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. Welcome, welcome to Be Love Beekeeping
presented by our great friends and partners in
beekeeping, Man Lake. Today's guest recently
spoke to almost 2 ,000 beekeepers at the North
American Honey Bee Expo giving dozens and dozens,
maybe even a hundred of useful tips for both
new beekeepers as well as seasoned professionals.
Her presentation was so useful and so popular
that I just had to get her on the show. We're
going to discuss tips for everything from melting
wax, creaming honey, and catching swarms, to
mite check, small hive beetle vacuums, and how
many times you should get stung every year. We
have so much to cover that I'm going to shut
up now and just get right to it. I'm so happy
to welcome Deb Klugers to the show today, or
do we say Deborah? I'll answer to almost anything
Hey beekeeper Anyway, hey, thank you We met at
at the expo and it's great to see you again I
hope I'm not dragging you away from anything
But I figure you're in the state of New York
on Long Island and with this huge cold snap You
probably can't do much outside anyway, can you?
Not much. Right after the snow I went outside
and made sure the entrances were clear and that's
about that. Take a few pictures and that's our
beekeeping for the week. We're under about a
foot of snow and more to come this weekend. I
promised our listeners all kinds of tips from
you. So why don't we start with one that you
just accidentally dropped which is clearing the
snow out from the front of hives. Tell me why
and when. Let's just say that the way that I
manage my bees which is in condensing condensing
hives You often don't have to clear the snow
from the front of the hive because the heat generated
within is Actually going to take care of it The
bees are warm and the only vent that the bees
have on the way that I manage them is out the
front door So typically there's gonna be they're
gonna take care of it themselves. So I just went
around and made sure You know, um, that's what
I do make sure they have food make sure their
engines are cleared You know, I like to uh, leave
the problems before they happen. So i'm um Hey
before we jump into too many more tips give everybody
an idea of who's deb What kind of beekeeping
do you do? How long have you been doing it? Well,
i've been a beekeeper I think for about 15 or
16 years and when I first got started it was
just to uh see what this be thing was all about
i always grew food and i never knew the connection
i have a degree in environmental studies and
my master's in marine conservation policy and
united degree did we ever discuss food systems
pollination. You know anything of that nature
so i was i was clueless and once i learned about
the bees and i started keeping them people started
asking me for help. And I created a business
which quickly grew, but I realized I really knew
nothing. There's so much to know even to this
day. know that I need to know a lot more as we
all do with bees, they're just magical and we
just don't, you know, the biggest experts in
the world besides the bees themselves don't really
know as much about the bees as we would like.
So I learned about the Eastern Apicultural Society
Master Beekeeping Program, which is a program
where they test you, they don't train you. So
you have to come fully prepared to sit for four
rigorous examinations, a field, an oral, a written
and a verse. When you have five years to pass,
I passed them all in three. Still learning, going
to these conferences, sitting in on demonstrations,
lectures, reading, everything that I can. It's
just so fascinating. The more that I learn, the
better beekeeper I'm becoming. And I like to
share that knowledge with other people as well.
So I created this business where I basically
place hives on residential and organic farms,
residential estate out here in the Hamptons and
organic farms. The bees belong to the clients,
the hives belong to the clients, the honey all
belongs to the clients, and I'm their beekeeper.
And that's how it grew from one to, I think I
have about 40 clients today. And I also have
a beautiful oceanfront farmland in Sagoponic,
where I keep my own bees. About 30 colonies,
30, 50, something like that, for my own hive
product. We need some pictures. It's glorious.
I mean, it's a 25 acres with me bees and trees
and a gorgeous I think about a 40 foot flagpole
flying that American flag. I just love it there
Sounds fantastic Let's jump into winter just
a bit Most of what needed to happen for winter
needed to happen a few months ago in the fall
Right now and and people listen to these podcasts
when they're brand new like this week and in
the summer and all you know and down the road.
So just to let people know this is the end of
January 2026. Great big storm just hit New York
and a bunch of the East Coast. What is there
that you can do? You mentioned clearing snow
from the front of hives. You also mentioned pictures.
Is that just for fun or is there something you're
checking with those? Well, the thermal imaging
camera I basically use for doing cutouts. So
I use it to find the bees, to locate the bees
and structures, and I never cut until I find
the bees and I always find the bees. If I don't
use my thermal imaging camera, I'll use an endoscopic
camera, depending on the needs of each job. But
thermal imaging is just for fun. It's cute. It
takes all different colors, you know, whether
it's rainbow or black and white or red and grayscale.
