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 bees' 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. Today we're kicking off the year with
Matt Malicka from Honey Bee Health Coalition
to discuss the North American Bee Strategy. We'll
learn all about the status of so many things
related to beekeeping, including the fair market
of honey, pests, varroa, miticides, pesticides,
forage, diseases, honey authenticity, beekeeping
economics. It is a packed episode, but before
we jump in, think about this. If you're a beekeeper,
you are one of the cool kids. That's right, beekeeping
has gone from nerds -ville to totally hip. Just
listen to some of the celebs who share your passion.
Rod Stewart and wife Penny Lancaster have eight
hives on their estate. Ed Sheeran has bees. So
does Stacy Solomon, Sir David Beckham, Beyoncé,
King Charles, Queen Camilla, not together of
course, Princess Kate. Megan Markle, Morgan Freeman,
Scarlett Johansson, Leonardo DiCaprio, Sting,
Jennifer Garner, John Bon Jovi, Christie Brinkley,
Angelina Jolie, Bruce Springsteen, and of course,
Martha Stewart. So don't be afraid to shout it
loud and proud, you're a beekeeper and it is
cool. By the way, if any of you celebs would
like to be on the show, Send an email to ericatbelovebekeeping
.com. I won't be holding my breath, but it would
be fun. I'd like to welcome to the show today,
we have a really special guest today, Matt Malicka.
How are you, Matt? I'm doing well. How are you,
Eric? I'm doing fantastic. It is a beautiful
day here and you're just across the mountains
from me in Colorado. We both need snow. It'll
come. Yeah. Yep. It's a little too warm for this
time of year, but it'll come. Always does. We're
going to be talking today about the North American
Bee Strategy report, which came out recently.
And man, there's a lot to it. We'll try not to
get too technical or too... or two in the weeds,
but give some practical advice that's come from
all of this. And why don't you just jump in with
giving us a brief, what the heck is the North
American Bee Strategy and why do you do it? Sure.
So I run the Honey Bee Health Coalition. And
so this is a group that brings together beekeepers
in agriculture. The beekeeping industry has You
know, a couple different associations, and more
when you look at U .S. and Canada. It's kind
of a hierarchy, right? You have your local clubs,
you have your state associations, and then you
have your regional associations like... W -A
-S -E -A -S and H -A -S. And then you have your
national associations, American Honey Producers
Association and the American Beekeeping Federation.
In Canada, they have a similar kind of structure,
but clubs, provinces, and the national associations.
And the national associations are the Canadian
Beekeeping Federation and the Canadian Honey
Council. We share a almost all the same problems.
Bees don't recognize borders. I was approached
18 months ago or so by the national associations
of the U .S. and Canada to come up with a strategy
that they can all lean on together. And so we
started meeting and started talking about, well,
what are the most important things? And they
came up with roughly the three big buckets of
pests and disease. the honey markets in research.
You can go to Honey Bee Health Coalition, forward
slash N -A -B -S, and you can find this document
that they really spent a lot of time on. It goes
through varroa management and what's needed in
varroa. It goes through tropa lay laps and how
do we keep it out? And if it ever gets here,
what do we do? It goes through... the honey markets
and threats from adulteration and importing honey
that's not really honey and how you test those
things and how do you how do you prevent beekeepers
getting under priced by things that may not be
honey. And then it goes through research and
how we really put forward more applied research,
less hypothetical research, research that can
lead to better bee health outcomes. and give
guidance to beekeepers on how to have healthier
hives. And that URL that you mentioned, Matt,
we'll stick that down on the show notes in case
anybody wants to pull it up. It's a really beautiful
PDF with pretty pictures and stuff, 29 pages
long, but not 29 pages of five point type. It's
a really good summary of the whole all these.
Three main areas that you talked about you could
do a hundred pages on each one of those easily
So if people want more detail, I don't know.
Where's a good place to start? When you talk
about for example adulterated honey, I think
it really depends on What information they're
seeking there is resources in the back and references
So if they if they go there then they want to
learn more I would say that would be a great
place to start The Honey Bee Health Coalition,
we focus on bee health. And we know that bees
are in and around agriculture all the time. Like
beekeepers don't have enough land to own where
they can keep their bees. So there's always going
to be these interactions with agriculture. And
so that's really the foundation for where the
Honey Bee Health Coalition is coming from, which
is beekeepers and farmers. like really need to
be partners in this so that we can continue providing
healthy fruits and vegetables and feed for the
meats and all of the things that agriculture
does can't be at the detriment of bees and other
native pollinators. You can go to the Honey Bee
Health Coalition and find a lot of information
on varroa and hive management and protecting
your bees from pesticides and all the things
that we do. On our website we don't talk so much
about honey markets because that's that's more
of like the health of an industry and We're more
focused on bee health I think it's a very practical
hands -on place to go honeybee health coalition
org Because you've got the Varroa management
guide and the Varroa management decision tool
Which I was playing around with this morning
and I've used it before and it's a really simple
like Okay, what time of year is it? Where are
your bees at in the life cycle? Are they dormant?
