in a world brimming with complexity few creatures
embody harmony like the honeybee with tireless
precision she dances from bloom to bloom each
motion guided by millennia upon millennia of
instinct each act in service to the whole and
then There are the beekeepers, watchful stewards
of this ancient symbiosis. Part agriscientist,
part poet, they move along their hives with the
efficiency of mow, levy and curly, tending to
the bees' needs as best they can comprehend,
and with the infrequency of a waterfall in the
Sahara, sometimes running off flapping and flailing
like a penguin on a hot sidewalk. This is their
journey. Welcome, welcome to Be Love Beekeeping
presented by our great friends and partners in
beekeeping, Man Lake. Today we're going to be
discussing Varroa mites, various treatments,
and specifically Naroa, which is literally a
birth control for mites. Is it safe? Is it effective?
Is it available in my state? All these answers
and a whole bunch more coming up. First, oh,
I can't believe I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna
discuss something that is very controversial,
especially with my neighbors, and that is the
herbicide glyphosate, also known as Roundup.
Most beekeepers and people concerned with their
own personal health feel like glyphosate has
negative health effects. But let's see what the
science says. While glyphosate may not kill bees
on contact, according to one study, it disrupts
gut bacteria that bees rely on, leaving them
more vulnerable to pathogens and premature death.
Even sub -lethal exposure matters. Research has
linked glyphosate to delayed brood development
in the field. Reduced times bees spend foraging
on treated plants and residues persisting in
nectar and pollen for days after treatment, creating
repeated exposure risk. And it's not just the
glyphosate. Research has also shown that other,
quote, inert ingredients in Roundup are also
harmful to bees. And I just came across a brand
new study out from Virginia Tech that has found
that glyphosate can interfere with honeybee foraging
behavior and may threaten hive stability over
time. After only three days of exposure to glyphosate,
honeybees showed a 13 % decline in foraging activity,
along with changes in brain chemistry. All right,
here's kind of a bottom line. Roundup doesn't
cause the dramatic mass die -offs associated
with neonicotinoid insecticides, which is why
it's often labeled, quote, be safe. But that
label is misleading. If you're spraying near
hives or flowering plants that bees are actively
visiting, you're risking real harm, largely from
direct contact or coating rather than systemic
poisoning. Best practices, never spray directly
on blooming plants, avoid spraying when bees
are foraging, and consider that low toxicity
to bees on a label reflects lab tests of the
active ingredient alone, not the full formulated
product bees actually encounter. Just a couple
of other thoughts. Glyphosate stays active for
a long, long time. It can get into groundwater.
I don't know about you, but it's just something
I don't feel good about it being around my bees.
There are other ways to take care of weeds in
your yard. If you're in a position like me where
you have some farms around you, you may not be
able to do that much about it. Become friends
with the farmers. Talk to them about it. I've
found that may or may not take you very far,
but it's definitely worth a try. We want to keep
everybody healthy. That's the bottom line. We
love our bees. Let's do everything that we can
for them. I'd like to welcome great guest today,
Adam Pockel. How are you doing, Adam? I'm doing
well. How are you doing? Fantastic. Are you in
North Dakota? Is that what I remember? Yep, I
live in North Dakota, so we've been in a heat
wave enjoying our hot summer this year. Haven't
we all been in a heat wave? Are you getting some
of the smoke from the west and from Canada? A
little bit. Honestly, I don't think it's as bad
as some years, but the last week, especially
over the weekend, it was really bad. So it's
just kind of part of life. It's been a crazy
year. I wonder how the bees adjust to the smoke.
I don't know, something I always am concerned
about. I've always wondered that. It doesn't
seem like it has any effect that I've seen, but
then all the hives are dealing with it at the
same time, so it's hard to make any comparisons.
Adam works with Greenlight Biosciences, the maker
of Noroa. We're going to be talking about that
today. Before we jump into that, our listeners,
they know what Varroa mites are, but in spite
of that, With some newbies around, take a very
short 20 -30 seconds and tell us what the heck
these stupid mites are and why they're a problem
and why every single beekeeper needs to be aware.
