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, Be Keeping
presented by our great friends over at Man Lake.
By the way, if you haven't yet, please subscribe
to and follow this podcast, tell your friends
about it, and click on over to BeLoveBeekeeping
.com to sign up for our free newsletter. Today's
guest comes to us from the Midwest and has a
wealth of knowledge on everything from sideline
beekeeping to farmers markets, winter beekeeping,
3D printing, even writing bee related children's
books. That's right and we'll discuss all of
this but first let's take just two minutes to
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use discount code Bee Love at checkout. I'd like
to welcome our very special guest today Bob Ford
is coming to us from what the southern part of
Minnesota Bob Yeah, well between Austin and Albert
Lee we live on the country between Austin and
Albert Lee and this is gonna be interesting today,
I think because We just have so much to talk
about we are gonna be running the gamut From
the kind of beekeeping you do to how you've figured
out how to make money selling hive products And
also, you're now an author, and I think that's
really cool and fun. And we're going to be talking
about the books that you've written. But I want
to start with this. Your place is called Sticky
Bee Honey Farm. How'd you come up with the name?
That's really fun. I tried to figure out a way
to have a mascot that would be something of a
branding for Sticky Bee Honey Farms. I wanted
a funny kind of catchy name. And I spent probably
two, three weeks of going through dictionaries
and looking at words and things like that. Once
I heard Sticky Bee in my head, I just all of
a sudden, boom, that was it. And that's what
I chose. And I also wanted somehow to include
it with a... mascot for the books to write some
children's books to help children get more involved
into beekeeping. And so I came up with characters,
Sticky of course, and one of the first names
I kept coming up with was Stinger Honey. But
there's so many people have Stinger Honey that
I've seen out there and it's kind of an obvious
name. So. So I have Stinger as one of the characters
and not in the books yet, but in the books to
come. So Sticky, she goes on adventures and stuff.
And that's why I picked Sticky Bee Honey Farms.
I just thought it was a cute name for a little
honeybee. As long as we've jumped to that point
already, we don't have to go through your topics
in any particular order. Let's talk a little
bit about the books. I'd like you to tell me
why you decided to start writing some books,
who they're aimed at, their children's books,
but a little more specifically about that and
where they're going from here. I started out,
I started making presentations on the computer
to teach children, especially the younger kids,
about bees. and try to make them more comfortable
with these, because every time you mention the
word honeybee to kids, they love the honey, but
they're afraid of the bee part. And so I figured
that I would write these books and take a character
sticky and let her go on adventures to help promote
beekeeping to younger children. I made sure that
every book had a lesson to be learned in each
story, kind of like the traditional books that
I used to have when I was a kid. and that there
was always some lesson at the end that you learned,
you know, learn to be nice or learn to help others,
things like that. Just simple lessons learned
at the end of the story. They're kind of cute,
but short. And it's just a lot of fun to do it,
too, as well. And I think you'd mentioned to
me the other day that you were injured and kind
of needed something that you could do without
being outside hauling around beehives and stuff.
Is that kind of what prompted you? Correct. Yeah,
I probably could have started a little earlier
in the story, but I was a general contractor
for many years. I did commercial construction,
a lot of hospital and school work and stuff like
that. And anyway, I had several back surgeries
over the years and I took and had a major back
surgery about three years ago. And I had to lay
flat on my back for about nine months. I'd had
a surgery the prior year before COVID hit. It
didn't heal correctly. And that's the long story
I won't get into it. I had a contractor back
out on me on a project. So I ended up three weeks
out of back surgery. I ended up having to do
the project myself because there was a $5 ,000
a day penalty for every day that I didn't get,
or that I went past the six weeks. So I ended
up doing everything myself, even laying the carpet
and painting and everything. So I tore everything
that they did in my back all out. So that's why
it was such a major surgery to tear it all out.
And then 10 days later, I went back and they
put it all back in. So I vowed that I was not
going to work. I was going to let it heal. And
I did. And while it laid flat on my back, I thought,
you know, what a better thing to do than to sit
down and start writing some books. So I wrote
25, 30 children's books and started doing all
the drawings and the poses for Sticky in the
books so that it would be easier for each page.
I could bring her in and just post different,
you know, surprise looks and this and that. And
it was just fun to do. I enjoyed doing it. So
anyway. So now no more construction. Yeah, no,
please. Yeah, so you're the illustrator as well.
