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 Man Lake. Today we're going to have a change of pace with a fun conversation with a new beekeeper just finishing up her first year with her own bees. And just in time for Valentine's, yes it's a love story. First some news about Neonicotinoid Pesticides also known as Neonics. These have been around for a number of years and are known to be toxic to honey bees as well as the pests that they're designed to kill but until this newest research just came out we didn't
fully understand why they're so toxic. Now I'm going to translate the findings from scientific jargon into plain old English but if you want to nerd out and read the research yourself there will be a link down in the show notes. In a nutshell, the neonics tested led to an elevation in the body temperature of honeybees. That is a problem. Furthermore, the researchers observed a considerable
upregulation of a flight gene. This gene accelerates the homing behavior of honeybees and facilitates the rapid and frequent transport of neonic contaminated nectar to the hive. Consequently, this accelerated the enrichment of neonicotinoid pesticides and increased the toxicity risk to honeybee populations.
In addition, the interference of neonics induces a series of temperature and behavioral changes that are aided by the bee's strict social behaviors, such as swarming, nectar collection, food hand -feeding transfer and food storage and feeding
behaviors. To make matters even worse, the honeybees preferred to collect pollen from fields sprayed with neonics, which significantly accelerated the transfer, diffusion, and enrichment of the pesticides in larvae, queens, and males of honeybee populations, which then affected honeybee reproduction over time. Bottom line, we knew neonics were a problem, now we know they're even worse than we thought. Alright, enough of the scary news, now let's switch gears to go inside the hive
presented by Primal Bee. Did you know that a queen bee and a worker bee start as the exact same egg? Same DNA, same potential. The only thing that decides which one she becomes? Food. Every larva gets fed royal jelly for the first three days. After that, workers switch to a diet of pollen and nectar. But if the colony decides it needs a new queen, they keep feeding select larvae, royal jelly, and nothing else. Three days, that's the entire window. After that, the
switch is permanent. Queen or worker, decided by lunch. Here's where it gets wild though. A colony might raise five sometimes even ten queen cells at a time. When the first queen hatches she makes a high -pitched piping sound. I've heard it's really cool by the way. Then she listens. The unborn queens pipe back from inside their cells and then the first queen goes and finds them and stings every one of them. Brutal right? But it works. fastest, strongest queen wins.
During her busy lifetime, she'll go on to lay up to 2 ,000 eggs a day and live for years. The workers who raised her? About six weeks. Next time on Inside the Hive, we'll cover what actually happens during a swarm. Spoiler alert, it's not as scary as it looks. Now give a warm welcome to our very special guest. I'd like to welcome to the show today, one of my favorite people in the entire world, in the entire universe. This is Juniper Bennett, my niece in Montana.
Hi, Juniper. Hi, Eric. Thank you. You're welcome. And I know you're feeling under the weather today. Thank you for joining me anyway. And best well wishes to you and your whole family. Get better soon. Thank you so much. Experiencing influenza B, it is no joke this year. Well, we're not meeting in person and maybe that's one of the reasons why we don't want to joke about it. But I do want to talk to you all about your very first year of beekeeping. It is such an exciting thing.
And it's such a refreshing change on this show because we have commercial beekeepers and all these experts and stuff. And we can also learn from people that are brand new at it and be reminded of some of the reasons that we got into it in the first place. And that's where I want to start with you, Juniper, is what got you interested
in honeybees? Well, we live out in the middle of nowhere and before we pushed record we were talking about chemicals and how do we how do we save our bees from all the chemicals and we are lucky enough to live somewhere where we're surrounded by wilderness and you know our closest neighbor is over a mile away and he doesn't spray his his fields and so I've always felt it in my heart like we've opened our land up to making a beautiful home for animals without expectations
of them and just to give them a safe and loving home. I wanted to do the same for bees because I think it's one of the few places left on earth where we're not surrounded by a mass amount of chemicals. It helps also that my son, my eight year old son, he loves bees. So as you know, Eric, my family has spent much of the last decade living and traveling in an airstream and everywhere we would go, he would find bees in a puddle or be limping or having a hard time. And he's always
trying to rehabilitate these bees. I don't know how many friend bees we've had in our airstream. And most of the time, you know, he just gives them, holds them lovingly in his hand while they die. And then they join us. So his love for bees also made me very interested. And so last winter I decided, well, I know nothing about beekeeping,
but we're just going to go for it. And I want to give people a little bit better picture of where you're at, because you're in Montana, a little ways north of the north end of Yellowstone. And I'll let you fill in some of those blanks. You're on, I think, 10 acres. Beautiful little stream running through it. It is so picturesque. And what kind of animals do you also have now? So we have a horse and two donkeys. One of our donkeys, he just turned 27. We had no idea that
donkeys live. so old, but apparently they can live into their 50s. So he's this middle aged sweetest thing. And gosh, what else? Well, can I tell you about our chickens? I know you have chickens. You'll love this story. So I had put an ad when we decided to stop traveling and move home. I put an ad on Craigslist and said, we're just opening our land up to animals who, who need a loving home. And I didn't get any response.