The way I like to tell people is imagine you
had a tick on you the size of a dinner plate
and that's kind of what a varroa mite is for
a honeybee there. parasitic mite they feed on
the larvae they feed on the adults and they spread
disease they weaken the colony it just there's
nothing that they do that's good and so keeping
them under controls one of the most important
things a beekeeper can do and if you think your
bees are immune to it think again please they're
not yeah if anyone could could come up with a
truly resistant strain they'd be a millionaire
real quick yeah Well, people are working on it.
We'll see. They are. So Narrowa just came out
for the public about a year ago. Will you update
us a little bit on the progress? Because last
we talked last fall, it was available in some
states and not in some other states. And here
in the U .S. and let's talk about foreign countries
too. Where is it available? Yep, you're right.
So we got registered on September 25th of 2025.
If I remember right, I might be off by day. That
was our federal registration. If you have to
go through and get registered in every state,
we received our last state registration in, I
think it was May, late April or May, which was
New York. So it's now available in all 50 states
as well. I believe we were registered in Puerto
Rico as well. And now we're under review in Canada.
in Mexico, in the European Union, in New Zealand.
We're looking at Australia. We haven't submitted
there yet, but it's definitely on our radar and
something that we're probably going to work towards.
So yeah, there's a lot going on. We passed the
kind of initial registration stage in the U .S.,
but now we're looking elsewhere as we work on
kind of the next steps in the U .S. Well, I know
it's not easy to get something like this approved
in other countries, especially. And so good luck
with that. We had somebody from Australia on
the show last week, Cedar Anderson, and yeah,
they would love it down there. And we have a
lot of listeners in New Zealand and the UK, etc.
So hopefully those things will move swiftly.
For those that didn't hear our episode last time
around, I don't want you to dig really deep into
the science, but tell us what Naroa does compared
to regular miticides that are out there. and
some of the alternatives that are out there.
Yeah, it's really cool. You know, as beekeepers,
we've kind of been conditioned to just letting
our mite populations build up. And then once
they reach a certain level where we think they're
too high, we kill them off. We use what we refer
to as knockdown products. And EROA kind of reshapes
how a person can approach their mite control.
Instead of killing mites, it stops them from
reproducing. So if you apply when your mite levels
are low, Those mites that that exist in your
hive and you always have some some degree of
rural mites in your hive But the ones that are
there won't be able to reproduce anymore. So
instead of seeing that Exponential growth curve
that we're used to it flat lines for as long
as it's effective in the hive Which we've seen
is up to 18 weeks or four and a half months And
how does it do it? Is it just killing mites or
what's it doing different? So it's it's delivered
through a sugar syrup and in the pouches if you
take a look at a norah pouch the active ingredients
in a sugar syrup you peel back a sticker that
exposes some holes the bees can then take those
that syrup and store it in their brood box and
then those stores in the brood box are used to
feed the older larva so when that gets deposited
in the cell as brood food the mites come in contact
when they're hiding underneath the larva and
they absorb the active ingredient. That starts
a process called RNA interference, which we could
spend a long time just describing how that works.
But basically, it genetically blocks a protein
from being produced. And without that protein,
then they can't lay eggs. It's a really natural
process. It's happening in our bodies right now.
