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. Our guest today just helped
save millions of honey bees after their truck
jackknifed and dumped over 400 full hives down
a steep ravine. How did she and her team do it?
And what's it like to have so many homeless angry
bees buzzing at the same time that you can't
even hear the other beekeepers yelling to you?
That's all coming up but first let's just take
two minutes to go inside the hive. This feature
presented by Primal Bee. We have talked about
the waggle dance before. How forager bees come
back to the hive and tell everyone where the
good flowers are by dancing on the comb. The
angle of the dance points toward the food. The
length tells you how far. Scientists just figured
out something new. The quality of the dance depends
on who's watching. Researchers at UC San Diego,
the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Queen Mary
University of London ran experiments where they
changed how many bees were paying attention to
the dancer. When a crowd gathered around the
directions were precise, but when fewer bees
showed up the dance got a little sloppy. One
of the researchers compared it to a street performer.
With a big crowd, you can focus on your act.
When the audience thins out, you start scanning
for attention, moving around, trying to draw
people in. All that extra movement throws off
your routine. Bees do the same thing. When followers
are scarce, the forager wanders around the dance
floor looking for an audience. The directions
get fuzzier because she's multitasking. The team
also figured out how dancers know they're being
watched. Audience members touch the performer
with their antenna and bodies. That physical
contact tells the dancer how many bees are following
along. As one of the scientists put it, honey
bees quite literally dance better when they know
someone is watching. I'd like to welcome to the
show today, Tristan Tartaglia. Hey, good morning,
Tristan. How are you? I'm doing well. How are
you? I'm good. My tongue is running without my
brain, as you can tell, but we'll try to get
that going here as we wake up more this morning.
It's early for you. No, the kids have already
gone to school. We start early around here so
that when midday rolls around, we can come inside
and enjoy the air conditioning. Yeah, it's a
good time of day for us. got it well we're gonna
have fun today oh this is gonna sound weird talking
about a disaster But it is such an interesting
story and I can't wait to hear all the details
about this big bee truck rollover in Oregon that
just happened a few days ago. We're recording
at the end of March 2026 here and this is still
very fresh from a week ago. You know what, before
we jump into it Tristan, would you give us just
a little bit of background about your beekeeping
journey? How long have you been doing it? I think
I started in like 2020. You know, right at the
end of COVID times we were all like... home and
this and that and everybody needed something
kind of extra to do or not necessarily extra,
but maybe something that brought them back to
gardening or kick -ins or something that brought
them back. And so beekeeping was my thing. I
have a story about that, but I'll tell you that
at the end. We just, we got into beekeeping.
We ended up getting a mentor and joining our
local club, Southern Oregon Beekeepers Association.
And that year I won a ticket. Excuse me, I didn't
win the ticket. My friend Jenny won the ticket
and she took me because it happened to be on
my birthday. So Jenny took me to the first ever
Oregon State Beekeeping Conference. And I don't
know if you've ever been to one of your state
beekeeping conferences, but the vibe there is
so cool. I don't know if all of them are like
that, but Oregon's is like, hey, hi, everybody
is like. there for bees and it's really cool.
So that was one of my first experiences and I
was like this is where I want to be. These are
the people I want to be around. I've been to
a few of them. My state one, ABF, Honey Bee Expo,
even Appamondia over in Copenhagen this last
year. And I'll tell you one thing, beekeepers
are some of the friendliest people anywhere.
Somebody told me recently it's because they're
all nerds and so they all get along well. I don't
know if that's the case. There's like half I
think that are nerds and then there's this other
half that are like just down to earth wanting
to do that. You know like there's the educated
and then there's the like we're just chilling
here doing the thing with these guys. That's
me. But I love that beekeepers are so happy to
share information with each other. It's not like
I have the secret to taking care of a row, but
I'm not going to tell anybody else. No, it's
not that way. I worked at a pool hall for 10
years and everybody there was a hustler. You
know, the old school hustlers, they come in and
they only beat you by three points. And then
the next time and you're better and they then
only beat you by two points, but you still got
a chance. Give me 10 bucks. You know, beekeeping
is not like that at all. So it's really a cool
community. I agree. And I'll bet in Oregon, even
more so. Yeah. As you said, there's a lot of
hippie dippies around. There's a lot of hippie
dippies here and that is not negative. It is
really cool chill vibe. For those that weren't
there before we were recording, we were talking
about Ashland and what a beautiful place it is
and what kind of community it is. You do a bunch
of cutouts. How many do you do every year, would
you say? I do. I would say somewhere between
60 and 120, depending on the year. And my cutouts
are not always honeybees. Ashland is one of those
places that will actually hire me to come out
and pull yellow jackets, bald -faced hornets
out with no chemicals. That's my shtick is, hey,
I'll come and I'll take them out with no chemicals.