That's awesome. One of the things that I love
about what you've done here is most of us realize
we need to get more younger people involved in
beekeeping. And what a way to start at a very
young age. So thank you for that. I have now
children involved and grandchildren involved.
And I don't know that there is an age that's
too young to get. Kids involved in beekeeping.
What do you think? I don't think so either. And,
um, I've had a lot of people because I told them
at the range for kids, age -wise, even when I
published them on Amazon, they even sent me a
thing back saying that the books were advanced,
too advanced for that age. And that, that there
was a few words that I used that were more advanced
for the age. My thought was, and they agreed
with me actually, was that parents mostly read
children the books. That's part of the book experience.
is having the parent read the book to the child
and the child starting to see the words and hear
the words as they're watching them go across
the page. So that's kind of what I think that
being the younger kids, they learn the bigger
words and start, because they're going to ask
questions while you're reading it. They're going
to say, Oh, what was that word nuisance? You
know, what was this word? And so I think it's
a learning experience for younger kids. And I,
I'm a firm believer in that kids. up to the age
of probably eight, nine years old, most of their
parents are reading them in their books at night
before they go to bed or just during the day.
I know when I've gone to visit some of my sister's
grandchildren and you read them a book, it's
always that you read it, you read it, you read
it, and not that they're reading it. And then
you kind of transition into them reading a little
bit of it. Some of the best part of parenting
too. Sure. I love it. Those are some great memories.
All right. I want to jump into some things that
we can learn from your experience. They're in
a pretty cold climate there. Now most of us,
when this is going live, it's going to be in
the spring of 2026. So for those of us in the
northern hemisphere, we're coming out of winter.
We're looking and seeing how many bee colonies
made it, how many didn't make it. our friends
in the southern hemisphere that are listening.
Of course they're the opposite. They're thinking
about winter right now. What kinds of things
have you done for your bees to help them get
through winter and maybe preface with how many
beehives did you run in the past before the injury
and how many do you run now? Well I started out
I just was gonna have two beehives. Of course
within two months there was so much fun and so
exciting. I started splitting hives and creating
more and more. And of course, being in the construction,
I had plenty of extra wood to build more hives.
And so I got up to, I think the most I've had
was 65 to 80, something like that. But I found
that it was just too much work for my back being
that bad. So I figured I'd have to back it down
a little bit. But I had enough equipment for
400 hives. I still do. It was my goal of Being
that I was in construction, I had a semi already,
and I've already got a semi trailer to haul bees
to do pollination. And that was my ultimate goal.
But of course, my back kind of held me back on
that. Still to this day, I still kind of hope
to be able to do that, to be able to haul, not
so much to California, but, you know, to Wisconsin
or Michigan, I think would be kind of fun to
do it. Of course, I already had forklifts and
skid loaders and all the equipment necessary
to do it, but my back is what held me back. No
pun intended. Currently, I have 40 to 45, something
like that, hives. I treat my hives as best I
can. Sometimes I miss the date because of pain
issues or something like that, but I do try to
treat them. And the worst part about being in
Minnesota is that you get through the winter,
you think, oh, geez, I only lost 25%. It was
a good year. You'll go through three weeks of
good weather and then all of a sudden, boom,
you'll have another half die off. That's the
weird part about Minnesota. But yeah, we always
usually end up, I anyway, usually end up between
25 and almost 60 % loss every winter. So you
got to get busy splitting and cleaning out nukes
and getting everything back ready again. So hopefully
I can do it on a bigger scale here soon. That's
what I'm hoping anyway. And I know I'm kind of
asking too many questions at one time. We're
going to come back in just a second to what to
do to prepare for winter. But you mentioned you
have maybe 25 % loss. Three weeks later you find
another bunch of loss. Why is that? What is the
second round of loss from? I think it's what
they call colony collapse disorder I think it's
just because in in Minnesota our weather is kind
of weird We get like a warm spell and then a
cold spell and you know, and you kind of misjudge
when That collapse is going to be because we'll
lose some over the winter I believe the disease
just finally gets to them. And in the spring,
just when they're starting to want to build up,
they just don't build up and they just die out.
But I honestly believe it's because we have a
kind of a false spring. And so what we consider
spring here, like right now it's been 70 degrees
for the last two, three days, but it's going
to turn into 50, 45 as highs later in the week.