And so it's just nice to get an eye on the colony
inside the hive so that you know that it's alive
from the heat that it's generating. Getting the
bees ready for winter actually starts. probably
right about now for next winter. You know, everything
we do is getting them ready to be able to overwinter
on the common season. Keeping bees is kind of
easy when there's a good nectar flow and there's
not much going on besides the bees gathering
and you're staying ahead of the swarming and
making sure that they're good. That's the easy
part. The hard part is getting them through winter.
And what's the number one key to that? I think
having healthy, well -fed, mite -free colonies,
pretty simple, in addition to the hive in which
they're kept. So I mentioned earlier the condensing
hive system that I use, and that's basically,
you could say, the opposite of the ventilated
hive, which is really the common way to keep
bees and screen bottoms and upper entrances and
screen dinner covers and all this stuff. And
it actually goes against how bees would live
in nature. These are cavity dwellers, and they
live in an airtight, light -tight cavity. I've
never found a bee colony in a tree with a bunch
of screens and openings on top. They typically
look for a dark, dry cavity with one entrance,
and if there's too much of an entrance, they'll
propolize it to seal it up. Keeping the bees
in the condensing hive gives them higher humidity,
higher CO2, both of which are detrimental to
mites. So if there's anything I can do to undermine
the Varroa mite, and hopefully not the soon -to
-be Triple Aleph mite, but anything that I can
do to keep those species at bay, including multiple
treatments. different treatments multiple times
a year. All these things that I'm doing is of
course to keep them healthy for the day, but
to get them through the winter. With a heavy
mite load or even a heavy viral load going into
the winter, you're not going to have as robust
a colony coming out in the spring. As long as
we're on the mite subject, what's your favorite
treatment? What's your philosophy? Well, my least
favorite treatment is oxalate acid vaporization
because it's dangerous to the beekeeper I think
it's one of the best treatments When the bees
are broodless because that treatment does not
penetrate the brood capping. So it basically
gets rid of the mites that are on the bees themselves.
But I guess maybe I guess I would say my favorite
treatment could be the formic acid because it
actually penetrates the brood cappings in times
when the bees are brooding and kills where most
of the mites are is underneath the brood cappings
when they have brood. So I'd say formic pro.
I like Apigard. It's good for warmer temperatures
in the summertime. I use the Apigard on smaller
colonies, nukes. I've been doing the impregnated
strips with the oxalic acid vaporization. But
it's just, I think the trick is multiple treatments,
the right treatments at the right time. Timing
is everything. Beekeeping, if you don't get that
right, you could mess things up. All right. You
gave it your presentation about 100 tips in an
hour or so. I don't know where else we want to
jump in. Do you have some favorites you want
to lead off with? Well, I love catching swarms.
I manage my bees against swarming, so they're
not my bees that I'm catching. But I use this
device. It's a basically a water jug or a five
gallon pail or some kind of a vessel at the end
of a pool telescoping pool pole. And I can get
30, 40 feet up. you know, without getting on
a ladder to catch a swarm out of a tree. The
people watching are pretty interested in watching
how it goes, because I typically catch swarms
dressed like this. I mean, I'm not suited up,
and that's another thing. You know, I do wear...
protective gear when needed, but most of the
times it's not needed. We're in New York. We
don't have very much, if any, Africanized genetics
here. Our bees are calm. They're gentle. I even
do cutouts like that. No gloves. Usually no gear.
I guess the tip there is to know the beast, you
know, know what's going on in the environment
and how their temperament could be. I like that.
The other tip that stands out to me with the
thing with the pole, which a lot of us have done,
I've used one of those painter poles that telescopes
out and had not thought of a pool one, which
would be longer and much, much stronger. Absolutely.
Go to your pole supply store, right? Yep. You
know, I put a lot of things on Facebook market
or Facebook different sites, you know local free
cycles or local By us. It's called bonnock yard
sale and I just put in anyone have a telescoping
pool pole or does anyone have a a dorm refrigerator
which I Did in order to get the little dorm refrigerator
for that other device that I talked about Let's
jump to that one. The tip about the dorm refrigerator.