And they love it. that. So it is a bit of a drive
from here, but they're willing to compensate
that. So Ashland is a great spot for sure. Okay.
I'm going to get off topic for a second and say,
how do you find the yellow jacket nests? Well,
I don't know how you feel about cursing on your
thing, but you follow the butt wads. You just
follow them and you hope not to get stung while
you're doing it. If there's a hole in the ground,
you start digging. And you know that you've hit
them when you get a second wave of them coming
at you and you feel this feeling in the back
of your skull that tells you you're going to
die. You found the nest. They're really violent.
I admit, I'm someone that would get out some
kind of poison at that point, but you're paid
to remove them. So you just what? Dig the nest
out, stick it in a box or something and. Yep.
Take it to hell and drop it off where it belongs.
Yep I actually dig the nest up then I put it
in a cooler and I leave the cooler open until
nighttime and Then I put the lid on the cooler
come back in the morning Vacuum up every one
that I can and everybody needs to know like that's
a hot zone for three days They are gonna be pissed.
But yeah, we chemically free come and remove
them We can't promise that we can get every bug,
but you will not be having another brood cycle
Where do you take them? I don't take them anywhere.
They stay in that cooler until the next time
I need the cooler and the cooler gets very hot
in the back of a car. And if anyone sees this,
that can direct me how to use them better than
that. I know there are several places that use
their venom. I just don't know how to donate
the box to the people, to the right people or
how to get that to them. But every year we have
dozens of boxes or bags of deceased. Yellow jackets,
yeah. I figure honey bees we save and we keep
alive and we rehabilitate, but yellow jackets,
I couldn't imagine them being around my property
or putting them on someone else's property. No.
No, they end up deceased, but I don't use chemicals
to do it. So you're not saturating your land
or your other stuff with chemicals. Well, I'm
glad to hear you're not just moving them someplace
else for them to live. No. We have enough of
them. Yeah, we put them out of their misery.
And if anybody can answer Tristan's question,
because I don't know the answer. I know how to
harvest honey bee venom, but from yellow jackets
or dead yellow jackets, I have no idea. So if
anybody out there knows, email me, eric at be
love beekeeping dot com. And we'll disseminate
the information. We'll get it back to Tristan
and to anybody else that's interested. That'd
be great. That's the community we have here.
All right. Let's jump into the big fun topic
that we have for today. How did you first hear
about the truck rollover? So I first heard about
it. It was actually a jackknifing. And I heard
about it on the Rogue Valley Scanner, I believe
it's called, or Medford. scanner, something on
Facebook, scanner, right? And I went on there
and I saw that there was this story. It was like
pollinators lost, blah, blah, blah. There was
like six comments and then it kind of disappeared.
And so I assumed that it got taken care of. That
was the assumption from most of the people in
the area was, oh, it's an accident and there
are protocols in place to take care of that.
And it happened very far out and it's gone. But
you found out that that wasn't the case. How
many hives were on that truck? ODOT reported
that the driver said there was 420 the night
of the accident. From my beekeeping experience
deductions, I would say that they had just been
split because we found a bunch of queen cages
that were still pretty fresh. So I'd imagine
they went down for pollination, got their brood
pretty good, and then split and headed up to
the next field. So was anybody able to get a
hold of the owners? To my knowledge the only
time that the owners have come up was with an
article through the Rogue Valley Times. I didn't
even know their names or anything about them
until that point. I know there are insurance
reasons why commercial beekeepers often don't
try to recover these loads. I don't know enough
detail about that if you know no more detail
on that. let me know. But it is a little hard
for me to understand why the owners don't put
a big effort into recovering this stuff. So can
you shed a little more light on that? The only
things that I do know, and I'm a very, I'll say
it if I kind of know it person, so I could be
incorrect, but the only thing I do know about
it is that the owners didn't kill them, right?
