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 over at Man Lake.
Today we're concluding our discussion with the
two giggliest beekeepers around, I hope that's
a word, giggliest beekeepers around, Kim and
Steph. We will finish up our top 10 list of decisions
to make before you take the leap into beekeeping,
plus hear their wild and crazy beekeeping adventure
that they had while doing a live video over social
media. You won't want to miss the fun, but first
let's take a minute to go Inside the Hive, this
feature presented by Primal Bee. Did you know
that beeswax doesn't come from flowers? Bees
make it from their own bodies. Young workers,
between about 12 and 18 days old, have glands
on the underside of their bellies that produce
tiny clear flakes of wax, each one about the
size of a pinhead. The bee grabs a flake, chews
it soft with her mandibles, and carefully places
it wherever the colony is building. Thousands
of bees doing this one flake at a time is how
you get comb. The engineering is absolutely wild.
Honeycomb is made of perfect hexagons. This shape
uses the least wax to create the most storage
space. Mathematicians have been fascinated by
it for centuries. Here's the expensive part.
Bees need to eat about six to eight pounds of
honey to produce one pound of wax. So when you
see fresh white comb or wax cappings in a hive,
you're looking at a serious investment. That's
why experienced beekeepers treat drawn comb like
gold. It's not just wax. It's thousands of flower
visits converted to nectar, converted to honey,
converted to wax. one tiny flake at a time. Next
time on Inside the Hive, we'll discover how bees
run their own air conditioning system in the
summer heat. Now, let's get back to Kim and Steph.
Okay, as long as we're on kind of the mindset
thing, let's discuss a little bit about how do
you feel about bees? Is there a fear going into
this? Are you sure you're not allergic to bee
venom for starters? What else on that line should
people think about? I would say my first year,
I did not have any type of fear. I wasn't stung.
I had a beautiful experience, which can be good
and bad. because the next year will be much different,
can be very different. And unfortunately, you
don't know your tolerance to stings until it
happens. So again, wearing proper PPE is very
important. Getting checked out if you feel if
you've gotten stung and you feel you've had a
certain reaction, you want to go get checked
out immediately. What else? I think you should
be honest with yourself about how much time you're
willing to put into it. I think that's important
that you to know how much time are you willing
to put into this for your bees and for yourself
because it is time consuming. Yeah, that's good
advice. Are you two the type that are just normally
very calm like the first time you were around
bees? Did you feel very calm or did you feel
some anxiety? I was definitely anxious. there's
a lot of energy when you're going into your hive
for the first time whether it's nervous energy
or oh my gosh is this so cool kind of energy
but i was apprehensive because i i knew like
this thing could potentially be you know i could
hurt them they could in turn hurt me so i was
apprehensive for sure i went into it a little
more calm Learned kind of what we talked on earlier
that my mindset has everything to do with how
my visit in the bee yard is gonna go if I go
in nervous and anxious I'm not gonna have a good
visit if I go in without love in my heart I'm
not gonna in turn show my bees that same love
that they they show us so I Just have to take
a moment even now to this day before I go into
the bee yard I just take a moment to collect
myself and say We're going in with the bees.
We need to be calm. They can pick up on that
So let's make it a beautiful day and we go in
and we have a great time but always I always
take that moment to make sure that my mind is
calm and That's where I'm out with it now Kim,
how about you? I went into it a little more calm
a little I wasn't nervous. I just thought it
was amazing, but I have gained a lot of respect
for bees, and each experience that you have is
going to be different. And when you do get stung,
which will happen, and you just learn to try
to get through it, the bees are doing what they
do. And you want to try to be as calm as possible.
Because if you're calm, it does help, as Steph
said, your mindset can affect how they react.
And you want to have respect because at the end
of the day they're still wild creatures that
you cannot control. So we can talk about how
they act during the season but you'll get that
couple weeks in the summer where there's a dearth
and you've got a whole different kind of bee
behavior going on and you want to be able to
recognize that and if you're a backyard beekeeper
and you and you need to check your your hive
that week and you open that hive and they're
just coming at you, they're not having it, then
you have to respect that and think, you know
what? I'm just going to close it up and I'm going
to leave and I'll check a different time. They're
just not, they're just not having it. You don't
want to force it if, you know, if you can help
that. I love that. Commercial beekeepers don't
have that luxury like hobbyists do. And so if
you have the time, it's really nice to be able
to do that. We forgot to talk about how many
beehives should someone start with a beginner?