It's how cells regulate themselves. So we're
just kind of utilizing this technology and this
ability that we have now to stop them from reproducing
instead of just outright killing them and letting
them bounce right back. I like just calling it
birth control for honey bees. I've definitely
heard that comparison a lot of times now. Go
ahead and say it don't be afraid of it. All right
well I have some questions about it. One is now
that it's been on the market for well not even
a year, what kind of feedback are you getting
from beekeepers? Are they happy with it? Are
they using it correctly? What's going on? For
the most part, using it correctly, I don't think
anyone will be surprised to find out that there's
some beekeepers that are, I would say, getting
creative in their application methods. Some of
those just aren't going to work. When we find
out about them, I'm happy to talk to the beekeeper,
or if someone has questions, I'm always happy
to talk with them, and we've definitely had some
of that. But for the most part, all the feedback
that we're getting is really positive. People
have used it in the spring, and now they're kind
of coming... to that three or four month mark
even and they're seeing that their colonies are
doing great, their mite levels are low. I know
there's some influencers that used it that are
planning on making videos. I don't want to ruin
what they do but they they've said they plan
on making videos showing that Nuro is their best
colony. We've got a lot of beekeepers been willing
to make video testimonials for us. We were just
at EAS last week and got some footage of that
so it'll be on our social media soon but by and
large the results are speaking for themselves
and people are really happy. The only criticism
we get is the one that we know is that right
now it's really expensive and so that's kind
of what we're working towards in our next steps
is bringing that cost down. Yeah and I know that
kind of thing takes time. There's so much R &D
that goes into it. I'll bet you could use one
of those analogies and say well it's a lot cheaper
than buying new bees. It absolutely is. I mean
even if you're treating a double um using the
most expensive packs you can buy that's 40 dollars
and if you can find your replacement bees in
the spring for 40 dollars man you're sitting
you're sitting pretty great there but yeah you're
right the rnd is very very time consuming very
expensive and so it just it kind of starts off
where you've got to try and break even from that
and bring your cost down as well because you're
doing everything for the first time. Let me ask
you some specific questions about uses and when
to and when not to. People always wonder, can
I use it when I have honey supers on? We say
no. Now it's safe to use with honey supers on.
There's a tolerance exemption just like oxalic
acid has. So if neuroa, the active ingredient,
vadascona, makes its way into your honey supers,
it's safe. The reason we say no is it's really
going to decrease the efficacy. Because it's
delivered through brood food, you want the mites
to come in contact with it in the cell. anything
that gets stored in a super doesn't really get
used for that in the hive so you're going to
store it above the brood nest and it's just not
going to come in contact with the mites and it's
not going to do what you're paying for it to
do. Because it works for such a long time that
I believe you said 18 weeks, is it a good thing
to put in the hives in the fall? Can I leave
it in all winter? Do I have to get it out after
18 weeks? So the pouches themselves are only
in for a couple of days. Our label says that
you can remove them up to three weeks later or
whenever they're empty. Usually we see the pouches
emptied in two to three days. At that point it's
just in your hive and the only way that you would
be able to remove it is by removing the frames,
which we're not going to ask anyone to do. Quick
break to discuss what just might be on your mind.
Right now come on admit it. You're imagining
the upcoming honey harvest Because no matter
where you live in the world It's either here
now or it will be in the near future and Man
Lake is making it so easy to plan for Click on
over to Man Lake's website for an amazing selection
of extractors filters bottling supplies Uncapping
knives supplies for a comb honey everything and
I mean everything you'll need. But if you aren't
there quite yet and the honey flows right around
the corner, make sure you have extra supers on
hand. You never can have too many or be too prepared.