And then many, many months went by. And I get a text from a woman and she's like, I have nine layer hens. Do you want them? And I was like, sure. And she's like, I'll deliver them tomorrow. Otherwise we have to butcher them. And I was like, yep, bring them. And so I'm Googling, like, what is a nine layer hen? And she shows up and they're nine lang hens. But I love that story
because it really just kind of. Shares the culture and the energy of our home and our land is We really don't know what we're doing But we're just we're ready to learn and open our hearts up and like we don't eat eggs were plant -based and like these nine chickens are the biggest healthiest happiest chickens and It's just been so fun having them and our daughter got two ducks and they are so fun with the chickens and then Eric I'm gonna have to send you a picture we
have at first we thought they were grouse and then partridges and we just learned in a bird book that they're called Chuckers so a couple of months ago a Chucker just moved in and it started tucking itself into the hen house at night and It will just spend hours on our deck peeking in our window and like wanting to be really close. It's eating out of our hands and then suddenly two more showed up. So we now have three Chuckers that have joined our, our hens.
You're attracting all this. You're going to start attracting swarms of bees too. You know, we live in the middle of nowhere. So pigeons are not like a typical bird you see out here, but we now have two pigeons that also moved into our lean to. And so it's just this big love, love house out there and Don't let me forget. My son has his bearded jargon still. And we have a dog and we have a cat. But it's also, it's big and
it's lovely and it's so alive. But it's also big and our sky is really big and it doesn't feel like an animal, like a zoo. You know what I mean? Like it's just lovely. Yeah and just also to help people get to know you, when you guys were traveling in the Airstream, you two with your four children and how many animals? Let's see we made our son's bearded dragon is truly his best friend in the whole world and so we made an enclosure at the end of his bed.
So she traveled with us and we pulled the microwave out and my daughter had a bunny at the time and He was the love of her life. And so we turned the microwave spot into a cute bunny hatch. And then we had our dog. You forget the snake. The snake is right. Aki, he had his snake, but she passed away. He had the snake when we had stopped traveling to have our fourth baby. And she was like a rescued garter snake that he found outside.
that wasn't doing well, and he prolonged her life and gave her so much love, but she ended up passing before we moved back into the Airstream, which I think was probably best for her well -being. And by the way, a lot of people that live an RV life have a cute little dog, a little lap puppy. Not yours? No, we have a Czech Shepherd. He's huge. I think he's 90 pounds and he's his whole own story. He's so lovely. He had a very rough life before coming. He's awesome. And he
can carry a basketball in his mouth. We've seen it. All right. We're supposed to be talking about bees and beekeeping. So I've got my job is to
get us back on track here. You also met bees when you were at our house a few years ago, and you got to put a bee suit on I think for the first time I'm sorry your son didn't I do have children sizes here now, but I didn't back at the time I remember they all kind of gathered around though like everybody was amazed and loved it if I remember right we took a frame out of a hive and Let them each stick a finger in and taste the fresh honey Mm -hmm. What was that
like for them? Well, I mean that's rude that was even my first exposure to bees and I remember thinking that is probably pretty dangerous to have bees but you were just like This is Zen be guy and it wasn't scary at all. And I think that that's probably My kids experience too is that oh, wow. This is like a really calm Calm happening here Yeah, that fear we number one we don't need to have and number two if we're working with bees We don't want to have they
literally can smell it All right. Let's get back to your journey So this last winter so about a year ago right now you made the commitment How did you decide like where to buy bees and what kind of beehive you wanted to use? So I had been watching different people in the bee world, you know, just some friends who share about their bee experience on their Instagram. And I have a friend who lives a couple miles
up the road and they caught a wild swarm. You might know her husband actually, Casey Anderson. He's like a big wildlife guy on YouTube. They're very inspirational because they are wild. I fell in love with the Flow Hives. I, it just really spoke to me and it really aligned with, it aligns with my vision of, you know, I have this philosophy that is very different than most people's, which is I don't believe that animals are on earth
for our use. I believe that it's our obligation to really take care of animals and let their souls feel peace in this life. And I love that the Flow Hive offers that to the bees, that I don't have to disrupt anything that they've created to harvest the honey. Because ultimately, my objective in having bees isn't really even for the honey. It's to give the bees a magical home.