I think that these that are overwintered into
that. with the disease and stuff they get from
the mites, they just finally just, and it's weird
because they all collapse at the same time. It's
not that you just lose this one this day, another
one this day. It's, you go down one week. I walk
through and make sure they have enough food,
you know, to keep them through the winter. And
then you go back again a week later and you'll
have 10, 15 hives that are, that are gone and
that I have to clean out. Anyway, it's just amazing
how quickly the mice move in afterwards as well.
Well, and my first question was going to be,
did they need food? Did they have plenty of food?
Because that's often a cause for a spring collapse.
It's just running out of food. I make sure they
have enough honey to make it through the winter.
So I leave them with enough honey. But a lot
of times they can't, they don't move from one
side of the frames to the other, you know, that
they stay centered and then they would starve,
so to speak. But I always in the closer to spring,
I will go and open up to make sure. And I dumped
sugar on the just plain sugar on the frames.
so that they have food if they need it and there's
always plenty of moisture of course in the hive
so they don't have to worry too much about moisture
but usually they're not dead with their heads
stuck into the cells they're usually just dead
like in a cluster or just fanned out on the what's
left of them fanned out on a frame because usually
when they when they starve out there they got
their heads all stuck in you know in the in the
cells that as far as i'm aware anyway yeah that's
kind of a good indication is heads in butts out
they're probably hungry Right. Yeah. You might
want to have it at the inspector or somebody
take a look at some time at one of those dead
outs and give you an idea. Was it deform wing
virus was something else going on? Yeah. If I
could catch it soon enough, like I say, because
of the temperature swings, they get a lot of
mold on real fast. And, uh, otherwise I would
try to put them under a microscope and take a
better look. Some of them that I've noticed didn't
have queens. So the queen must've died sometime
through the winter or something. There's all.
kinds of different things that I see. But the
thing that is alarming is that you don't see
too many mites on the bees themselves, but you
do see them on the bottom board of the hive.
I don't know if treating more or maybe a better
treating, I would have better luck with that.
A lot of that is a matter of where was the mite
load in the fall? Correct. Did you test in the
fall? Did you have a pretty good idea? Yes. But
like I said, with the back injuries, I'm not
timely. Cause I always set myself to seven day
time to do the exoc acid or to do formic pro,
you know, things like that. Most of the people
in this area that I, and almost everybody in
our bee club, they lose almost a hundred percent
of their hives. I actually thought I was doing
fairly well. Like my neighbors and people around
me, they just, they buy just buy new hives every
spring. They don't even treat, which is hard
for me because then I get their mite load coming
from their hives. And so it's just kind of a
never ending struggle. I do believe that chemical
free beekeeping. I do believe in that. I haven't
done it because it's, you have to be really timely
with that and make sure that you can get out
and, uh, and do that at the correct time. I don't
know. It's just been a struggle, especially in
colder weather. I hate to sound, well, I don't
mean this to sound rude in any way, shape or
form, but it's like welcome to beekeeping. It
is so much harder than people think it is. And
so many people get into it thinking, you know,
that it's like chickens. I just feed them and
water them and they're going to be fine. And
beekeeping is not that easy, folks. Yeah, it's
not. I do notice a lot of people, they make it
easy and that's all they do is they just take
all the honey in the fall and they just let the
bees go and The next spring they right back buying
packages again I mean, I think it's sad but that's
what a lot of people do that I know of around
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show me the color at checkout. That's manlikeltd
.com discount code show me the color. I try to
do the best I can to keep them going. It's nice
to have those hives that that do make it through
the winter and they just burst in the spring
and you can split and you can do all kinds of
just exciting. to do instead of starting from
a package and then sitting back and waiting for
them to You know takes two months for them here
to start building up to even to you know to move
on Especially if you don't have wax. I have probably
a hundred and some hives worth of wax that's
drawn out so that that helps considerably because
then they don't have to draw wax out but if yeah,
if you're if you're new and And you're starting
to try to build up, and you're just buying packages
every spring. You're waiting first two months
just to get wax built. And the other exciting
thing about those that make it through winter
is we can kind of assume they probably have good
genetics. So we want to split those. We really
want to make sure that we're nurturing and taking
care of those colonies. Yeah, those are the ones
you paint gold before you leave. Yeah, absolutely.
So a lot of people in cold climates will wrap
their hives with tar paper, will put some kind
of insulation around, even hay bales. What do
you like to do there? I myself, I kind of do
a, I like to get them out of the wind and you
can put a windbreak up, but the wind usually
comes from every different direction anyway.