And right now Man Lake is offering podcast listeners
$10 off your next order. Just enter code MLBlove10
at checkout. That's manlakeltd .com. Discount
code MLBlove10. Fall applications, I would say,
are a little regional. So if you're in a southern
state or just anywhere where you're going to
have brood for a long time, say it's now, we're
in August, and you're not going to go broodless
until December or you're just in a state where
you don't go broodless, then you absolutely can
look at a fall application because as long as
you have brood, that's when it's working for
you. Now, some of the northern states, you need
to take a closer look at it and what you think
your fall is going to be like. If I were to apply
it now in August, which I can't because I haven't
pulled my supers yet, I probably wouldn't be
able to in September. If I cluster up in October,
that's a month that it's working for me, and
then it's just in the hive not really doing what
I want it to do, and in fact the workers could
be consuming it. But last year I had brewed all
the way up to Thanksgiving. It would have been
really good for me then. So you kind of got to
look at how long you're going to have brewed
and again what your mite levels are because you
want to start out with low mites. Okay so from
a practical standpoint here's where I am I'm
in a climate that gets cold super hot right now
I'm in the mountains of Utah and so here's what
I'm thinking you tell me if this makes sense
or not I'm thinking of pulling my honey supers
first of September I'm gonna check mite levels
again right then I don't think they're going
to be out of control but if they are I'm going
to use something else to knock them down quickly
then I'm going to put the neuroa in because I'm
probably going to have brood well into November
sometime. Yeah I think that that sounds like
a great plan and we've done studies looking even
if you wanted to put a knockdown at the same
time we've got a couple years of field trials
now trying that so you can safely put it in with
oxalic acid with formic acid. with Apivar and
the two don't interact. They both do what you
want them to do. They don't impact each other,
make it less effective, they're not any harder
on the bees. That's definitely an option if you
need to pull it down. It's also kind of interesting
that you mentioned timing and asking about it
in your specific region because that's a question
that we get a lot and so what we've done is created
a timing tool that's on our website where you
can click on your region Select the honey flows
you have, add honey flows, change the dates if
they don't look right to you, especially on a
given year because things vary so much. And it'll
tell you what your spring and fall windows would
be. So we developed that because we're getting
a lot of questions from like Utah or Florida
or anywhere in the nation that we don't live
and aren't familiar with their local landscapes.
So people can tap into that and play around with
it and see when it would work for them. I live
in North Dakota. Eric, my counterpart, is in
North Carolina. If we get asked by people, when
should I apply this in Utah or when should I
apply it in Florida or when should I apply it
in Maine, instead of us just guessing or having
to have a really long conversation trying to
figure out what their landscape looks like, what
their flow is going to be, people can use that
tool to kind of figure it out for themselves.
And it's kind of fun to play around too and look
at what other regions look like, look what flows
they have. I've spent a little bit of time just
just doing that to learn more about different
regions that I'm not in. And this is also a good
reminder that beekeeping is so localized, hyper
localized I'm even going to say, because somebody
20 miles from me is going to be completely different
than me because I'm 1500 feet in elevation higher
than they are. And of course every year is different
too, like you were talking about last year, having
brood clear up to Thanksgiving, well this year
it may be Halloween. Beekeepers know this. Check
and see where you're at. It makes total sense.
And I just love this because I love anything
that is not a harsh chemical going into my hive.
You know, we're always worried about killing
a bug on a bug. We've heard that term, right?
Mitesides, most of them, they're hard on bees.
Let's face it. And people even say, oh, I do
OA vaporization. Doesn't hurt the bees at all.
Okay. have to put on a gas mask safety goggles
rubber gloves and be really careful don't tell
me it doesn't bother the bees at all and I'm
not saying you shouldn't use it but just be knowledgeable
and realize all this stuff is is tough on them
it's okay yeah well that's that's a great point
And we have a lot of work showing that it doesn't
set the bees back. We have evidence showing that
it is, as much as you can say, harmless. It's
really exciting. Like you said, no special PPE.
You don't need to worry about a respirator. You
don't need to worry about your health with it.
And you're right. I don't tell people not to
use the other miticides. We've done a lot of
work with some of the companies that make other
miticides collaborating. But it's a great tool
that you can use and make life a little bit easier
on you and your bees. Well, and I'm glad you
mentioned that I can use both at the same time,
like right after I pull my supers. If I need
something to knock the mites down, I can do that
and have Narroa in there at the same time. I'm
gonna keep that in mind. I'm definitely gonna
put it to good use this fall. Okay we're gonna
have some fun now then. Okay. Because you are
a beekeeper and you also spent a few years as
a hive inspector. Was that like for a county
or state or? It was for the state of North Dakota.
Okay now I'm guessing in doing that you saw kinds
of crazy stuff and one of the things that we
have fun talking about with everybody that comes
on the show is a wild and crazy beekeeping story
that you've had. I'll bet you have a few. Let's
hear some. There's two things that were scary.
