. So our visa begins now in October for
them. So there's a lot of coordination where
that's concerned. They come in, we start getting
the groundwork in place for grafting. making
sure that our cell builders and our breeders
are in good condition, making sure everybody's
getting fed if they need to be fed. January,
we hit the ground running. It's just an endless
cycle of grafting and catching queens, grafting
and catching queens through, like I said, the
middle of June. And then things start to die
down a little bit. In the process, we're obviously
treating for mites, keeping out an eye for small
hive beetle. Those are two. big pests that we
always have to keep an eye on here. It's harvesting
honey, pulling honey. We've got the three main
flows during the year. Our bees have access to
natural pollen and nectar almost year -round.
So starting in January, really starts in February,
but that's when our macadamia blossom honey starts
to come in. And that's so great for our queens,
for the production of our queens, because when
there's natural pollen and nectar out there,
there's so much there's so much more willing
to get started in producing queens. The bees
get really happy. They get outside and start
pulling in that pollen and the nectar from the
macnuts. That flow goes into our Lihua honey,
which starts in June. My personal favorite, by
the way. Yeah, it's lovely. Lihua honey is a
flower on an endemic tree called the Ohia tree.
It's a Native Hawaiian species and it produces
beautiful white creamy honey And that's a short
flow and then we move into Christmas berry, which
is where we are now So we just actually finished
extracting our probably our last round of Christmas
berry for this year So as you can see, we've
got we've got you know Honey and pollen and nectar
coming in almost all year long, which is great
for producing queens So yeah, just a lot of coordination.
I don't know if that answered your question Yeah,
that's a lot. Yeah, that's definitely a full
-time, full -time, full -time business. When
you're very busiest and you have all the workers
in, about how many employees do you have at that
time? About 14. I know that Queens is the main
part of your business, but I saw your honey house.
It was beautiful. You can obviously extract a
lot. Do you extract three different times in
the year based on those flows, or do you just
mix it all together? No, we do. I mean, we do
extractions as needed, but there's three distinct
flows. And yes, we keep them separate. Yeah.
I mean, they get into the drum labeled as a separate
varietal, if that makes sense. Give us an idea
of the flavor profile. Start with the macadamia
nut. Yeah, mac nut is an amber honey. It's very
kind of rich and mellow. It's very smooth. It
crystallizes relatively quickly. The lehua is
very light and sort of floral. It's totally unique.
It's unlike any other honey I've ever had. And
it crystallizes very, very smoothly. So it's
almost like a creamed, a naturally creamed honey.
And then our Christmas Berry, which is my personal
favorite, has got a little bit of a, almost like
a little bit of a bitter taste to it. It's an
amber honey as well. Some people say it has like
almost like a little bit of a spicy quality to
it. Christmas Berry is, it's not a member of
the Pepper family, but it's kind of in that vein.
So I don't know if that has anything to do with
it, but I really like it. I'm gonna have to try
more of that one. Give it a chance. I get hooked
on the Lehua and don't branch out far enough
like I need to. So Christmas Berry, that's the
next one I'm going to get. Do you find, you know,
some people are really kind of soars and they
take different honeys with different cheeses.
Do you do any of that? Do you find like the Christmas
Berry is really great with sharp cheese or anything
like that? Yeah, Christmas Berry lends itself
really well to savory applications. So it's great
in salad dressings or in marinades. I don't know,
I just, I think it has has a little bit of that,
um, almost brown sugar taste to it. So that's
very nice. I'll bet it's good on pizza. Maybe.
You haven't had honey on pizza? I have not had
honey on pizza, no. OK, it's time for you to
try honey on pizza. Well, I mean, I guess if
you're mixing, you know, honey and cheese, that's
not super of a far far idea. And you don't like
spread on a big thick layer. You just sort of
drizzle it over it and it can be fabulous. It
can really add to the flavor. We we have definitely
tried it with like a manchego cheese is very
nice. or macadamia nut with goat cheese is really
good, or with a brie. I think those are all really
nice cheeses. So you are the connoisseur. I like
that. One of the things that we were talking
about when I was down at your place was it's
important that you introduce queens in the right
way. Now talk about that a little bit, both for
the commercial beekeeper and for the hobbyist
that hasn't done much of it. Yeah, longest conversation
with my customers all the time and It's so important
introducing a queen bee into a host hive is a
little bit of Almost maybe more of an art than
a science a lot of the time You have to really
read so many different cues into how the host
type will be accepting that new Queen Are you
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place. We'll put a link to it down in the show
notes. Just click over and join up. So in general,
beehives prefer a queen that is produced by their
own colony. So introducing a new queen, what
you're doing is bringing in new pheromones from
a queen that they don't know. And so that in
and of itself can be complex. They know that
she is not one of theirs. So what we try to do
is make that process as smooth as possible. The
first thing you got to know is when you're making,
most of our customers are making splits or divides
and introducing that new queen into them. You
want to make sure that that divide is not next
to the hive that you split it off from. So that's
the first thing. You know, a lot of people move
it to a different yard, for example. You want
that split to be about two thirds power, meaning
it's not like a huge, strong split. We found
that when the bees are less strong, they're more
receptive to a new queen. You know, a lot of
beekeepers, old timers will tell you that when
you make that divide, if you're making multiple
divides, you can take frames from different colonies
and mix them up. So it's almost like the bees
in that new split, none of them own the queen.