So you almost have to put a U -shaped windbreak
around them. But I think that when you do the
wind breaks, that you're still getting wind,
you know, filling in and going up and over the
wind breaks and stuff. So what I do is I actually
wait till it's going to be consistently below
56 degrees. And I put them inside of a pole shed
that's out of the wind so that I think that's
99 % of what helps to keep them warm is they
don't have that. that wind when you put up a
windbreak I believe that when you have wind blowing
across the top you'll get a negative air pressure
inside as well and I think that that helps to
fluctuate and sucking air in and out of the hives
and kind of like a sandblaster but where you're
blowing air across the top of something and it
sucks the sand out of the out of the bottle that
you're you're sandblasting with so that's why
I put mine in a building so they're out of the
wind and then when the temperature gets looks
like it's going to be 56 or above well actually
lower than that, but because I've tried to be
proactive, and then I'll set them back out again.
I find that there's less condensation in the
hives with that, and I don't wrap my hives. I
use pallets for all my hives. I put a wood fiber
board on top. It helps to not let the water,
because you want some condensation in the hive
for them to have water, but it doesn't drip like
other products that are out in the market, like
wood would drip. it actually absorbs most of
the moisture but it doesn't literally get drops
on it like you would see when you lift off like
your styrofoam of people that use foam on the
top if you lift the foam up you'll see the water
run you know down the face of the foam the moisture
that's why i use wood fiber it just doesn't seem
to drip on the bees that way they can just go
to the hive especially the edges and get the
water and moisture that they need to to keep
on going and there are a lot of good products
out there yes if you go to a place like manlakes
website There are things that wrap all the way
around the hive that block the wind and have
insulation. There's things that go on top. There's
a hive heater, which is a solar thing, which
I've had really good luck with. We'll have to
try that. We'll have to look into that one. Definitely
insulating definitely helps. I don't personally
insulate mine. I guess I don't know why, just
probably because I have so many of them, but
it would take quite a while to insulate and a
lot of material to insulate them all. I do have
concrete blankets. There are big, huge blankets.
They're like 40 foot by 60 foot. Uh, and they're
insulated with plastic on the top and bottom,
like a tarp, insulated tarp. And a lot of them
are, you know, three, four inches thick. And
I do it sometimes when it's going to get really
cold, I'll literally roll that out over the top
of all of them. And that I'm sure helps quite,
quite a bit. So insulating does help. So if you
have, or able to, you know, I would think that
most folks with 30 highs, maybe at max would,
I don't know, it must take a long time to wrap
a hive. I would think. to do individual hives.
That's why you don't see commercial beekeepers
wrapping up 10 ,000 hives. It's easier to just
put them someplace warmer. There are, yeah, lots
of other products out there and I think it's
great to just try them, see what works for use
and the way that you bee keep and the way that
your weather is. This last winter I also tried
a Primal Beehive, and people have heard about
this on this podcast, had super good luck with
that, but it's really, really thick insulative
kind of material that it's made out of, didn't
need to be wrapped with anything. And by the
way, I happen to know what a construction blanket
is, but it's not, in case you don't know what
it is, I mean a concrete blanket. It's not a
blanket made out of concrete. Go ahead and mansplain
that for us for just a second, Bob. Oh, it's
a tarp that we use like when we pour concrete
in the fall, when it's getting cold out and it
helps to keep the concrete warm. So you roll
out, we usually have plastic down after we spray
our sealer on the concrete. Then we'll throw
the blankets on top to help keep the concrete
to stay warm. So it cures longer. You want it
to cure up to 26, 28 days. I'm getting old, I
can't remember. But the longer you can get it
to cure up to 26, 28 days, the better as well.
So sometimes even. If it's in direct sunlight,
we will put blankets on it for the first few
days or several days so that the sun doesn't
just dry out the top surface right away and it
cracks. Sometimes we use it to keep the concrete
cool. Sometimes we use it to keep it warm. But
most of the time it's in the winter or in the
fall to keep it warm. We usually don't pour concrete
in the winter because then the ground is froze.
And then when you get shifting and movement from
thawing in the spring, it's not a good deal.