Is the population increasing or decreasing? Are
you okay using chemicals versus Natural techniques
or cultural techniques? Thank you. Natural chemicals
too, like your acids and things like that. So
that Honey Bee Health Coalition website is awesome
and a really good tool. It's really practical,
hands -on kind of stuff. That's what I like about
it for beekeepers of any size. And we'll go back
and forth talking about that in the North American
Bee Strategy Report. I have some questions getting
back to that report, if you don't mind, Matt.
For those that haven't heard much about tropal
elapse, give us a non -scientific. What the heck
is this thing and how do we keep it from invading?
So tropal elapse, I think, are originally from
Southeast Asia and like Vietnam and Thailand.
And they're a pest or a parasite of Apis serrana
and Apis dorsata. So all of our honeybees are
Apis mellifera, the European honeybee. This is
like the giant Asian honeybee. They're about
a quarter of the size of a Varroa mite and they're
incredibly fast. So you look at them on a hive
and they are moving around at, I don't know,
10 times the speed of a Varroa mite. If they
hit North American beekeepers, it's going to
be devastating. They reproduce quickly. They,
you know, have the same detrimental effects of
varroa in spreading and disease. They can move
through different colonies quickly. And so right
now we do not have them and we're trying to keep
them out. Incidentally, about this last summer,
there was a cargo ship off, you know, the coast
of New Jersey that was traveling into the U .S.
and they found a swarm. and they destroyed that
swarm. And apiary inspector came out, took a
sample of the dead bees, and they found AAA labs
on this. So the protocols worked, right? The
captain found the swarm, they called it in, they
destroyed it, we got samples, but it reminds
us, geez, that was a close call, right? So just
like the Varroa infestation or introduction in
the mid to eighties, Once it gets here, because
of our migratory colonies, and the number of
colonies, and also just the size of our colonies,
it's going to be next to impossible to stop the
spread of tropal ellipse. So that's the highest
level of Jesus is an important issue. And we
can talk to people in Australia that not many
years ago, Varroa finally showed up and it spread
through that country so fast that they couldn't
stop it. They tried and it was just it was just
too late and they also do a lot of migratory
beekeeping there like we do here in North America
which is how it spread so darn fast. I did read
recently that Canadian beekeepers have asked
their government to I believe outlaw imports
of bee colonies from anywhere outside of North
America. Is that the case? They've asked that
They not import bees from areas that have tropal
elaps or countries that are adjacent to those
countries that have tropal elaps. So I don't
think they're saying nothing from the whole world,
but we kind of know where tropal elaps is and
isn't. Let's not import bees from areas where
it might be, or we know it is. Do we have any
in South or Central America? I don't believe
so. Okay. So we don't have to worry too much
about if we're bringing bees, say, from Mexico
up. In the North American Bee Strategy, that's
in a link to an evolving map because obviously
it's moving. But yeah, you could take a look
at that. Thailand, Vietnam, China, India, Georgia,
Uzbekistan, Russia is an unknown, Ukraine likely
has it. And then it has not spread further than
that. Yeah. Then it shows further south, Indonesia,
New Guinea, Vietnam, places like that. And then
you mentioned that research is a real big part
of what we're talking about. With all of this,
and I assume some of the research even going
on from here is about these tropemites, because
if they get here, we need to know what to do
about it. Is that what you're finding? Yeah,
there's a ton of research on how Southeast Asian
beekeepers control Varroa. So you have Auburn
does a lot of great work with Jeff Williams and
Sammy Ramsey out of CU Boulder, Colorado. And
a lot of this is funded through Project APIS
-M. And they're really just understanding the
impacts in the control methods that beekeepers
who have tropal alapse are using. And a big one
is brood breaks and also formic acid. There are
so many parts of this report that I know that
we don't have time to get into all of them. What
things stand out to you that we really should
discuss, especially with hobbyists and sideline
beekeepers? You know, I think the importance
of controlling Varroa, being a live and let die
beekeeper is not a management technique. that
you have your choice on how to manage it, whether
through synthetic chemicals, natural compounds
like oxalic acid, cultural techniques like brood
breaks and requeening. But just thinking that
this European honeybee will somehow evolve to
control Varroa without any human intervention
is not really a management technique. And that's
one thing that these groups came together on
is saying, you know, you have to do something.