The first... option that Oregon Department of
Transportation has and that any beekeeper has
that has a rack like that is to just foam the
bees to death. Bang. Done. There's no more liability
of anybody getting stung or hurt or whatever.
And then the cleanup happens. And so personally
for me, I'm just saying thank you to Oregon's
Department of Transportation or thank you to
Oregon State Police or thank you to the owners
for not killing them. because if they had just
killed them, then this would be not an issue
and we wouldn't even be talking about it today.
So thank you for not killing them. The accident
happened on the 17th. I showed up whatever day
consecutively. I'm a small business owner myself,
so I actually work in days of the week, not dates.
So the accident was on the 17th and I showed
up on the following Sunday. whatever the following
Sunday was from that accident. My significant
other and I ended up going out as a date. I was
like, hey, let's go look and see what that looks
like, you know, because it's only a two hour
drive and it's right past some really cool stops
along the way for visual nature seeing. And so
we actually went out there to see like, did they
scrimp the guard rail? Did they hit the tree?
What's it look like out there? So that's how
I found out about it. And were people already
cleaning it up? I have been told that there were
at least half a dozen people who were aware of
it and did go out there and they basically took
a box or took a queen or took something. But
at that point, everybody that I'm aware of was
worried about the legality of that, that that
might be like a felony or something. And so as
far as I know, nobody took much before that.
I know that there were some people who were into
getting firewood for a living that were out there,
really pulling some boxes out of there. But nobody
that was up there before me said, we got to get
these bees out of here. And unfortunately, or
fortunately as it may be, I'm kind of a, what
do they call that? Toot toot, you know, let's
do this. I saw it and my first thought was. I
cannot stand for this. I cannot do it. I'm going
to take a video and then I'm going to start writing
boxes. I'm going to start putting them up and
putting them back because what I saw was just
scattered and I thought these bees are going
to die of exposure. And Tristan, if you have
some video that you can share for the video version
of this podcast, we'll insert some of that in.
Yeah. but just explain explain the terrain because
it was a very steep hill that all these boxes
went down right yes i've been told it was a 30
degree angle and i don't know who figured that
out but it's basically when you are looking at
the ground, you're only looking at like one foot
ahead of you. It is so steep. And so I think
that led, that was part of the reason why the
bees didn't get foamed was because they deemed
the terrain too dangerous, maybe. I'm not really
sure, but we're just thankful that they didn't
get foamed. So you were tooting the horn about
this whole problem. What did you do? You took
some video and how did you get the word out?
Yeah. So we went out there and it's date day.
And basically I said, this cannot stand. I took
a video. Just, I just panned once like this.
And then I put my phone in my pocket and I started
moving boxes. We did take a bee suit. So, and
actually we took my significant others bee suit,
my bee suit, and we brought an extra in case
there was anybody there that like couldn't or
whatever. So we started moving boxes. And about
an hour later, a gentleman who I don't know if
he wants to be named, so I won't name him, but
he showed up and he said, yeah, we're doing this.
Here's my hay rope. And so we just started moving
boxes about half an hour later. Some guy in a
big black diesel truck showed up and he said,
are you guys okay? Is there a car accident here?
And I said, no, we're just trying to save these
bees. And he says, well, I did bees. and he put
on my spare bee suit and that core group of people
we just moved probably 50 to 60 boxes all into
place so that the bees would hopefully settle
into them. You have to understand it was so loud
that we couldn't talk to one another. The bees
frames were scattered all on the ground and so
They had hidden under the wreckage and I would
assume they tried, the queens tried to stay away
from one another or they fought. I don't know,
but you've got individual bees that wake up around,
the sun didn't hit the spot until about noon.
So it would start to warm up and then right around
two or three in the afternoon, it was, you couldn't
hear each other until about four. But that's
literally all the sunlight they got was like
two to four. all that powerful good like get
things moving sunlight and then it starts to
chill down immediately because the trees on the
other hill are creating no sun again and so the
limited time for them to get into a box first
of all was ridiculous i mean i was i was walking
down where i had put boxes and i would literally
see queens getting balled on the ground i don't
know if that's because they tried to swarm into
the box and none of the bees recognize them.