Yeah, so I was at EAS at a talk given by, oh,
oh geez, I'm going to forget his name. He had
shown a device that he made with an old dorm
refrigerator and a lizard warming. pad, you know,
that you would put in a lizard tank. And however
he built it, I went home and I said, huh, I think
I'm going to try that. But instead of the lizard
warming pad, I used a 100 watt light bulb and
a little, I guess a light bulb holder, like a
little tiny little lamp that would hold the light
bulb and a non -working dorm refrigerator. But
you can use a working one as well for other purposes.
And I'll try to get to that. But basically it
was Mark Friedel. That's who it was at EAS. he
showed it to render beeswax. And so I was like,
huh, this is great. So I set up my device with
the dorm refrigerator, 100 watt light bulb, and
a thermostat, like a $30 thermostat that I purchased
on Amazon. And I set the thermostat at 150 degrees,
and within a day, you can literally render beeswax.
I love rendering the beeswax outside in the summertime.
with my solar wax melter, but that only works
from about maybe June through August. So in the
wintertime when we have more time or if it's
raining or what have you, the device that I made
is a really good way to render your beeswax,
but it can also be used as a honey decrystallizing
cabinet. Just set it at 100. It takes a couple
of days, and you have to turn the jars a little
bit. I do that because I have a few clients,
these bodybuilder guys, that they like to drizzle
the honey on their yogurt and such. But for the
most part, I sell my honey as natural sed or
crystallized honey. But some people really want
the liquid, and it's easier for me to decrystallize
it than them. And the other thing that I can
use it for, if it was a working refrigerator,
is to make creamed honey, set it at 53 degrees.
And the last thing is when I make candles, in
order to not have that severe tunneling or cracking
that sometimes happens in candle making, by slowly
cooling the candles down, you can avoid that
cracking and things of that nature. And basically
I'll set it to about 80, maybe 85. Then I put
it down to 80. And then eventually, you know,
I just leave it shut. You can do that same technique
with your candles just by putting them in an
oven and just the warmth. of the candles in the
sealed oven, or a cooler, or a paper box with
some styrofoam around it, something like that.
But just cooling the candle slowly stops that
cracking and tunneling. And a lot of ovens, if
you just turn the light on in the oven, it'll
get that thing at 80 degrees or whatever. Let's
get back to the creamed honey. You mentioned
53 degrees. What is your particular method for
creaming honey? Do you do stirring? What do you
do? I just basically will use a mixture, about
10 % of a already creamed honey that I find to
be superior. Something that's got very little
grit in the mouth and just a smooth texture.
And those crystals will be the blueprint, so
to speak, for the honey that you're attempting
to cream. They'll kind of replicate those same
size crystals. So if you have larger crystals,
you're going to get a larger crystal sized creamed
honey. And all of the creamed honey is great,
but when you're entering these shows, They want
that really smooth smooth feel with no no grid
or texture so when you if you have a Creamed
honey that you found that you like save it and
use that and you mix about 90 % put it in a 53
is the Optimal temperature 50 to 53. It's time
and temperature really that gets your honey to
become natural set or if you're making the creamed
honey All right with the creamed honey. How often
are you stirring it? And how many days are you
leaving it at that temperature? I don't really
have all that written down, but I just kind of
mix it up and put it in the jars and I'm done.