If you don't do something, you will infect your
neighbor's hives. You will infect other hives.
You're not going to be, you're not a successful
beekeeper if you do absolutely nothing to manage
for ROA. I think that's important that they came
together and said that. It may seem early, but
right now is a great time to order your live
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in early and save. That there needs to be more
coordination between the U .S. and Canadian governments.
We are in this together. And while beekeepers
can do a lot, we also need the help of the federal
government and also the apiary inspectors and
others. I would say that it's a really good starting
place and it's also going to be a living document
as this is an ever -evolving issue. Back to what
you were saying about management. I'm going to
use myself as a really bad example of someone
that was very ignorant when I got into this many
years ago. I heard about Varroa and I thought,
well, I'm buying a couple of packages of bees.
I don't know any other beekeepers around me,
so mine aren't going to get infected with Varroa.
I'll be fine not doing anything with them. Like
the flu. If I'm not around someone with the flu,
I'm not going to catch it, right? The ignorance
that I had was that your packages probably have
Varroa already, almost for sure do, or your nukes.
If they don't, you have neighbors, even if you
don't know them, that are within with bees that
are within flying distance of yours. or there
are some native colonies within flying distance
of yours. To think that you can be isolated and
not get Varroa is just silly and is completely
not even a thing. So, Varroa is a thing. We do
have to deal with it and there's a lot of different
ways to do that. We're not going to tell you
how to do it. The Honey Bee Health Coalition
has a great resource as are a whole bunch of
others. And one more other thing, we are just
about to release the ninth edition of the Tools
for Viroa Management Guide. And so this is a
major update. I think it took a year and a half.
There's been a lot of new products since 2021
that have been released and a lot of gaining
of understanding of how we control Viroa and
what those treatment thresholds are. Look for
it in January or so, but we are very excited
about this ninth edition of The Varroa Guide
that's going to be coming out soon. That's fantastic
because there are a number of new treatments.
We've talked about a few of them here on the
show. Let's talk about imported honey for a minute.
I know there's a lot of adulterated honey out
there. I've even seen the term kicked around,
honey fraud. And these things just ruin the honey
market for everybody now the commercial beekeepers
I feel like most of them are resigned to the
fact that We're gonna sell our honey on the wholesale
market We're gonna get two bucks a pound or some
ridiculously small price like that because there's
so many Imports, could you talk to that subject
a little bit? Yeah And I am not the expert on
this. I will put that forward first and foremost.
I'm a facilitator and a mediator of this coalition,
but I know a little bit about it. What I can
understand is that we can produce about 40 %
of the demand domestically. So out of the 2 .5
million hives or so that we have in the US, that
can produce 40 % of the demand. from Americans.
And this is not just the honey that you see at
your farmers markets, at your grocery stores.
A lot of this is the honey that's in like Honey
Nut Cheerios or our cookies and various other
products that you buy at the grocery store. That
honey that is used in products, it needs to be
consistent. It needs to be, you know, cost effective.
There's 60 % of the honey that we just don't
have the bees to provide for our needs and demands
within the US. But there's also a tremendous
financial incentive for companies around the
world to get honey into our markets that may
not be honey at all. It could be high -fructose
corn syrup that was blended with honey. They're
always playing this game where they're one step
ahead of our testers and regulators. It's very,
very complicated. And consumers deserve to know
whether they're consuming real honey or something
that's designed to look like and taste like real
honey. And so I think that's kind of the big
takeaway of the North American bee strategy is
we need systems in place to test the honey, to
understand the floral resources from which it
came, and to hold people who are selling things
that's labeled as honey, that's not honey, hold
their feet to the fire a little bit. Instead
of getting a shipment in that's mostly high fructose
corn syrup or whatever it is and sending it back,
destroy it. Actually have a cost for sending
something to the U .S. that you label as one
thing, but it's not that thing. That product
should be destroyed. It shouldn't be sent back
to whence it came so that it can be repackaged
and figured out and sold to someone else. I totally
agree with all that. The economics of this as
I look at it if this honey or whatever it is
might probably is partially honey and let's say
it it's adulterated with a bunch of high fructose
corn syrup and So this honey can be produced
really cheap in some other country Cheaper than
we can produce honey here that comes into the
market. It drives the price of honey down Now
you mentioned the 40 % I believe is how much
of the honey we can produce here. I believe if
the economics changed, if we could figure out
how to keep more of that adulterated cheap cheap
honey product out of our market, beekeepers here
could step up and say I want to produce this
much more honey if I can get this price for it.