Because the natural tendency is I want to get
one. See how it goes. I'm a big fan of let's
get two. Two is a great place to start with because
What if something happens to one of them? That's
always everybody's like fear. And it might, I
mean, honestly, it could happen, but having to,
you also learn a lot. You can see what is this
high doing? What is this high doing? And kind
of compare them. Also, it's just, I think it's
so much fun to have two highs. There's just a
huge learning experience having them. How about
starting with 10 or 20? Oh, yeah, don't start
with 10 or 20. That's a way to not want to be
a key. Although we kind of did that because when
we were at our location in Pennsylvania, we would
take the packages that weren't doing well that
we didn't sell and we would try to. We would
just try to help them survive. So we kind of
took on a little more than we probably should
have just because we're trying to get the bees
a fighting chance for sure. But I would recommend
for most everybody else. I understand that cost
is definitely something to consider and. You
want to just start with one because of course,
it's so expensive But ultimately having at least
two will help you because you never know if you're
going to need to take resources From a hive to
help one that maybe is failing or not doing as
well. I completely agree Also, if you only had
one Whatever it does you would think is normal
That's exactly yeah, and it may not be Mm -hmm
I started with two and the kind of Langstroth
boxes that I have or had at that time, they had
the regular entrance in the bottom and they had
a small entrance at the top also, which is fairly
normal. One of the hives would only use the top
entrance for some reason. So I would have thought
that that was normal if that was the only hive
that I had. You wouldn't have now. But they were
just... Yeah, they were just goofy bees and they
just did that. So we're going to be wrapping
up here pretty soon. One of the other things
that I think can go with your why you get into
beekeeping is also take a good look at what are
my long -term goals? Do I want to always have
two hives because maybe it'll help my allergies?
Do I want to get to a point where I'm making
a little bit of money at it? Do I want to get
to a point where maybe it's a full -time business?
Or as you were saying, I want to make some skincare
products. What advice do you have for people
to really look ahead and set some goals right
off the bat? Well, just keep in mind that if
your bees overwinter and they come through winter
strong and the queen starts laying, then in spring,
you're going to want to make what's called a
split, which obviously we'll have to touch on
that another time. But essentially you'd be turning
one colony into two. So right away you'll have
two. So you want to make sure that you wouldn't
get ahead of yourself. If you go over winter
with four hives and that's all you wanted, but
come spring all those hives did well, you're
looking at potentially eight hives, which is
more money. more time, more resources. It could
be a little bit above what you feel comfortable
in. You may also live in a place where you just
don't have space for more than a couple of hives.
That's true. Like in my example here, I have
four hives, but I can't have them in my yard.
So my bee yard is separate from where I'm at.
How did you find that other bee yard? Because
lots of people might have to do that. So I was
lucky and we had a family member who has a lot
of property and a lot of it they don't use. They're
not utilizing other than just to walk around
and such. So we were lucky enough to be able
to put our bees there. So family was our option,
thankfully. What if you live in a city? Hmm Well,
I mean again, you'd have to check with your county
to see but a lot of people I know that if you
can in your your county you can do rooftop beekeeping
Which is something I thought of so there's there's
that or I mean you can I don't know maybe reach
out to Some other places to see if you could
put your hives on there on their property I know
some schools in such will allow for that Are
you planning on expanding your apiary this year?
Or are you a beginner thinking about jumping
into beekeeping for the very first time? Take
it from someone who's purchased beekeeping equipment
from many different suppliers. If you want made
in USA woodenware, premium feeds, top quality,
and great prices on everything, give Man Lake
a try. And whether or not you're a beekeeper,
you can help honey bees and other pollinators
by planting bee -friendly forage. Man Lake has
that too. In fact, download the free Man Lake
app and learn about some of the best plants for
your area. Go to manlakeltd .com and be sure
to use discount code GETSTARTEDINBEEZ, it's all
down in the show notes, for savings on live bees,
beginner kits, and even seeds. In the wild, bees
choose homes with thick walls and small entrances.
Millions of years of evolution went into that
preference. Primal Bee built a hive that actually
respects that. Insulated walls, thoughtful design,
built around how bees want to live. I added one
to my apiary last fall with a small late summer
swarm that I didn't think had a chance to make
it through winter, but guess what? They did.
They're alive and well. If you want to give it
a try, I've arranged a 10 % discount just for
Be Love listeners. Click on over to primalbee
.com forward slash Be Love and use discount code
Be Love. That's all one word at checkout. Again,
that's primalbee .com slash Be Love and use discount
code Be Love at checkout. I would definitely
join a Bee Association if you live in a city.
because if you end up with your hives doing really
well and You cannot keep all of those on your
property Having someone local that could maybe
take them for you. You could make nukes out of
them You could also use it as an opportunity
to make some money if that Would be something
you did more research and looking into All right.
Let's wrap up with a couple of other things and
that is just in general, things that we've left
out, such as preparing for potential predators,
what else should people be thinking about? Prepare
for having honey. You're going to want to look
at the containers you're going to want to get.
Are you going to want to label your honey if
you get honey? Can you sell your honey where
you're at? What's behind that for you? So you
definitely need to look at what you're going
to do with your honey. How are you going to extract
it? Are you going to do it by hand? Are you going
to put it in an extractor? So I think that's
important. Like you're going to have some product
at some point. What are we going to do with it?