Put it in that 53 and I'm not really stirring
it any more than that. I don't know if that's
the proper way to make it. Well, everybody does
it different and that's why I love to ask. When
I make like chocolate honey or cinnamon honey
or something like that. It's really once and
done. I, I try to optimize my time. Yeah. Some
people believe that during that 28 days at X
temperature, they need to stir it twice a day
or something like that. And you're saying stir
it once and forget it. And it'll be great. I've
taken a few ribbons. We can overcomplicate things
a lot more than we need to. Okay. You also devised
your very clever person. You devised something
that I saw a picture of that was like a fan on
top of a hive. Would you tell me what in the
world was going on with that? So I have always
tapped and brush up to four or five thousand
pounds of honey one frame at a time. Tap and
brush, tap and brush. And it was quite the. assemblage
of bees by the end of each each harvest you know
and and i have i have connie's on about. I'd
say forty some odd forty somewhat site so it's
not like i've got a hundred colonies on one property
cuz that would be crazy. But yeah, so that's
the way I did it and it just took a lot of time
and a lot of disruption to the bees, honestly,
you know, of course you smoke them down a little
bit. I don't like to use a lot of smoke when
I'm harvesting my honey because that soot can
coat the wax. I manage my honey and stuff like
that as if I'm entering honey shows. And so,
you know, it's a high quality product that I
try to achieve. So I'm still not going to, I'm
not going to. put a lot of smoke into a colony
I'm trying to drag the bees down that I could
put in some soot and things of that nature into
the into the honey. So I had In the past tried,
I don't know if you've ever seen it, it's like
an elbow, a white PVC pipe that's an elbow and
the idea behind that is you face that opening
into the wind and the wind would come in and
gently drive the bees down. I tried that. Again,
it's okay if you have a few colonies or something
like that, but when you've got a hundred colonies
to go through during the harvest, time is of
the essence. So the other thing that I never
used in the past was a fume board and you know,
you spray it with a Bee Gone or Bee Quick or
whatever. That Bee Gone and Bee Quick stuff,
I use that in my cutouts if I'm at the point
where I've got some bees hiding down in the rafters
or something like that. I'm gonna spray a very,
very little bit to dry them out. You know, that's
the only way to get them. You can't get 12 feet
in, but you can spray a little Bee Quick. It
may seem early, but right now is a great time
to order your live bees for 2026 because they
do sell out and because Man Lake is offering
a discount for Be Love podcast listeners. Wait,
what? I know you're saying live bees, they never
go on sale. Well, they are now. Click on over
to Man Lake. Order your bees any variety nukes
or packages and anything in the beginner essentials
category and when you check out use the code
get started in bees it's down in the show notes
so you don't have to remember for a discount
on everything so get your orders in early and
save But what I made was what I would call a
power fume board and I had a Commercial beekeeper
friend just say mentioned that the big guys I
call them the big guys the big boys They they
use some of them might use like some sort of
a fan and he kind of explained it But I went
huh, you know, let me again, you know You hear
things and all of us beekeepers do it and then
we kind of make it our own with what we have
around the house So what I had around the house
with these two pieces of plywood with the holes
in it that I had already used for those PVC elbow
type devices. So I already had those cut and
then I had shims and I decided let me get this
fan. I got two $10 fans on Amazon because I made
two of these devices. In between the shim and
I used a a comb honey super so it was a little
bit shorter and then a shim and in between that
I put some burlap and on that burlap I sprayed
the be gone or be quick or whatever and then
on top of that is the fan battery operated little
small 3c batteries not a big deal, and I would
put that Device on top of the hive and just two
or three minutes that smell drove the bees down
and out and the reason why I didn't use the customary
fume board is because a you need heat and sunlight
and time and again time is is a The essence when
you've got all these colonies to harvest from
but also sometimes there is no Sun It's not that
hot out or some of my my hives could be in shade
so that the customary fume board wasn't gonna
work So using this fan on top, it gently just
blew this Be Gone or Be Quick down, and the bees
would just come out the bottom, a lot of them,
and all be right there. And any stragglers left
up in the honey supers, I used a blower that
was battery operated that used the same batteries
that my Instavep, my oxalic acid vaporizer blower.
So like a leaf blower? Exactly and it cut my
harvest time down. I'd say 75 to 80 percent the
time I was usually what took me a two full two
weeks because again I'm going from site to site
it's not all on one property is a lot of driving
a lot of traffic out here in the Hamptons and
It was literally we were done in like five days
So it was tremendous amount of time saving and
it would be great if you have one hive or if
you've got 100 easy to make and expensive make
it your own with what you've got around the house,
and these items are all on my Instagram and stuff
like that. And all inexpensive, especially when
you're getting them off Marketplace or something.
I like the leaf blower thing. You mentioned the
tap and brush, and I like to do the tap and blow.
So I can take a frame out. I don't use queen
excluders, so I'm quickly looking, make sure
there's no queen. and shake the bees off, hand
it to somebody else who's got the electric leaf
blower done, stick it in something to take to
the honey house. So I felt it was so much less
disruptive to the bees because again, with the
tap and brush, there are bees everywhere. I mean,
it just is what it was. And now they're they're
all down at the bottom. Sometimes they're they're
coming at the front and it looks kind of cool
It kind of looks like a swarm when they're all
funneling out But it's not it's just that they're
just trying to get away from the smell which
doesn't harm them and it doesn't impact the honey
So cool. Okay. Next thing I had in my notes was
feeders My favorite feeder would have to be the
baggie feeder. It's got so much merit to it.