I think we could produce a lot more than 40%.
But commercial beekeepers have to make their
money on pollination instead. I don't know how
that would work. I imagine you're right. You're
a beekeeper. I'm not. Are we at the carrying
capacity for how many bees can live and produce
honey and have a place to live? We won't know
until the economics change. Yeah. And I'm trying
to think about it. I don't know if it's... We
produce 60 % of our needs and import 40 % or
if we produce 40 % of our needs and import 60.
I'm a little confused on that. It's one of those
two. Either way. We can't produce all of our
demand. I'd love to see us produce all of our
demand. Yeah. Yeah, 100%. That'd be good. Is
that ever going to happen? Who knows? And unfortunately,
there just isn't a way to test all of that honey
being imported. And this is where it comes back
to what you're talking about, Matt, with these
different honey and beekeeping organizations
working. with federal government entities you
know that's a nasty word there but there are
times and places we need to work together and
that's certainly one of them another one is the
spread of diseases and things like that so well
i'm going to get off my soap box now and jump
down And let's talk a little bit about pesticides.
Our bees are going to fly farther than we have
land for. And I know you spend a lot of time
with the relationship between ag and beekeepers.
Tell me how that works. How's the relationship?
Do we love each other? Is it kind of tough? How
do we make that work better? I think it's getting
better. So, in our country, when you have to
register a pesticide, whether that's for a crop
pest, like an aphid or something, or whether
that's the varroa mite, you have to go abide
by FIFRA, right? This is the federal law that
says you will need to do these tests and provide
us this information and the EPA will evaluate
what you've put forward and deem if it's safe
for the humans and the environment. If it is
safe for humans and the environment, then we
will register it. But you know, you talk to beekeepers
and they said, but my bees are still dying. And
you can see that there's acute effects from pesticides.
That's when a insecticide or something that's
been tank mixed is sprayed. using an airplane
or, you know, some kind of spray rig. And if
you sprayed insecticide on a bee, it's going
to die. It's an insect. And then you also have
like systemic pesticides, right? So these are
the things that are put on seed coatings. So
then beekeepers get exposed or bees get exposed
to bees. And it really, if it's they can get
weakened or they can get killed. I talked to
a lot of farmers and input costs. are a huge
part of the equation of them running a successful
business. So they don't really have an incentive
to throw things into the field or put things
down in the field unless there's an issue. And
they have a lot invested in that field. And so,
for example, you know, Almond Boar did a big
evaluation of fungicides in fields. And if a
farmer gets fungus, because they didn't lay down
a fungicide, It's too late, so there's a certain
amount of insurance that they can have by putting
down a fungicide. It gets complicated, but there
are ways that you can have healthy crops and
healthy bees. Things like spraying at night or
when bees aren't foraging have water sources
that are free of pesticides. Placing bees kind
of... upwind of crops. And so the prevailing
winds don't blow or drift pesticides onto your
bees using fluency agents, right? So a big thing
is when these seeds rub against each other and
when they're planting them and they off gas the
pesticide seeds, it drifts onto hives. And that
can really have a negative impact. There are
a lot of things that farmers can do and beekeepers
that can protect bees. Planting forage, that's
a huge one, just like the human body, right?
So imagine when COVID hit and you have people
that were healthy and strong and they were more
apt to be able to withstand or recover from COVID.
It's the same with bees. If bees are getting
good forage and they're nutritious and they've
got good water sources, then when they get hit
by pesticides or varroa, they're going to be
stronger and able to survive that. So it's really
just human health and bee health have a lot of
similarities, but it's certainly a complicated
topic and one that we delve pretty deeply into
in the Honeybee Health Coalition. It is complicated.
Would it be fair for me to put some herbicides
in this conversation too. Yeah. You've mentioned
the term pesticide a hundred times, fungicides
twice. Herbicides can't all be safe, can they?