I mean, there's probably a lot of anatomy and
logistics for bees involved in that. But my thinking
was, okay, in a disaster like this, the strongest
survive, but they won't survive if I don't give
them this equipment. So we just lined the equipment
up, took the feeders out because I figured that
was dead space in the box that they didn't need.
And so we would take the feeder out. put two
of the emptiest frames or one big thick honey
frame on one side and then move everything over
and put one big thick honey on the other side.
I figured that was more insulative than anything
else. And we just stacked those boxes in what
we call the train. It would be a tree at the
base so that you knew that the boxes weren't
gonna slide down the hill because otherwise they
did. And then we'd put one box, one box, one
box, one box, one box. We did about 40 or 50
of those the four or five of us me my significant
other and the two unnamed Was there a time that
you said let's well, and I know a lot of the
boxes were broken too. They were trashed Yeah,
let's take the boxes at work We can't just leave
these bees here forever and let's take them home
find them new homes or whatever Yeah, we actually
one of the guys had brought a bunch of nukes
And so we just started filling those. He had
a trainee or a mentee with him. And so we filled
up the truck and the other guy didn't take anything
that day. He just wanted to help. And I took
one of those nukes as well. I also took a lot
of just blank frames. I was like, I don't necessarily
know where the bees are. And I didn't want to
break the frames apart to look through the clusters
to get to the queens. I didn't want to break
that. I figured, no, let's leave the cluster.
You can move it over and put that honey frame
in, but don't break their cluster because I wasn't
necessarily sure that they were getting warm
enough to break their own cluster. And so I was
against that. I didn't want to do that. We didn't
do that. When we did transfer them into the nukes,
we would grab three and four frames and lower
those into the nukes without breaking that cluster.
So we had no idea if there was a queen in there
or not. But it just you can you is a beekeeper
you can you can look at it and say oh, this is
the cluster These are the frames and you can
move that directly over and so you did all this
in one day or a couple days or what? No, I did
all this on Sunday night became our Sunday from
about noon until about I don't know we worked
till 7 or 8 p .m. And it was just got it was
like not only are you exhausted because you've
never well You haven't done this kind of stuff
since you're 22. Uh -huh and and you're just
tired and there's no you're gonna get hurt and
so it's and if you want to come back tomorrow
you better go home now and so we all called it
and we had filled his nukes and I had one of
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love at checkout and again we didn't know if
we like when we went down to the bottom of that
hill we weren't sure like are we gonna catch
felonies for this are we gonna be in trouble
for this and i was like you know what You can't
save something that's dead. They can argue about
whether I'm committing a crime After I save some
of these bees and I didn't think when I looked
at it I didn't think I was gonna be able to save
very many I didn't occur to me at that moment
But I just wanted to do as much as I could and
then I was like I know like six or eight beekeepers
who would come out with me here tomorrow if I
described the situation to them I knew I had
taken that video in awe of the situation before
I touched anything. So I was like yeah, we're
going to be able to do this. And then Oregon
State Police pulled over into the pullout. And
I told my guy, I said, I'm going down there because
they won't come get me. You go talk to them.
because I'm not the person that should be talking
to anybody about anything. I'm very gruff and
I'm very opinionated. And so I sent him to talk
to the police and I was like, you're going to
have to come pull me out of this. And so he talked
to them and they were like, no, this, that's
fine. It's a salvage situation. You are, you
are saving things as long as none of this gets
sold. If it gets sold, it's now insurance fraud
and you will be in a lot of trouble. But I don't
think anybody had their mind on any kind of monetization
except for how much it was. going to take to
fill up the gas tank to get back up there to
do more work at that time. I bet that was a little
peace of mind to know that. It makes sense, the
salvage whole aspect, legal aspect of it. Plus
you're, I mean, you're not only saving bees,
you're salvaging stuff. And you're cleaning up
what really could be a lot of litter, a lot of
big mess. And consider what happens to a fire
crew that's dependent on that road to get through
to the next fire and a fire hits that wax. That's
a, I don't know how hot it would get, but I know
it'd get a lot hotter than just timber. You know
what I'm saying? That was a serious concern for
me personally. I'm like, I can't breathe hardly
any summer anyway, the wildfires that come through
here. I know that they probably have systems
and maps where they know that stuff like this
happened, but can you imagine if it got like
overlooked and they couldn't figure out why it
got so hot? Like that would be, it's just like
a little map for disaster. So I was like, yeah,
no, we've got to get the garbage out of here
too. It's not just about the bees, but at that
moment it was definitely like bees first, wax
later in my head. Yeah totally makes sense. So
did you go back the next day? So that night actually
I posted that short video to Facebook and I thought
and I told myself okay I'm gonna post this and
I'm not gonna post any kind of explanation or
content or anything I'm just gonna post the video
and say ew this is disgusting because the internet
tends to feed off of negativity. I hadn't noticed.