So usually it's mostly used in the fall. Yeah,
it's just two pieces of tart with insulation
in between and then they saw it like almost like
a quilt bottom line It's a giant weatherproof
blanket. Yep has no concrete inside of it when
you and I were chatting the other day you were
telling me about some of the things that you
do at farmers markets and Other places and how
you're growing that side of the business. I think
this is great information because there's beekeepers,
especially hobbyists and sideliners are always
looking for, wow, I need to make a few bucks
at this. It's a pretty expensive hobby. And if
you're a sideliner, you want to do more than
that. So fill us in on some of the things that
you've done. Maybe it'll help spring some ideas
and others. Well, what happened was is that we
used to have honey. I'd have 900 jars of honey
in my living room and we used to just give it
away, believe it or not. So that's how much I
enjoyed beekeeping. We just gave the honey away
to every book. friends neighbors with a mailman
the postman would stop by we just give them all
honey anyway after a while you kind of look and
go well I'm not gonna have a retirement if I
keep just buying bees and giving the honey away
so I thought you know I'll start going to some
farmers markets so I made bound labels and branded
it and with the sticky bee this is all before
sticky the books but went to like a small town
farmers markets the ones that we could get into
a lot of them only allowed one honey person so
they wouldn't allow two So I had to find other
markets to go to. So I was traveling 30, 40 miles
just to get to a farmer's market to where I could
actually sell the honey. That was probably the
biggest issue to overcome. Then when I did do
farmer's markets, I would sit there all day and
you would sell like a hundred dollars worth of
honey. Well, number one, it's sad that most people
don't go to their farmer's markets to buy a lot
of their food and things like that. But I thought,
well, the mayor that I talked to. In a couple
of the places, counties and cities that I went
to and there are townships. The mayors would
say, well, if you stay here longer, the longer
you're here, they get to know that you're here.
And then, you know, it will build up, which is
true. It was true for the first two or three
times I went. I did get more people, but then
after that third or fourth farmer's market, those
were the customers that I had. It was 80 to a
hundred dollars worth of honey from then on all
the way through the whole summer. And so I stayed
the whole summer because I dedicate myself to
a farmer's market. I'm going to stay. So I thought,
you know, there's gotta be a better way to make
money with the honey than sitting at the farmer's
markets doing that. And I thought, you know,
honey straws, the honey sticks, the flavored
honey straws that people sell. I thought, you
know, those, they must sell like crazy, but the
only thing is you're selling them at 50 cents
a piece or less to folks. And it takes a lot
of honey sticks to even get to a hundred bucks.
But I thought it would draw more people in to
buy the honey. So I started doing that. And of
course, the people that have made them before
know what a labor intensive thing that is to
make honey straws. So I actually bought a 3D
printer designed on the software. It could be
in a construction. I knew how to do AutoCAD and
Fusion 360. So I designed a straw machine and
I bought a pottery wheel for doing pottery. with
the variable speed pedal. And then I 3D printed
this circle on a piece of plexiglass, because
my printer wasn't big enough to do a two -foot
circle at one time. So I did it in pie shapes,
like a pizza shape, so that you could have a
pot in the middle. And then when it spun, the
honey would go out into the straws, and the air
would come out through the ends. So I made it
so I could clip in 40 straws. And then I think
it's 40. Yeah, 40 straws. And then I pour the
honey in the middle. and then when it spins the
honey goes in and then when you're done you just
pinch the straw to get that last half inch of
honey out of the end so you can reseal them so
then i 3d printed these little holders that would
hold the straws so i could have 16 of them in
and then seal 16 of them at a time to make it
go faster without buying a 20 000 machine i don't
know the way that you could go much faster i
i tried using a pressure cooker and i tried using
air pressure and put the jar on the inside with
the hose coming out of the center of the jar
and then I had electric solenoid with the brass
valve coming out of the end and I could stick
that in the end of the straws and fill you know
and just hit a pedal and it would squirt in to
the straws so that works probably almost just
as fast as the spinning one but it was messier
so I took you had to clean straws and stuff when
you were done but the only problem I had with
this is a funny story with the spinner was that
I had it set up in the middle of our kitchen.
And when we moved into our house, I tore all
the walls out in the whole main area here, so
that we have open living room, dining room, kitchen
area, which I'm sure you're probably knowing
where this is going. But once one straw popped
out of the hole. No, no, no. You had a line of
honey all the way completely around the windows,
the back of the chairs, all the way around the
walls. So I actually took a hula hoop that kids
use for playing. and I put it on at my stands.
I used to play in a band, so I have these light
stands. And so I put it on the two light stands,
and I put a shower curtain all the way around
it. So then whenever anybody visited us, I always
tell them, yeah, we're getting down to the point
where we have to take a shower in the middle
of our kitchen. But the shower curtain definitely
helps when I have a failure on the straw spinner.