The first is that there's no drowning. So I'll
just explain what it is. You take a shim, maybe
a one inch shim or so or two inch shim or whatever
you've got really, and a baggie. I buy baggies
that are, I think they're about 18 by 15 inches.
It holds a bit over a gallon. You could use regular
baggies that you have in your house, but here's
a tip. Don't overfill it because what happens
is you're going to put holes or slits on the
top of the baggie and if it's over full that
syrup can leak out so you know just make it so
it's not over full and then I usually put a hundred
holes on top some people and I count I'm like
with my two little nails and some people do a
slit whatever I find the slits the bees could
get into it more than just a bunch of holes so
you have no drowning the syrup stays warm it's
right on top of the hive. So the heat from the
colony is warming the syrup. And that's especially
important in the springtime, early spring, or
even the fall, that the bees are not going to
take cold syrup. So if you put a syrup, my second
favorite syrup besides the division board feeders,
which are inside the hive, which could also help
the syrups to stay warm, but the top feeder with
the wood with the floats, I just love that feeder
too. But that Syrup is going to get cold and
the bees aren't going to go up and take cold
syrup down So with the baggie feeder, yes, we
have baggie waste But what I do is in the fall
when I'm using my baggie feeders and I'm done
with the baggie feeding I leave that baggie on
top and on top of that. I'll put my sugar slurry
my Have a life fondant my fondant my sugar cakes
whatever goes right on top of that and I'll do
a slit right in the middle the bees could get
up from the edges because I only made it like
18 by 15 and the baggy and the bees absolutely
love it. Again, it lands to this condensing hive
system where all the warm moist air stays right
inside the hive and they can come up and get
their feed from on top. Brilliant. So when you
say baggy, are you talking about just a regular
Ziploc bag that's a gallon size or a two gallon
size? Yeah, well for nukes, I'll use a gallon
size, something like that. For my full size colonies,
I buy baggies on, you can go search by the size
and mine are 18 by 15 inches. And so they come
almost all the way to the edges and you can get
about a gallon and a quarter in each one. For
you new beekeepers, exactly 100 little holes
is the way to do it. One more or one less, kill
the bees. Yeah. Somebody had written Do you have
a device for that? And I went, huh, well, no,
but I'm going to make one. So I took a piece
of my, um, my styrofoam, but I use it on the
tops and I cut it and I shove the two nails through
it and taped it up. Now I could do it with one
hand and I could film it with the other one so
I can do it instead of two hands. I love that.
I just would never count. I would just go, okay,
done. We were kidding. Newbie keepers out there.
Okay. No, it's actually two, a hundred. And you
have to do exactly what I say. And I'm just kidding,
because if we have five beekeepers telling us
10 different things, it doesn't mean that they're
wrong. It just means that that's how they do
it at that time for their bees in that environment.
So, you know, that's why we like to take a lot
of information from lots of beekeepers and kind
of make it your own what works for you. All right.
Any great tips or ideas for hive stands? Or was
this your wild and crazy story? You can do both.
I don't know about a wild and crazy story. It
is kind of wild and crazy. It's kind of sad actually
I was short on a couple of hive stands and I
was like, oh, let me go get a few cinder blocks.
So I went to my local lumber, it's not a lumber
yard, whoever sells sand and stone, that kind
of place. And I bought four cinder blocks and
I kind of thought they smelled funky, but whatever.
I put them in my car, brought them out to Montauk,
New York and put them down, put the bottom board
on. Still got this weird feeling. Oh, these things
kind of smell weird, but whatever. And I put
the... Packages in the hives and I felt weird
so I go back the next day and they were all dead
and it was like there was something emanating
from these cinder blocks cinder blocks are made
from coal ash and and basically toxins and whatever
I think that Older cinder box would be okay because
they have time over the years for that. Whatever
is in them to Seep out the off -gassing Yeah,
off -gassing exactly. So I would say also not
to use them in your home gardens. People are
building raised garden beds and things like that.
Do not go get brand new cinder blocks. You just
don't know what's in them. And the other toxic
thing is pallets. Some pallets are heat treated
and others are chemically treated and they're
treated against insects and things of that nature.