So I sat there on this adrenaline junkie high
because I had just been I mean that was a lot
of physical effort and the way that I respond
to that is fight or flight I'm in it like let's
go and so my body was tired but my mind was so
there's no other word for it I was I was high
off of that feeling all of that adrenaline all
of that work that I had just performed and so
I posted it to the internet And I sat there responding
to every comment because people were like, well,
what happened without context? This is AI. That
looks like a bear. That looks like a hurricane.
Leave the bees alone. They'll be fine. And I
would go through there and say it was a semi
-truck accident. And the key is that you have
to have at least six words in your comment for
the algorithm to care about. You can't just say
bees, bear, buh -buh. You have to like... you
have to give it some context. So I was literally
just responding to these people to get the algorithm
to pick it up because I wanted my local people
to see it and come out and help. But I didn't
think to say that. The first video that I put
out was just this raw. This happened. This is
where it's at. And I didn't think to say, I'll
be going out there tomorrow to deal with it.
And that was, if you are responding to a disaster
and you're posting it to social media, make sure
that you tell them this is happening now and
you can still help. Otherwise they're going to
look at it. And I just learned about this yesterday
from my friend, Amanda Metcalf. She says it's
called bystander apathy. It's when somebody,
it looks at a situation that's happening and
says, Oh, there's nothing I can do to help. And
someone else watches that person feel that way.
and it excuses them from any accountability,
roughly. That's the rough definition of it as
I took it. So unfortunately, these people didn't
realize that this was an ongoing right now help
situation. So I responded to all those comments.
I think I had like 600 ,000 views that night
on that video alone when I went to bed. When
I woke up, it was 1 .8 million. And was that
just posted on Facebook or elsewhere? I did not
have TikTok. I didn't have anything else. I think
it links to my Instagram automatically, but then
I went back and looked later and it didn't for
whatever reason. I am not a tech person. People
have asked me, did you want to go viral? No.
What I wanted was people in my area to see and
respond. But when I woke up, it was 1 .8 million
views. So what did I do? I sat there and responded
to every comment because I wanted people to know,
you know, this has happened. Help me, help me,
help me. And then I left. I left and went back
out there. I had my friend Teresa. She's amazing.
She's a little bit elderly and yet not elderly.
She's a little bit older. And yet she, I told
her, I was like, my arms hurt so much. I don't
think I can drive. Can you drive me out there?
And she was like, absolutely. And we went out
there and we, boxes up the hill all day up the
hill because I wanted to get them into the sun.
You got to understand the bottom of that canyon
does not get sun at this time of year at all
because the trees the way that everything works
the sun does not hit it and so I thought well
if I can get the equipment from the bottom to
the top and get those feeders out and get that
honey on the sides they have a chance of making
it overnight themselves. You got to take the
lids and put the lids on We had no bottoms, but
we were kind of sifting them into the dirt and
then putting lids on them or stacking honey frames
on top of them to give as much insulation as
we possibly could because, you know, there's
420 boxes. That means there's only 420 lids and
half of them are destroyed. So we were just taking
wax foundations that had honey on them out and
placing them on top. And you're doing that because
it's getting real cold at night, right? It gets
so cold at four or five p .m. and I'm working
my butt off and I'm still starting to like chatter
a little bit. I don't know exactly how cold we
should totally find out. I tried not to think
about it while I was out there. You know, I just
tried to like don't think about the negative
Nancy's. Don't think about anything negative.
Don't I mean, I came home and my guy said something
about school and how they had just done something
with our kid. And I was like, I can't hear anything
negative right now. I just have to keep going.
Otherwise, I can't do it. So, and he was very
supportive about that turned around. We did.