So I thought, you know, try the straws. We did
the straws. That helped with getting kids involved
and the parents come and then see if like the
kids want straws and the parents then would take
a honey home. And that's probably doubled our
sales, but it still was a lot of time that you
were spending. And I drive a one ton dually.
So I had a lot of money and fuel just going to
some places and back. So I decided, you know,
I'm going to start a little food thing inside
a tent. And so I went and I got licensed for
the, with a food license to sell honey lemonade.
And so we sold flavored honey lemonade. And of
course that more than quadrupled our sales. People
were just all excited and then they would actually
buy honey and to make their own. And we'd always
give them the recipe for, for the honey lemonade.
So that worked out well till up to, I believe
it was last year, the year before last year,
we decided we'd get a food trailer and start
doing that. So I built a food trailer to do the
honey lemonade. And we also made honey kettle
corn. So it's kettle corn, like they make at
the fair. But we make it with honey instead of
sugar. Boy, that was really good. And it took
a while to get it so that, you know, things didn't
burn or you didn't get, you know, there's a trick
to it, to getting it right. But we started doing
that honey kettle corn. And of course that just,
you know, you're back to making a living now
instead of just a side hustle. So that's kind
of what I did to build it up. We've tried doing
honey cotton candy. But that was really tricky.
If there's any moisture in here at all, that
turned to sticky too quick. Sticky as in the
bee back there. Yeah. I've got to say, I have
to interject something here. Beekeepers are the
smartest. Entrepreneurialist, if that's a word.
Inventors, they can come up with anything. to
make stuff happen. And you're such a good example
of that. How about you sent me a picture of your
3D printed mason jar honey dippers. Oh, yeah.
We sell our honey in jars, in mason jars. So
when we sold it in the mason jars, a lot of people
wanted to know what they could use. A lot of
people asked me the question about the spoon,
that putting a metal spoon in your honey would
kill enzymes in the honey. There's some truth
to that and some not truth to that because a
lot of your honey It starts out in a steel pot
and you've stored in steel containers things
like that. Anyway, it's a long story I won't
get into that but so I thought you know How could
you make it so that you didn't have to keep dipping
a spoon in all the time? So I 3d printed these
little Honey dippers with a handle on the top
so that people could take and dip your honey
out and then turn it your sideways and drizzle
it on your toast Anyway, they worked out really
well. I got my logo printed on the top and we
make them for all the different sized jars that
we have, even quart jars. Anyway, I just thought
it was kind of a way to solve a problem. So I
designed that a little bit, I guess. Can you
make some of those with my logo on top? Oh, sure.
OK, we'll talk after. Yeah, no, it's fun to do.
I enjoy it. I actually have all four 3D printers,
four of them now sitting here. I made them all
so that they were the same so that I could actually
make that. process easier instead of having different
files and different things for each different
one. If you're into 3D printing, you'll know
why. But, but, uh, so now I have them all upgraded
so that they're all exactly the same. So that'll
help in the future as well. And hopefully I'll
put them on Amazon handmade here soon. That's
what I'm hoping for. Maybe Pinterest. Well, that's
another one. Yes. Yeah. I got a, I'm not very
computer savvy. I was just to be able to do construction
work, but a lot of the social media and the stuff
behind it, I just, I have a lot of, I struggle
through it and I should just find somebody that
knows all about it and hire somebody to do it.
But I'm kind of the person that I want to, if,
even if I have somebody doing it, I want to know
how they're doing, you know, I got to know what
they're doing. You know, I got to know the information
behind it anyway. So I just try to learn it myself.
So find a 14 year old girl to handle your social
media for you. There you go. That's what I need.
Think the computer stuff you can handle if you
can design and print things with 3d printers
It's not like you're not smart computer wise
a long time though to learn how to do some of
that stuff and then a lot of it to me gets to
be steps and then you go from like I 3d printed
a CNC machine and Most of it's all 3d printed
except for the electrical of course, and I printed
that and designed it and built it blah blah blah
but then that's a whole other set of different
knowledge it's a whole different set of knowledge
to try to figure out that whole thing and try
to remember by the time you get done doing that
to go back to 3d printing and then you're back
to rewiring yourself to okay now I got to have
this as what kind of file? anyway so it just
and I'm getting older too my memory fails me
so it gets to be kind of a struggle sometimes
I have trouble just remembering all the passwords
to all these different sites and stuff that you
have to get on. Just do one, two, three, four
like everybody else. Yeah, there you go. Okay.