So if you're putting your bees on a pesticide
impregnated wooden platform, that might not be
the best for the bees. So just check the pallets
to make sure that they're heat treated. What
did you do with those bad cinder blocks? I actually
brought them back and They were only like four
or five dollars, first of all, you know, so I
was like, oh, this is great and affordable, whatever,
which killed two colonies. But they were like,
no refunds. I said, I understand. I don't want
a refund. I just don't want them. So I just brought
them back to the store. Yeah, just take them.
I don't care what you do with them. I had down
that you had an interesting story about starting
a smoker. Oh, the one that fell over. Have you
had problems with smokers in the past? No, I
don't anymore. I was in a on a property and it
was all pine needles and I didn't Need the smoker,
but it was already lit, so I put it down on top
of something I forget what it was but in my mind
I was like oh boy that would stink if it fell
over wouldn't it when I came back it had fallen
over and it was a small little fire going which
I stomped out But I guess the tip here is to
always place your smoker on a solid non flammable
surface it seems pretty simple I've melted a
few because I use the insulation on top of my
hives underneath the inner cover underneath the
outer cover. In between the inner and outer cover,
I put insulation, but also on top. I'll put it.
And occasionally I've placed my smoker on top
of that and it makes a nice round melted spot.
Well, they're hot. Yeah, very hot. You know,
and I do place my smokers because I'm going from
site to site. So traveling in my car, I put them
in an ammunition metal ammo box and it air tight,
heat tight. I also put my oxalate acid vaporizers
in there to keep them warm between sites because
if you're using the battery operated one, it
says that the battery will give about I think
30 treatments, 20 to 34, something like that,
treatments per battery, the certain size. I was
getting eight or nine. I was like, what's going
on here? Well, I was going from site to site
and it takes a lot of energy for the battery
to reheat the equipment back up to the. Proper
temperature, so I put it in a hot box so to speak
in between It extended the battery life greatly
by doing that brilliant tips. Okay ammunition
boxes yeah, or a kitty litter thing, but it's
plastic but Some of us may have them lying around
the house and they work pretty good as well.
How many cats do you have? I only have two And
they love the bees they absolutely love the bees
they'll sit and just watch them and you know
when I do some open feeding they just sit there
and they love the bees it's really interesting.
The majority of people have one way of doing
a mite check. Okay, we've got an alcohol wash,
we've got a sugar shake, which is a similar kind
of thing. But of course Deb does something different.
Okay, here's tip number 190. How do you check
for mites? Yeah, so as I mentioned earlier, when
the bees are brooding, I'd say 50 to 90 percent
of the mites are underneath the brood cappings.
And let's just say that colony has 50 ,000 bees
in it. and you're taking a sample of 300 bees
from a colony of 50 ,000 and you're hoping that
that sample that you're going to later do an
alcohol wash on, you're hoping that that sample
is a proper representation of the mite load within
the hive. And I kind of disagree because if most
of the mites are underneath the brood cappings
and you're taking a sample of 300 bees from a
frame, first of all, how do you know that that
sample that you've gathered. is a proper representation
of the hive in general. There's a lot of room
for user error, especially newbie keepers, if
they don't know where to take the sample from
or what have you. So what I do whenever I see
drone brood within my hives, I'm opening that
up and looking for mites. Now we've learned that
the mites seem to gravitate toward the drone
brood more so than worker brood because they
just have a few extra days to reproduce. So they're
going to reproduce. a mite or two more so I just
you can either just break it open And observe,
you can uncap. I like to uncap 100 drone brood.
Exactly a hundred. It's because it's easy to
do the math, but if I see one mite, I'm done.
I'm treating and I treat all my colonies. I don't
treat that one on that property. Everyone is
getting treated. Everyone, every colony in North
America has or will have mites. It's just how
it is. I don't believe that there is a treatment
free. ability. That's just my belief. Maybe there's
some people that are successful at it, but where
I live, there's a lot of beekeepers and a lot
of new beekeepers that don't want to treat. And
I was one of them. I was like, Oh, I'm going
to do this natural. I don't need to do that.
My bees are good. They all died. They all died.