We were positive with it. Every comment you can
see on my Facebook, I'm either like snarky, which
to me is positive. Even if it isn't, even if
it's a negative response, it, it lights up my
brain or like, thank you. Please help get the
word out. And so that night I made more videos
and I posted saying tomorrow, please come help.
That's what you have to do. You can't just say
look at this disaster. You have to say look at
this disaster I'm cleaning it up tomorrow on
this day at this time. That's what will get people
out there And how many people showed up when
Teresa took me out there the day after the video.
It was just us the next day 50 plus people showed
up I would say I couldn't count them because
I was at the very bottom of the hill and it's
hard to See? But I was sitting there watching
more equipment move than I had been able to move
in an entire day happen in 10 minutes. We were
daisy chaining like crazy. Everybody was there
to help. Nobody was there to be persnickety or
stingy or I mean it was just this and the people
who showed up were amazing. And nobody's there
to get paid either. They're just trying to help
out the beat. spent 40 bucks in gas to get there.
It's not about that at that point. At that point
it's, and there's a lot of people saying like,
oh, you're not going to be able to save them.
They're getting too cold. Maybe they're infertile
now. And it's like, yeah, but a worker bee doesn't
know that she's infertile. She just knows she
has a job to do and she wants to do it. And we
saved like probably millions of those individual
worker bees. And maybe that doesn't count too.
everyone else, but it counted everyone on that
hill. Everyone on that hill cared that we, every
bee we could save, we were saving. So it might
seem ridiculous to the hive mind, but we cared
about that. We were like, you know what? We're,
we're saving that bee cared, that bee wanted
to live. So we got them up to the top of the
hill and it was pretty amazing. Wow. I appreciate
you doing that. The last time that we had a truck
roll over like that, around where I am and it
was about it was only about 20 miles from me
the highway patrol and it was along a major interstate
corridor yeah and the highway patrol put out
a notice even if you're a beekeeper do not come
to try to help we don't want other people here
Yeah, I can imagine why. I mean, it's a huge
liability, probably for the insurance company.
Honestly, we were probably a huge liability up
on that mountain, too. I do want to point out
no one got hurt. Everybody was very careful with
each other. We were all very aware of the situation.
And beekeepers are tough, man. We were out there
to get the job done and we did. Tough nerds,
right? That's right. Again, I appreciate that
you did it. It was our pleasure. I have a question.
I want everybody listening. to put themselves
into your shoes for a minute, into your bee suit
for a minute. I talked to somebody else about
a year ago that was part of one of these rescue
operations and he said it was exhausting in a
couple of ways. One was you're not used to the
sound of that many bees. You mentioned how loud
it got. Another was he and everybody else that
was working on the cleanup, I think he said there
were six or eight people, They weren't down a
steep hill like you or this was just really on
the side of a road You're lifting a lot of boxes
You're lifting a lot of weight and even though
they were very careful. They took a lot of stings
They they duct tape their zippers and their cuffs
and did all that kind of stuff and they still
took a lot of stings You mentioned the adrenaline
and the sound how were you feeling in the middle
of all this? I have experience with yellow jackets.
Yellow jackets will find any hole and they will
all go into it and then they will line up on
your body and wait and start synchronized stinging
sessions. They're horrible. Honey bees do not
do that. If you are well suited, if you have
the proper equipment, I did not take one sting.
Not one. I wore that. I didn't take a single
sting. When I go to my extractions, I don't take
a single sting. When I go to do yellow jackets,
duct tape is my friend. The only time that I
got stung in this whole thing was at the end
when I had taken my glove off up at the top.
It was after the incident as far as I'm concerned.
I wore that. and it stopped me from getting stung
and I use that when I'm doing anything and then
also to be aware if you are doing bald -faced
hornets you have to wear eye protection as well
because they can actually spit venom at you out
of their whatever orifice that is and they're
pretty good too my glasses get wet with venom
What do bald -faced hornets look like compared
to other hornets, wasps, yellow jackets? They
all look a lot alike, but they sound like bombers.
Instead of little jets. Yellow jackets are like
jets. Honey bees are like commercial planes.
And bald -faced hornets are like bombers. They
are just... They're huge. And they don't care
about you. Until you know, they're the ones that
the little kids throw a rock and the little kid
ends up deceased It's those are the ones because
they come out and they are going to kill you.