So I fell in love with the Flow Hive. And I think in my mind, when I picture land and a home with so many animals, my mind thinks like, very, very messy and so something about me is I did grow up in a very messy home and it's very much, well I guess I'll say I made a promise to myself when I was very little that I would give my family a different experience growing up and we would live in a very clean, beautiful space. Luckily
Ty shares that. that vision in life. And we are both very committed to a very clean, beautiful space. And the Flow Hive is so stunningly beautiful. And, you know, we stained it and painted it too. It looks just like a miniature version. We have two of them. They're, gosh, 20 feet off of our deck. Like, we purposely put them, like, right outside our back door so we can watch the bees
all day. And... So if I can paint the picture a little bit for you, there's a little pond right outside the beehives and then our corral with the donkeys and the horse are right next to that and the hen houses in the corral and so everybody's like literally right outside our front door. But it's all so beautiful and it's so clean and it all just kind of works. You know the bees and the chickens are at the pond drinking water together and So anyways, that was a long way
to answer that we went with the Flow Hive. So shout out to Cedar at Flow. Yes. Good guy. He's been on the show. He was a lot of fun and I think they're great for a lot of people and they're not for everybody and that's okay. But do your research. What advice would you give to brand new beekeepers on how to make decisions like that and like where to buy your bees and what kind to get? So I knew intuitively that that
is what I wanted. And so I didn't ask anybody their opinion because I didn't want anybody to change what I intuitively felt was made for me. And so I purposefully didn't, like there were many times where I was like in my mind thinking, I wonder what Eric thinks about this, but I'm not gonna ask him because I don't want to influence how I feel about this. And so. that would be my encouragement, is find what lights you up. Find what, find, like, if you see something that
really resonates with you, trust that. And then be really proud of going that path. And, you know, I never even researched other behaves. I just knew that that one was exactly what I wanted. Aesthetically, the way that it works, the way that, you know, I really get to leave.
the bees so much. I love everything about that and I just have to say like I have no experience with any other hive but this company is unbelievably amazing and the quality is amazing and I'm not affiliated with them by any means but I just remember like opening the box to build the hive and just being completely blown away from how beautiful the tissue paper was to like this these beekeeping newspapers that are separating the you know the different layers of wood and the
smell I got the cedar hives and the smell is so phenomenal And so it's just very much in alignment with the life that I desire living. Every part of becoming a beekeeper was a really beautiful experience, and that was a big part of that. How about the kind of bees? How did you decide? Because there are different varieties of honeybees. OK, Eric, so this is where my newness really gets to shine. I have no idea what kind of bees I have. OK, thank you for being honest. Yes,
I have no idea what I have. All I know is in so we are we're equal distance from Bozeman and Livingston, Montana. So there's a cute little bee shop here in Bozeman. And I had seen a sign
outside. tend to order your honeybees and so I called them to ask all the questions and and she's the one and I was like so just one hive is good right and she's like oh no no no I highly recommend two so that you can really learn from both hives so like okay well I'll order two gosh do you call them swarms when you're ordering them I can't even remember right now well packages or new depending how you got them and buying and starting with two is really good advice by
the way I agree when I was building my flow hives there were times because I forgot to mention this we homeschool so you know becoming beekeepers I just kind of incorporated into our school and with the flow hive they also have a course that I just kind of worked through with my kids so that we can all kind of learn it together and some of my kids are more Intuit and others kind of like watching from a distance and both is so beautiful but that course has been really
helpful to me and So when I called the the B store here, I ordered two packages and She's like, okay, we'll send an email a week before they're ready to pick up you have to be there like there's no like you can't send a neighbor you can't like we can't hold them for you you just have to be there to pick up the package and i was like okay are you planning on expanding your apiary this year or are you a beginner thinking about jumping into beekeeping for the very first
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to use discount code GetStartedInBees. It's all down in the show notes for savings on live bees, beginner kits, and even seeds. Brood development depends on stable temperatures. Even a few degrees off can mean wings that don't form right, shorter lifespans, bees that can't navigate, or even no viable brood at all. Primal bee hives are built with thick insulated walls that help your colony hold those temperatures naturally. Bottom line, healthier brood, healthier bees. Learn
more today at primalbee .com. Okay, we'll have these hives ready and as I'm building these two hives, it's kind of a lot building two hives. We have a lot happening in our life and I was like, oh gosh. Two's a lot, but now I am so grateful I have two because my two, they have very different personalities and it's so neat. Like I'm learning double time, right? Because I'm learning such different things from each hive. So I love that