They're all kind of a mix from different colonies.
You can also... spray the split with some Bee
Healthy or some customers I've heard will mix
some water with like peppermint oil or a little
bit of vanilla extract and spray it over the
divide so that you're kind of masking that pheromone
that the queen is bringing with her. Once you
introduce the queen, when you put her in, typically
she'll come in a mini cage. So it has a candy
plug. Ours come with a candy plug. When you introduce
the queen in with that candy plug, A strong hive
can let her out in about 48 hours. They'll eat
through that candy plug pretty quickly and she'll
be released into the hive. And we like it to
take about four to five days. So especially if
your divide is really strong, you want to put
some, we always recommend trying to slow the
process down of letting that queen out by putting
some masking tape or some painter's tape over
that candy plug and poking a little hole in it
with maybe like a hive tool. So the bees have
to actually chew through the masking tape to
get to the candy plug to let her out So that
buys you another 48 hours that time What you're
doing is allowing the host hive to get used to
the pheromones of the queen bee So they are more
willing to accept her when she is released and
you can really see that when you put the queen
bee in and if if they're You know balling it
balling the cage and really acting aggressively
towards her. You don't want to let her out But
typically if you're following these steps, she'll
be released in four to five days and she will
be accepted by the colony. You obviously, most
people already know this, you want to make sure
you don't have any natural queen cells in the
colony before she is released. So you want to
get rid of those. And the other big pieces. What
time of year are you putting these queens in?
So if there's lots of natural forage available
for your bees, they're going to be way more willing
to accept that new queen than if there's nothing
else out there for them. They're much happier
when they're foraging. It's almost like they'll
accept her and they're happy going out and coming
back. And so again, there's a lot of factors
involved in it. And a lot of them have to do
with the environment and the beehive that you're
introducing them into. A well -mated queen will
be accepted by a colony that doesn't have a queen.
They'll know that she's healthy and well -mated,
and they'll let her get started. You keep talking
about acceptance, and for anybody who's new to
beekeeping, if you don't understand how important
that is, the consequence isn't like, oh, we'll
just sort of nicely kick her out of the hive
or something. The consequence is... She'll get
killed. Yeah. Yes. And that's a big investment.
Yeah, I mean, a lot of our customers are commercial
beekeepers. They buy hundreds, 100, 200, 300
queens at a time. And so that's a lot of money
for them. So you want to make sure that they're
successful when they're introduced. And commercial
beekeepers are moving a mile a minute. And so
sometimes implementing a lot of these steps is
challenging, but it is protecting your investment.
Yeah. Well, and even if you're a hobbyist, you
may be paying retail in a 50 bucks or whatever
for a new queen. That's an investment. Absolutely.
Absolutely. So if you have time. To go in and
really look at what's happening. How do you know?
What do you see to know that they are accepting
this queen and it would be okay to let them know
either you could manually let her out or Okay,
go ahead and chew through the rest of that candy
And if you see her lame that way, you know, she's
there. You know, she's been accepted and she's
doing well Yeah, so you definitely want to see
eggs Okay Let's say you have somebody that lives
in a cold environment. Logic would say, I don't
want to get a queen from Hawaii because that
queen is not going to be able to survive or raise
the right kind of stock for my winters. Is that
correct? No, that's not correct. So we ship our
queens up to Canada, which pretty much doesn't
get colder anywhere else on the planet than Canada.
And we sell a lot of Italians and carniolans
of truck dating customers. What I have found,
and they'll take both stock, but a lot of beekeepers
in Northern climates prefer the carniolans. And
that's because genetically they are more receptive
to cold weather in terms of not continuing to
lay. They're more conservative so they will stop
laying and kind of hunker down. The Italians
will just keep, they'll just keep laying no matter
what. Carniolans do very well in cold environments
like Canada or the Pacific Northwest or Minnesota.
RV keepers really love them and they're very
gentle. Carniolans have a little bit of a reputation
of being maybe a little spicier than Italians.
But ours are very gentle, despite the fact that
genetically they can do very well in a snowy
environment, cold environment. So you produce
both Italians and Carniolans then? That's correct.