It's it's intense. It's gnarly It's an adrenaline
rush and at this point I've done enough bald
-faced hornist extractions That I actually don't
mind them because you can sneak up on them and
wrap a bag around and tie it off real quick versus
yellow jackets who You can't sneak up on you
cannot sneak up on yellow jackets and they want
to kill you. It's pretty gnarly What does the
nest look like for the bald -faced hornets? The
bald -faced hornets is the ones that looks like
they're about the size of basketballs generally
and they're very smooth on the outside yellow
jackets have those little pleats in them and
Please if somebody out there has a better way
of describing or a more scientific way But the
way I describe it is the yellow jackets have
pleating on the outside. The bald -faced hornets
are generally smooth And the yellow jackets are
in the ground. They do. Yeah. Yellow jackets
are in the ground as well. And they will find
a hole in your suit. If you have a hole anywhere,
they will find it. They are literally searching
and honey bees are funny. They'll get on you
and they'll do that motion where they're trying
to sting and trying to sting and trying to sting
and trying to sting. I had bees all over me trying
to sting. Not one. Proper equipment. But you
asked how I felt. My business is called Southern
Oregon Swarms. because swarms are my passion
I think that there is something magical about
the feeling in the air around swarms you've got
medicine men who talk about toning and they bang
the gong and that gives a certain swarms do that
too they they emanate this Just it's just it's
incredible. I think that catching a swarm should
be on everyone's bucket list whether they want
it or not I'm one of those people and so I I
take people around the valley We'll get a swarm
call and I'll say hey, you've never caught a
swarm Let's go and I'll catch the swarm with
them just to be a part of it The bees go home
with them and I go home happy inside of me. And
so when I was out there The first two or three
hours was really rough because when we got there,
there was no motion whatsoever. And I thought,
oh my God, what if they're all dead? And then
there was this like, not like your hives sound
at home when they're waking up, but like there
was this other sound that was very sad. And I
imagine that's the sound that your guys are talking
about where it's like, it's depressing. You can
tell that this is not okay. And the bees know
it and you can hear it that there it's something
is wrong. But then. About 2 p .m. They started
sounding like swarms like genuine like there's
a swarm somewhere in the vicinity There's a swarm
and then there was two and then there was ten
and the energy from that was just I Wouldn't
doubt if it could cure some ailment like it was
incredible and it was hopeful I May be a Maluni,
but I could feel that there was hope And we're
picking up, this is ridiculous. It's a beekeeper
thing, right? But we're picking up hives and
we're moving nukes and we're doing all of this
stuff. And yet what am I staring at? I'm staring
at that swarm right there. And all I want to
do is go catch that swarm. I refrained. I was
like, you know what? I'm here to move equipment.
That's what I'm here to do. But several of the
beekeepers out there were like, oh swarm. And
we got, you know, very distracting. Alright before
I let you go, I know you've been telling us this
whole time about a wild and crazy honeybee story,
but you said you have another one. Let's hear
a wild and crazy beekeeping story. So my hope
is that it's as inspirational as it was for me,
but my wild crazy bee story is actually how I
got into bees. I was not interested in honey
bees whatsoever, but my friend at the pool hall,
his name is John Lucas, his wife had cancer and
she would come in late at night and she would
have ice cream with us. And I got to know her
a little bit and then she passed away. And John
came to me one day and he said, I can't tell
you how much they want for her tombstone, but
I think that's absolutely ridiculous. He said,
can I buy you all of the equipment it would take
for you to keep a hive alive for Shirley? And
so all of my bees come from him wanting to keep
his wife's memory instead of a rock. So. So beautiful.
It's beautiful. Thank you. He did that. And I
wonder if a cemetery would allow us to have a
beehive instead of a headstone. I don't think
so. I don't think so either, but. Yep. Man, that'd
be cool too, wouldn't it? All right. Well, I
appreciate all of what you're doing and you're
sharing these fun stories with us and touching
story too. That's a neat way to get started.
Yeah. All right. Tristan, take care. It was so
nice to meet you. Thank you so much. Thanks again
for joining us on Be Love, Be Keeping presented
by Man Lake. Another big thank you goes to Vita
B Health for their support. Vita's Varroa Control
Ranger products includes Epistan, Epigard, and
now Varroxan Extended Release Oxalic Acid Strips.
Hey thanks a lot guys. And if you haven't yet,
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