And I literally saw mites running around. I was
like, Oh my gosh. Like, and if you see mites,
the colonies are already dead there. There's
probably, if you see like mites everywhere, you
just go order yourself some more bees or just
learn learn how to better treat them. But by
doing the drone brood inspection, you are looking
right where the mites where you would expect
them to be. And then I treat and also I'll remove
that drone brood. I do a drone brood culling
as well as a part of an integrated pest management
because if the mites are under in those drone
brood under the cappings, just remove them and
you're you're being able to get a bunch of mites
out of the hive. The other problem also with
doing the alcohol wash method by taking 300 bees,
if your bees had swarmed, you're losing a good
portion of those mites as well. So you might
have a false negative. You also might get a false
positive in the fall when there's not a lot of...
not a false positive, but a higher than normal
number because in the fold, there's not a lot
of brood going on. So the mites are more phoretic,
more on the bees. You might get a much larger
number than really what's your proper representation
within the hive. I need to throw out a quick
public service announcement. And that is that
we do need drones. So I don't advise taking out
all of the drone brood in all of your hives.
No, I don't take it all out. I'll just I actually
make the bees make more so that I can take it
out. So I could put an empty wooden frame with
no foundation in it, say in spot three. So three
in from the edges. and the bees will draw that
out typically with drone. brood size comb and
then the queen will lay and so i'm actually manipulating
them to make more drone brood so i can take that
out i think the colonies know exactly what they're
doing and when you start seeing drone brood it's
a good sign that everything is good in that in
that colony that they're actually making drones
that they think things are good so of course
we need them i overdo it i make them make more
And another tip that you could do if you had
deep sized boxes, you could put in that medium
frame. It could also have foundation in it. It
could have worker foundation in it, but the bees
will typically draw it down. If you put that
medium in a deep box, they'll draw it down underneath
that medium frame and it's typically going to
be drawn, brewed, and once they cap it, you can
cut that right off, feed it to your chickens.
I'm just going to throw out there because we're
going to be running out of time here real quick.
Deb has so many more tips on her social media
and website, and I'll put a link to that down
in the show notes so that people can find you,
Deb. Thank you. And I want to shift gears for
just a minute and talk a little bit about BeeVenom
because you mentioned something to me the other
day. About the fact that you think beekeepers
need to get X amount of stings every year. Would
you please explain that and the whys behind it?
One of the talks that I gave is called get your
sting on and The it's not really my thought it's
just from doing research that I came across some
research that showed that the average person
their incidence of having an anaphylactic allergic
reaction to bee venom is about 1 to 3 percent
in the general population. But the study claimed
that I think it was between 35 and 48 percent.
of beekeepers and their families and pets actually
can develop allergies to be venom whereas they
weren't born with it but it develops over time
and the reason why is because they're being all
they're all suited up and gloves and duct tape
and everything is they don't want to get stung.
but they're getting low dose venom by squishing
bees or breathing it in. And your body is reacting
to that exposure to a toxin in a small amount.
But over time, when your body finally gets that
one full dose of venom, and your body has already
signaled that as being a very dangerous thing,
you go into an anaphylactic reaction. That also
can happen to your pets, your kids, your wife,
husband, because if you come in and you've got
all this venom, and maybe you're getting stung
all the time and it's fine, and you have no issues,
but if you're giving your family and pets this
constant low dose, their body is also signaling
as this is danger, danger, and it's taking care
of these low doses, but once it gets the full
dose, it goes into overdrive. So this study claimed
that under 25 stings a year is you're asking
for trouble as a beekeeper and then over 200
and over is a prophylactic dose to perhaps not
develop an allergy. I've got three or four clients
that started out as beekeepers but were tied
up, duct taped and you know they did not ever
want to get stung and they ended up when they
did get stung going into an anaphylaxis emergency
room type of issue and seeing allergists now
to try to reverse the damage. So, I mean, it's
part of the job. B -venom is medicine. It cures
all kinds of different diseases and disorders,
anything from cosmetic to arthritis to MS, Lyme
disease, different types of cancers. I mean,
so it's medicine. We did a whole series on Apitherapy
and all of the useful products from The Hive,
in addition to Bee Venom, back at the end of
Season 2. And it's a three -part series. It's
well worth listening to. Wonderful. One of the,
if not the leading authority on Apitherapy in
the world, Dr. Ilver in Romania was the guest
for that three -part series. So I would recommend
that. 200 stings just sounds like really a lot.
It's not. I get that in a day. When you said
25, I was like, oh, that's a pretty good number.