All right. Any advice for someone that's trying
to produce their own queens? I would recommend
you do a lot of reading and educate yourself
on the process because again, there's a lot to
the art of producing a queen bee. It takes some
time to master. The grafting is probably one
of the more challenging parts, making sure that
your larva is the right age and making sure that
when you are transferring that larva, you're
not damaging it. So it really takes a lot of
practice to do that. You know, you don't know
how well your graft is going to take until several
days later. So it's a question of practicing
it and mastering that technique. But I would
recommend reading a lot about the process, and
if possible, going and seeing how the process
is done before you get started. I guess there's
probably a lot online that you could learn, you
know, watching master crafters do their work.
It's a skill that is developed over a lot of
time, but it's certainly something that anybody
can learn to do. And a good mentor like anything
always helps. Absolutely. I didn't want to forget.
wild and crazy beekeeping story. And we're usually
talking to regular beekeepers. So in your business,
maybe you have some things that are different.
Yeah, they, you know, I was thinking about this
question and it's, it's so interesting to me
how, you know, our, our Achilles heel as a queen
breeder is the shipping of the queens because
we produce really good quality, well -mated queens,
but then we put them in the hands of a shipping
company to get them to our customers. And sometimes
the shipping companies unfortunately do not do
their job as well as we would like them to do.
A crazy bee story is a customer of mine sending
me a picture of a box of bees. It's probably
about 150 queen bees that he had received. And
there was a plastic bag over them and they were
in his living room. And so I don't know if anyone
has ever, I mean, your customers, I'm sure they've
probably seen these special boxes that are made
for shipping queens. They have screens on the
outside of them for ventilation and they're double
screened. The bees can knock it out. We ship,
you know, as I said, thousands of queens like
this every year and they don't get out. But the
shipping company, whoever was the driver was
scared stiff of these bees. And so they thought
it would be a good idea. to put them inside a
plastic bag so they wouldn't get out. Did it
kill them? Yeah. They suffocated. Oh my gosh.
Yeah. So, you know, it's interesting. There's
not a lot of common sense sometimes. And we have
these conversations with our drivers and with
the personnel at the shipping companies. And
I try to educate them. You know, I say, you guys
are a really important part of the food production
in our country. So if you get these queens to
our customers, they're going to be able to pollinate
the food that you eat. And they learn and they
see it and they say, oh, you know, then I get
the flip side. I get, you know, UPS drivers that
call me on their personal cell phones to make
sure that they're doing the right thing for the
queens. And so, you know, there's people who
really care out there, too. So it's amazing.
I mean, every year. it's a roller coaster of
these shipments and who along the line is going
to be handling them and how well do they do that.
And you know, we're really lucky 90 % 95 % of
the time they do great. But sometimes it's, it
turns out to be a wild and crazy story. And do
you guarantee live delivery? Absolutely. Yes.
So all of our queens are shipped with a live
delivery guarantee. So once you pick them up,
if there's something that doesn't look right
to you, we would replace them at no cost. Sounds
perfect. I don't want to turn this into an infomercial,
but you guys do a great job. It was really fun
seeing your place. Yeah. Eric, thank you very
much for taking the time to learn about what
we do. And you know, we're, we're just a small
family farm trying to, you know, keep it going.
So I'm highlighting it. We're humbled. We appreciate
it. If somebody does want to get ahold of you
or some of your Queens, how do they reach out?
Yeah, they can go to hawaiianqueen .com and our
phone number is there and I'm the person who
answers the phone. I'm the only one. So they
can talk to me. And if you're a hobbyist that
just needs a few queens, should they go to Man
Lake or what should they do? Man Lake does carry
our queen bees. They have some now. And yeah,
that would be a great place if you just want
to buy one or two. Our minimum order during the
offseason, which is April through December, is
five queen bees. During the busy season, which
is January through April, our minimum is 25 queens.
So if you're part of a bee club or something
like that, a lot of people will get a few beekeepers
together to be able to purchase that volume at
once. But if you just want one or two, manlike
will help you out. And you can look at the different
kinds of queens that they have on there. And
I believe if it says Hawaiian Queen, and it'll
say carniola in her Italian. I believe if it
says Hawaiian, it's from you, right? That's wrong.
Yeah. Okay. All right. You get the last word.
I want you to leave us with one piece of great
beekeeping advice. Don't assume that last year
is going to be like this year or that I should
say that the other way around. Don't assume that
this year is going to be like last year. You
always have to read. what's happening. Everything
is changing all the time and you have to stay
on your toes. That is more true than people will
ever know. We all wish it was going to be the
same as last year, but it usually isn't. Well,
and it's good to take notes from last year, right?
All the way along so that we learn from last
year. But yeah, this next year is going to be
different. I promise it always is. All right.
Thank you so much, Rebecca. It was great talking
to you. Appreciate your time. 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 and subscribe to this
podcast and even sign 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 Veroxan 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.