Being in North Dakota, we get colonies in from
all over the country. I think this year we're
expected to get close to 900 ,000 colonies in
the state this summer, so commercial beekeepers
are coming from all over. So running into Africanized
hives, that was never fun, and you never knew
it was going to happen until you were in it.
Sometimes I'd pull up to a yard and the super's,
I'm not a tall person, I'm 5 '7". and sometimes
supers were stacked so high that I had to stand
on my tailgate to get them off. Great for the
beekeeper. I was complaining in my head because
it was a lot of work for me, but I was very happy
for them. Probably the one, the experience that
kind of freaked me out the most and freaked me
out because I was worried that I was doing something
wrong. The last thing I ever wanted to do was
harm someone else's hive, do something that was
going to damage their business while I was an
inspector. So I was doing an inspection. Things
were going fine. finishing up the last colony.
I took two steps away from it, and I looked down,
and the queen was walking on my suit. She was
walking across my stomach, and I just froze.
And I was trying to figure out what to do. It
was actually a holding yard, so there was a couple
hundred colonies in there, bees everywhere going
crazy. It was chaos. And so I walked back slowly,
and right when I was about to grab her to try
and put her back in and get her by the wings,
she jumped off my suit into the grass. And I'm
just freaking out like I took a lot of pride
on not messing up people's queens and this one
was gonna go queenless so I very gingerly got
on my hands and knees and started combing through
the grass and I was able to find her get her
on my finger and then she walked back into the
hive called the beekeeper let him know about
it I marked the hive for them just in case there
was any you know any questions about it but it
was definitely one of those moments I go crap
this is on me So and you probably don't keep
an extra queen with you all the time. No. Yeah,
I wish it was that simple just in case Yeah,
it's on you, but it's not like you did something
wrong Like you squished her inside the hive or
something. Yeah Yeah, and I you know, I know
that that happens sometimes and you don't even
realize it But I don't know when you see it happening
in real time. It's like oh shoot This is this
is exactly what I'm trying not to do sure Okay,
how about some really we're not naming any names.
How about some really dumb mistakes? You saw
people make I don't know if it's a mistake But
I you'd be surprised how often you see equipment
that doesn't like line up, right? So there's
gaps rain and stuff can can get in to the point
that you know that it's there's entire frames
that are exposed That one always kind of blew
my mind a little bit and I understand you you're
working with the equipment you have at the time
but how often I saw that was kind of surprising.
And then nothing to the beekeeper. I don't know
if this is a mistake, but we're very windy state.
And so I'd see a lot of times I'd come in and
a lid had been blown off and it's 20, 30 yards
away and you have no idea how long they've just
been exposed to the elements like that. But it
saw a lot of things like that. How heavy of wind
can bees fly in? I don't know the exact limit,
but. I feel like when it gets much above 20 miles
an hour you don't see a whole lot of activity.
When it got a whole lot more than that I would
be really cautious about where I was working
bees because sometimes I wouldn't realize how
windy it was till I opened a lid and I'd see
all the bees that were on the bottom just blow
away. It's like oh I should probably not be doing
this right now. Well I sometimes worry about
my bees when it's a nice beautiful day and so
they're out. who knows how far away they may
be a mile away and all of a sudden a thunderstorm
rolls in and we get 50 mile an hour gusts and
they're trying and i'm picturing them trying
to fly home and there's no way and so what do
they do just kind of hunker down until they can
do it later yeah so you've been in a hive when
the weather's not great and they're crabby you
know the weather kind of sets them off they can
feel that that high pressure low pressure system
is changing so it's like they know that a storm
is about to come in and they'll return to the
hive before it really hits hopefully they the
majority of them get in before before it gets
bad depending on how far away they were everything
like that i'm sure not all of them do but Once
the weather gets bad, yeah, they just hunker
down. They spend the day inside. A few scouts
will go out and see what it's like and probably
never return because they got blown to the next
county. But yeah, for the most part, they just
kind of spend the day hunkering down. And it
is crazy how they get in a bad mood. when there's
a storm coming or they're in the middle of some
kind of a storm. New beekeepers I've worked with
they're like I don't know what was going on they
just the bees were so much hotter than usual
I'm like well then leave them alone that day.