And of course, you want to look into electric
fencing wherever you may have your bees. I can
speak from experience that maybe the bees or
maybe the bear don't find your bees that first
year. Maybe they don't find them the second year,
but they will find them eventually. And they
will wreak havoc all over the bee yard. And that's
something that's devastating. for anyone that's
involved. So of course you don't want anything
to happen to your bees, but all that money and
all that time you may have spent putting your
equipment together. So that is another expensive
investment, but one that is extremely important.
And is there anything besides bears we need to
watch out for? Because a lot of people live where
there's no bears. You can watch out for other
people. We've had instances where people take
hides that don't belong to them. You could have
other predators such as, I said, skunk or raccoon
come by. Oh, could be mice. Yeah, oh, mice. Mice
are going to be careful. Get yourself a mouse
guard in the winter. Yeah. Oh, and the don't
forget the European hornet. So and the yellow
jackets for in robbing season, which is another
topic we could probably talk all day. And again,
if you're in touch with local beekeepers, you'll
hear about some of that and how to prepare for
those kinds of things because predators aren't
all big. Some are little and also fly. And some
are even birds and things like that. Do either
of you have a fun, wild and crazy story you'd
like to share with us? Well, we do have quite
the story. Steph and I go live on Man Lakes TikTok
every Thursday afternoon. We try to do for 12
Eastern time. We were told to go live, funny
enough, during a dearth. And this is when we
did live hive inspections. And we set the camera
up, went live. I'm inspecting the bees. They're
not really appreciating it, but all is well at
the moment. Steph decided that she wanted to
try a new veil that she really liked, and she
wanted to see what it was like. However, it wasn't
connected to her jacket, and the zipper part,
I don't think, was pulled up all the way. And
as I'm inspecting and trying to focus, she is
getting stung in the head. So she had gotten
stung once, and you know, let me know. We just
kept going. But of course, that pheromone had
been released and she got stung probably eight
more times as I'm trying to go live and the hive
is open and did not know how to handle that.
So had to wrap up the live and not and thinking
back, maybe we should have included that in the
live stuff is that's a real thing that happens
to beekeepers. I mean, it does. But I didn't
know how to handle it. So I kind of just hit
it and did it and then tended to stuff. I wanted
to make sure she was OK. She was. Yeah. Right.
And we jumped right back into it. We within like
15 minutes, I think we are back to her. I had
her up. We made sure all the stingers were out.
She didn't have any bad reactions, which was
what we were most concerned about with that many.
I know it's hot. We're in August T. Pennsylvania.
heat. So that was quite an experience, which
we do talk about now fondly, but at the time
was pretty scary. Now we just laugh about it.
Well, I don't know. I do. And if you had left
that in, you would have had a lot more views
on that video. I know we say that all the time.
How we regret that because we would have got
so many more views for sure. But I was more concerned
with her realize she's being a very good friend.
Well, you guys are brave doing live stuff. This
podcast is not live. I guess I'm just not as
brave as you guys. Or I'm not as talented. I
need editing to fix stuff. No, no, you'd be great.
Yeah. All right. I'm coming on your live sometime.
I would love to have you for sure. I hope you
do. I hope you do too. Be a disaster. Okay. Hey,
any other last thoughts? I do want to say thank
you so much for having us. This has been so fantastic.
Never thought I'd be on a HUD cast. So this has
been just made my made my year actually. Thank
you. This was a lot of fun. I was a little nervous
going into it, but you are so sweet and just
getting us to talk. We are talking about what
we love, which is actually beginning beekeeper.
We love talking. We have a lot of knowledge in
beginning bee keepings and a lot of people we
talk to over the phone are calling for the first
time asking questions about how do I get bees
and what do I need to do. So we just we love
to talk to them and let them know that have fun
with it first and foremost. Yes, it can be scary.
You can get some anxiety with it. It costs a
lot. But ultimately, we just want the backyard
beekeeper to have fun as we have fun. Absolutely.
All right Kim and Steph, thank you so much for
your time. It is fun. Sometimes we take beekeeping
too seriously. It's fun, it's about the love,
and one other thing that I was going to throw
out for advice is get the family involved. This
doesn't have to just be you. It can be the spouse,
the kids, the grandkids, the whoever. It's fun
to get other people together doing this with
you. Absolutely. Find a beekeeping buddy for
sure. All right, take care you two. 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 Varroa Control Ranger products
includes Epistan, Epigard, and now Varroxan.
Extended release, oxalic acid strips. Thank you
so much guys. If you haven't yet, please subscribe
and follow the show, tell your friends about
it, and click on over to Be Love Beekeeping dot
com to sign up for our free newsletter. If you
have a guest suggestion or topic that you'd like
discussed on the show, shoot me an email, eric
at Be Love Beekeeping dot 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.