she recommended that I get two. As far as the kind of bees to get, there are places online, including at Man Lake's website, where you can find a guide. and it will tell you, okay, buckfast bees, here's sort of the pros and cons of them. Italians, pros and cons of them. Carniolans, Russians, etc. And so you can look and say, okay, I'm in a place that's super warm weather, so maybe this kind of bee is different, or the opposite
is true. And your local bee shop in Montana probably realizes hey these are the best bees for Montana and so this is just what we sell. Yes and it turns out it's this really incredible they actually raise and breed the bees here and so like I imagined that it was just like a third party right they're just buying them from somewhere else. It often is so that's great that you got local. Yeah. So as you go down this journey, this beekeeping journey, you're going to find it's not always
easy and sometimes there are heartbreaks. Most of us have had bees die and that can happen from disease or varroa or a number of different issues. Also where you are, you guys have bears. Did you do anything to protect your hives from bears? No. You might want to think about that. Consider it. That's interesting. They will destroy hives like overnight. You can find them completely destroyed out on the ground done. They can wreak
terrible havoc with bees. And I remember seeing a picture of a bear at your house from a few years ago. So that's something to think about. Well, thank you. I appreciate that because I hadn't that had not crossed my mind. That's probably the worst predator problem that you might have to think about in your area. There's skunks and other things. The worst one I have, and you may get some of this too, is yellow jackets. Near the end of summer, they can be a big problem.
So we can talk about all that stuff offline here sometime. I can tell you just love these bees. What is it about them? So maybe I'll share a story of when we first picked up the bees because it... I didn't know that I was going to love the bees. So Ty and one of our boys, they were out of town at a skateboarding competition. So it's me and our three other kids, and I get the
email that it's time to pick up the bees. And my eight -year -old thought it was so funny that we picked them up in the Applebee's parking lot. I like it. He's really quick with stuff like that. He was dying laughing. So just a trailer behind the Applebee's and I didn't know what to expect at all. And I tried to learn like, what am I going to do when I bring these bees home? Like, I don't know what we're doing. We have our equipment, but that's it. We pull up
and there's maybe four other cars there. And there's this man with this big trailer. and it's full of these boxes of bees. And I'm just standing there watching these other people collect their bees. And I'm sitting with my three kids and he's like, how many did you order? I was like, we got two. And he's like, all right, let's get them loaded up. And I was like, okay, I'm not really sure what you're giving. Like, can you
tell me what this is? You know, and he's like pulling this like candy plug from his pocket. And I'm like. I don't even know what to do with that. And it turns out he owns the bee shop in town with his wife. And he just was so nice. He took like a half an hour to just kind of show
us how you like tap them to the bottom. And as he's teaching me, he puts the box of beans in the back of the truck and Look over and my eight -year -old he's just climbed up into the back of the truck and he's sitting with his hip touching this box of bees and of course, there's bees that have gotten out and He just has his hand up to the box and he's so calm and so happy and When you're around that and like as a mom and just knowing that really any animal feels our
energy like I I'm not gonna be the one to panic here and then still fear in him and like my youngest is sitting there watching him but of course there's like this oh okay all right this is this is okay and he starts singing to these bees and they start like they stop swarming the box and they're just on his bear arm and he's singing to these bees and then my youngest climbs up in the back of the truck and to him this is what you do with bees this is all he's ever seen is his big brother
singing to bees so then now I have these two little boys singing to bees and my eight -year -old he's laid back and he's just so comfortable and he's singing to these bees and he's so happy to be with these bees No fear in him whatsoever. They have yet to be stung. Nobody has been stung by these bees yet. They are the calmest hives. And we're pulling away. And he says, Mom, our family just grew by 40 ,000 bees. And I was like, oh my gosh, you're right. Our family just grew
so much. And it's just like this calm, beautiful presence. you know so setting up our our boxes i mean he's really guiding you know he's like mom remember to do this part he's just like so into these bees and so i wouldn't i don't even know if it's my i don't even know if beekeeping is my thing or if i'm just like holding the space for him to run with this i know i'm not really sure but It's just so beautiful. And so I, I
don't have like any knowledge yet, really. It's just the experience of being their presence and having the gift to be able to offer them a really loving home. So beautiful. Wow. And a good tip for people that are going and picking up their first package or nuke of bees is sometimes they'll pull up to the place to get them and then realize Oh, wait, where do I put them? In the back seat of the car? And that can make some people very,
very nervous. Well, we were in awe. There's this cute older couple and they're just putting them in the back seat of their Subaru and like, yeah. Yeah. And that's what you do. That's what most people do is just stick them on the floor in the back seat. It's fine. And a couple may get out, not very many, but yeah, it's all good. But to your point of losing bees, I shared this with you when we were talking a couple weeks ago. I'll be very honest, this winter in Montana