You know commercial beekeeper may not have the
choice but you do if they don't want you around
that day they'll usually tell you and come back
some other day. Yeah I'm a really big proponent
of I say this a lot, let the bees tell you what
to do. And sometimes they're just telling you
to leave them alone. But I use that with mite
treatments, with just how you manage your colonies.
I don't like doing something just for the sake
of doing it. So along with Naroa, we tell people
to do mite washes so that you know if your mite
levels are too high to use it. But even if you're
not going to use Naroa, I really encourage people
to do their regular mite washes so they know
what's going on in their hive. And you may go
in thinking, I need to do, I need to treat and
then your mites levels are low, you're good and
you don't need to worry about it. Your bees in
that case are telling you that you don't need
to do that mite treatment. And especially depending
on what you use, you don't need to set them back.
I've had some new beekeepers on Facebook from
time to time reach out to me and say, well, fall
is coming. What do I treat with? And my first
question is where's your mite level at? Oh, it's
not bad. So when do I treat and with what? Where's
your might level? Oh, it's pretty good. So when
do I treat and with what? I'm like, you're not
hearing something. Maybe this is just me, but
I'm like, if mites aren't a problem, I don't
treat them. And I have other people say mites
are always a problem, so I just always treat.
And I don't want to sit and tell people what
to do because everybody has to do what they feel
is best for their bees. This is my personal feeling,
you have your personal feeling. I hope we respect
each other. Yeah, I agree with that. Like I said,
I don't tell people how to manage their bees
just like you don't. I like that approach, but
I'm just a big fan of listening to the hive and
letting it tell you what's going on and letting
it kind of guide you that way. The bees know
more than you ever will. Yeah, they've been doing
it for a long time. Yep. And knowledge is power.
So get to know the different mite treatments.
Use the Honey Bee Health Coalition with their
decision making tool. And it may have a better
name than that that I can't think of off the
top of my head. But it's free. Go use it. And
it just asks you questions. It doesn't tell you
what to do. It asks you. Where do you live? What's
the weather like? Is your hive brooding up? Is
it brooding down? Is your mite level high? Is
it low? And then what is your personal tolerance
for more harmful toxic kind of chemicals versus
some of the acids and some of the other things?
And then you can make decisions from that. So
use those tools, talk to your mentors, and learn
from everything you do. If something works, awesome.
If something doesn't work, then we've learned
something and it's not a total waste if we've
learned from it. So Adam, any other bit of wisdom
before I let you go? You know, I just like to
tell people a little bit about what we're working
on because it's really exciting. I said earlier
that we get people talking about how expensive
Narroa is, especially commercial beekeepers.
because that's their business and they would
have to spend a lot of money on it. So EPA right
now is reviewing what we're calling bulk neuroa.
So it's a formulation that commercial beekeepers
will be able to deliver right into their feeders
instead of the pouches. So that'll bring the
cost down as well as removing, you know, if someone
has 5 ,000 colonies, that's thousands and thousands
of plastic pouches. So getting rid of all that
extra plastic, which I don't think anyone's gonna
complain about. So that's a really exciting thing
that's on the horizon. Like I said, that's targeted
more towards commercial and sideline beekeepers
with the volume it's going to come in. And then
just, yeah, we've got a lot going on that is
focused on either making it even easier to use
or bringing the cost down, usually both. Fantastic.
Kick up the good work. We really appreciate it
and we'll talk again soon. Awesome. Thank you
for having me. Thanks again for joining us on
Be Love, Be Keeping presented by Manlike. 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, please subscribe to and follow
the show, tell your friends about it, and click
on over to BeLoveBeKeeping .com to sign up for
our free newsletter. If you have a guest suggestion
or topic you'd like discussed on the show, shoot
me an email eric at BeLoveBeKeeping .com and
remember If you're not just in it for the honey
or the money, you're in it for the love. See
you next week.