We're not giving that kind of advice here on
this show. Before I let you go. I would love
to hear a wild and crazy beekeeping story that
you've had. You already gave us a crazy story
about putting honey in straws and the big mess
that it made. Can you think of anything fun or
unusual like that that you've had actually with
bees? Oh my gosh, yes. It was actually this,
well, this spring, last spring. I can't remember
now, but anyway, I went to go. do mowing. I also
have a bee farm down in Iowa. Anyway I went down
there to go mow and when I went to go mow I was
flying across the yard to go to the spot where
I was going to start mowing and I actually hit
a stump and it threw me off the lawnmower and
I hit my head on another stump of course so now
I have a pinched nerve in my neck so if I look
funny that's kind of why. Anyways right after
that happened of course I got the bees boxes
ready for The new packages that were coming and
I think I added 16. So so now I got like 45 But
I added like 16 or 12 Hives and it must be 16
because it was four pallets So I had the boxes
and I went to go take out all this stuff from
winter, you know out of the boxes They were semi
cleaned one night when they die I try to clean
them out right away So you don't end up with
a bunch of mold and stuff in there, but mice
there was mice flying everywhere when I was pulling
frames out And it's just amazing how they can
get in that little tiny slither under and so
many of them get in. So anyway, after all the
mice, I thought, you know, the bees are coming
within two days. So I'm going to set the covers
and instead of putting both covers on both on
each, I didn't want the mice moving back in right
away. And they will go back in right away. So
I set the two covers halfway on each. So there
was half of the hive showing on the left and
half on the right on the pallet. So I did that.
leaving them open so that the mice wouldn't move
back in because the bees are only going to be
another two days and then I'd have the hives
to put or the packages to put in anyway so I
went and I picked up the packages and I went
to go put the packages in and not only did a
mouse one moved in already and had a nest made
with two little babies in it and anyway so I
had to take the nest and set it by the tree where
the mouse kind of went down a hole that hopefully
could get the babies and move them or whatever
the case may be. But a raccoon had evidently
came and pulled every frame out and scratched
the wax and chewed up some of the frames. So
in beekeeping, you end up with a lot of grief.
I'm trying to remember the rest of the stories,
but there's like four items that just all happened
all in a row. Five items that you just stop and
you just go, why do I keep doing this? And then
when it comes time to open up and put those bees
in, it just makes it all worth it, I guess, in
the end. But yeah, it was quite an eventful spring.
And you just led up right to where I wanted to
finish up, which is you obviously love the bees
because You're not, I mean, you mentioned that
you had done it even when you were going backwards
because you were giving honey away and stuff.
So just what is it about the bees that Bob loves?
Well, I like the stories behind it. I like talking
to people about them. That was the biggest thing.
I think that that turned me was that so many
people were interested that, oh, you have bees
and the questions that they would ask when you
go for coffee, even tables that were two tables
away. Oh, you have, you know, local honey and,
uh, you know, Oh, they say the bees do this.
They say the bees do that. I listened to a lot
of podcasts, especially yours as well. And Jamie's
I tried to learn everything I can from professional
folks. And that way that the wives tales that
you hear about beekeeping, a lot of those I found
after two years of beekeeping that they weren't
a lot of things I learned weren't true and things
like that. And, uh, you kind of learn on your
own and it. It's constantly evolving and constantly
moving to a direction and you're not bored with
it. And it's always a challenge too, as well.
And that's what I think I like best about beekeeping
is just the knowledge, the learning and the new
things that come out and, uh, you know, adapting
to issues. I can't adapt to falling off a lawnmower,
but I could adapt to the raccoons, you know,
tearing my frames out. I know next time I'm not
going to do that. So. It's a learning curve.
You never stop learning. That's one thing about
beekeeping I found is that even I've been doing
it for what, 10, 12 years now, and you just don't
stop learning. You constantly are learning new
things and new things happen as well. So, so
true. All right. Appreciate your time, Bob. It's
been fun. Let's meet up sometime. That sounds
great. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks again
for joining us on Be Love Beekeeping presented
by Man Lake. Another big thank you goes to V2B
Health for their support. Vita's Varroa Control
Ranger products includes Epistan, Epigard, and
now Varroxan Extended Release Oxalic Acids Trips.
Hey, thanks a lot guys. And if you haven't yet,
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