Pesticides usually is herbicides, fungicides,
and insecticides. Herbicides kill whatever plants
they come in contact with unless they're like
the plants are designed to withstand them. And
so when you talk about healthy forage for bees
and you have a compound that will kill those
flowers, it's incredibly important that those
herbicides stay where they are put down. And
so if you have a lot of flowers that are right
next to a field and herbicides drift onto them,
they're going to kill the flowers and they're
not going to be available for bees to forage
on. And so certainly it's really important that
we control herbicides. Also, you talk to these
experts who are bee pollinator forage planting
experts. All they do is create habitat. What
they recommend is that you lay down a year or
two of herbicides to kill all of the weeds before
you plant a pollinator habitat. So you look at
the Bee and Butterfly Habitat Fund, which is
basically the experts on this, and they have
a planting guide. And the biggest thing with
forage is that you don't want these weeds coming
up and out competing your flowers in like years
two and three. And so they say lay down herbicides.
Most certainly an herbicide that doesn't stay
where it's intended to is going to kill flowers
and the bees aren't going to have those flowers
to forage on. Can't the chemical also hurt the
bees if the bees get into it? For example, if
a neighbor of mine is spraying an herbicide on
some weeds that they have on a hot day and my
bees are out in those flowers and those weeds
and things. and they're picking up a little bit
of that herbicide, plus some is being off -gassed,
especially in heat, and then they're bringing
that stuff back to the hive. Just because it's
called an herbicide, does that mean it is safe
for pollinators? You know, I'm not an ecotoxicologist,
but I would think so, right? So yeah, yeah, like
they're... bees aren't... haven't evolved to
be around herbicides, there are certain, across
all pesticides, the warning labels on... So the
pesticide applicator has to read the label. Label
is the law. And so if there's a symbol on there
that says, you know, do not spray when bees are
present on a lot of these herbicides. That's
like part of FIFRA. And so that is... It happens
anyway, Matt. Sorry. No, I hear you. And I think
Most certainly, like, all pesticides, fungicides,
herbicides, insecticides have negative effects
on bees. That's not to be argued with. That is
100 % correct. Okay, thank you. And by the way,
you hit the word of the day. What was it? Eco
what? Ecotoxicologist. Thank you. Ecotoxicologist.
These are all the people. I am not really an
expert on anything except process and bring people
together. But there are, you know, there are
We bring together beekeepers and ecotoxicologists
and habitat development experts and all of these
people. And that's what makes up the Honey Bee
Health Coalition is all of these people sitting
in a room together saying, what are we going
to do about this? It's not easy. You're having
multiple, multiple systems that are interacting.
Well, I appreciate your time today, Matt. It's
good to know that there are some really Verified
quality places that we can go to do some of our
own research because we can't believe everything
that we see on YouTube Even from other beekeepers
Sorry, we can believe some of it. We can't believe
all of it problem is you don't know which have
to believe but The things that you're working
on We appreciate so we have some place to go
do the research. I'm gonna give you the last
word Leave us with some kind of an overall summary
takeaway that we as beekeepers can get from all
this. I think it doesn't have to be a either
or situation. Like, we can have food and bees.
We can have agriculture, conventional agriculture,
row crop agriculture, specialty crop agriculture,
and healthy bees. And we're just trying to gain
our understanding of how to do that. So I do
believe that we're all one big agricultural system
and that beekeepers are as much of a producer
as a corn grower, an almond grower, an apple
grower, and we all rely on each other and we
have to work together. And you're helping us
communicate and work together with what you're
doing. And the rest of us, let's talk to our
neighbors. yeah and a good friendly doesn't even
have to be a debate let's get to be friends and
let's talk friend over here that has a field
of roundup ready alfalfa that's okay let's let's
chat and let's figure out because maybe you spray
the first monday of every month and so i know
to just shut my bees up those days or something
anything like that can help yeah go to honeybeehealthcoalition
.org it's It's a wealth of knowledge and it's
well vetted, great information that involves
beekeepers from all levels in developing it.
So we're pretty proud of what we've accomplished,
but we know there's more to do. Thanks again
to Matt and all the dedicated people contributing
to the Honey Bee Health Coalition. And thanks
to our presenting sponsor, as always, Man Lake.
And don't forget to order your bees. And a shout
out to Vita B Health for their support. Vita's
Varroa Control Ranger products includes Epistan,
Epigard, and now Varroxan Extended Release Oxalic
Acid Strips. Thanks guys. If you haven't yet,
please subscribe and follow the show. tell your
friends about it and click on over to BeLoveBekeeping
.com to sign up for our free newsletter. If you
have a guest suggestion or topic that you would
like discussed on the show, shoot me an email
eric at BeLoveBekeeping .com 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.