One thing that has concerned me in the past on
this topic is I get stings in the spring, summer
and fall. And in the winter, I'm not around the
bees at all. I don't have any that I use for
any kind of apotherapy or anything in the winter.
Am I a little bit more vulnerable or susceptible
in the spring when I get stung again? Because
I haven't for a while. I worry about that. Yeah,
absolutely. And that that was talked about in
these these studies as well. So I do order bees
in the wintertime or on a warm day. I can go
out there and take a willing or a non willing
participant to my therapy pursuits. But there's
Ferris and Allen's Ferris is in, I think, South
Carolina. Allen's bees, I think, is in California.
So there are places that you can purchase a little
box of bees. It could be 30, 40 dollars. You
get 50, 60 bees and you could use it for all
kinds of purposes or even inviting your friends
and family over and get a little sting fest going.
Most people don't think that sounds fun. It's
a lot of fun. All right. Last thing. When I've
stung people, like, that they complain, I had
a client, Boxer, one of my bee clients. Every
time I'm there, this was one guy that did want
to come out occasionally and check out the bees.
Always complaining about his shoulder, his shoulder.
And I kept telling him, you gotta sting it, you
gotta sting it. He did not want to get stung.
I'm tired of hearing this complaint every time
I see this guy. It's the same thing. So I just
kind of lifted up a shirt, took a bee, stung
him. And I was like... hoping we were still friends
i did tell him take off his wedding ring and
he was like why and i said well in case your
arm swells it might be a good idea take it off
he called me that night he said i have to thank
you. I'm like, all right, so we're still friends.
That's good. And he said, first of all, thank
you for telling me to take my wedding ring off
because my whole arm swelled. I was like, OK.
And he said, and the pain is like 85 % gone.
And he was just amazed. I've heard this multiple
times, one sting. People can sleep through the
night after not having slept for a very long
time. So it's alleged to be 100 times more potent
as a bee venom is about 100 times more potent
as an anti -inflammatory than a shot of cortisone.
Cortisone is poison. You can only get it three
times in a specific joint. Whereas bee venom,
it doesn't harm much. It heals, so there's so
much to it. I'm a big believer. I've used it
for all kinds of things myself. It's funny. My
brain has a hard time going, it's a super strong
anti -inflammatory if it makes me swell. It just
seems counterintuitive, but there's a lot of
science behind that. Yeah. It's amazing. It's
been years since, since, since, since history
has been written. The ancient Greek texts, the
ancient Romans, Egyptians, you name it, China,
they've all done it. The other countries have
been happily pursuing AP therapy. There's whole
institutes devoted to it. It's just here. It's
the big farm doesn't want, you know, they cannot
recreate it in a lab. They can't hire us with
our expertise. So they make it illegal and it
cures people. So. All right, I'm going to give
you the last word. If there's any favorite tip
or advice out there that you have that we haven't
covered yet, hit us with it now. I would say
to listen to the bees. And it seems it's a silly,
simple thing to say. But here's a good example.
If you've got this upper entrance that you've
put on the bees and event and whatever it is,
and the bees propolize it shut. Then you go and
you open it up and then the bees propel eyes
it shut you should listen to the bees They know
they are the foremost experts in the world on
beekeeping and AP culture and even AP therapy
if we just listen to them, you know and observe
them and what are they what are they trying to
tell us and Another thing, you know, sometimes
people like all my bees are so hot I'm gonna
I'm gonna kill his colony. It's hot hive and
my first questions are Are they well fed and
are they sick? and then they have no mites and
they've got plenty of food, I would then ask,
you know, is there something disrupting them?
Is there something coming at night? Are their
boys throwing rocks? You know, what is it? Let's
not go blame the bees immediately for their demeanor.
Let's first check it out and see what's going
on with them. And sometimes even the weather
can change their demeanor. Exactly. Absolutely.
Yeah, one day nice, the next day not so nice.
Yeah. All right. Deb, thank you so very much.
I appreciate you coming back on with me and we're
gonna have to do it again down the road because
there's so much more that we could talk about.
My pleasure. Thank you so much. Thanks again
for joining us on Bee Love Beekeeping presented
by our great friends over at Man Lake. Hey and
don't forget to order your bees. And a shout
out to Vita B Health for their support. Vita's
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Epigard, and now Varroxan Extended Release Oxalic
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