is quite a breath of fresh air. I mean, I know that it's not wonderful for the earth, but it's so sustainable and manageable. Like we haven't had the negative temperatures, but it's been astronomically warm and I feel so scared for my bees. They're so busy. Have you been feeding them? Yes. After we talked, I did some research and I did put some food out there for them and they're going to be okay. But they're flying like it's summer. It's wild. That's crazy how
warm it is. Yeah. And it sounds like your bees are pretty adapted to the kind of weather that you have there, but still you're not going to see bees flying at 30 degrees. They're not capable of it. I've seen them try. and they'll get about three feet and then just nosedive into the snow, and that can be kind of sad too. So, okay, so you're learning about food. How about the big V word, Varroa? What's your knowledge of Varroa,
and did you do any testing in the fall? No, my knowledge is low, and I'm sure that experienced beekeepers listening are going to say, well, being naive is dangerous, but But that's where I am. And I kind of also took this approach with the bees. I mean, it's kind of my philosophy. I mean, it was with birthing my children and being a mother and having our animals is I want to give space for life to happen as it's supposed to happen, while also, you know, of course, doing
what we can to love and protect. But I kind of took the approach. This year of, you know, I did a couple of hive checks, but I was very hands off and very much I want to let the bees do the bees thing. What has surprised you the most? Definitely that we run around barefoot and play outside all day every day and no one has been stung. We have bees that just seem like curious of what we're doing. They'll come and watch in the same exact doors as these new birds that
have joined our hands. They'll just sit outside that door and just like watch in and that is just amazing to me. You know when you sit and you watch you see like they are so focused on doing their jobs and then to see just some of them come and sit at the door and just watch the happenings of life. It feels magic. All right. Last thing, Juniper. Yeah. What advice from your first year beekeeping, what advice do you have?
I'm going to ask for two pieces of advice. One for people that are brand new and don't have their bees yet. And the other for seasoned beekeepers that may be helping mentor or guide some beginners. I would say for new beekeepers, it's very similar to gardening. We built this new beautiful garden this summer, and I had these expectations that it would, by the end of summer, be this big, lush, beautiful, weed -free garden. And it was this huge wake -up of, okay, this is actually
a very timely endeavor here. It's not going to happen overnight. I think beekeeping is the same and that it's not about harvesting the honey or whatever your goal and having the bees. It's not about that goal. It's about the process of becoming with your garden or becoming with your bees and what you're learning throughout that
journey. For seasoned beekeepers helping new people like myself, probably You know, Eric, if you lived here, I would have probably asked you to come and pick up the bees with me and help me move the bees into their hive and come and do the first several checks with me. And that would have been amazing. But I don't think that I would have been able to get to really
know. myself and my my one son who's really into it and my bees the way that I have because I just kind of figured it out on my own and So while I would have absolutely loved to have had you here I think if if someone is helping others with bees probably encouraging them to take space and to you know experience some trial and error and Because it's in that space that we kind of learn our own ways and I did it like you did I did it without a mentor and That's right for
some people and some other people really want somebody holding their hand and Most people are some probably somewhere in between those two places. So I'd say for mentors don't assume that they want you to help them with every single thing but let them have their space and learn at their own speed and get as much help as they want but not more than they want or maybe not more than is good for them. Well and I will say like I didn't really know anybody that I could
call or that could be a mentor to me. And had that been an option, I probably would have been the one that's like, okay, please help me with all the things. And like even myself, I would think like, I want my hand to be held throughout this whole process because it's so new and intimidating. But just like with everything in life, gosh, the fastest way to learn, it's just like diving head first in. And so how beautiful for somebody to be able to have a mentor. But I love what
you said. Not just assuming that that means that they want you to do everything for them or with them, but really encouraging them to To learn it. Yeah, let them grow at their own pace and Be in tune with the bees and you said something really early on about being intuitive And I'm a huge believer in that with our beekeeping that whether it's what kind of hive design you buy or where you buy your bees or whether you treat them or don't treat them for Varroa or things
like that. It's really important that we are intuitive. I've probably mentioned this on this show before but I have been known to actually sometimes not know what to do for my bees and to ask them. And if somebody was there watching they'd probably think I'm a little crazy. You know, there's Eric talking to his bees, but asking them, I think you need something. I don't know what it is. You're going to have to give me some help here. That's so beautiful. So be intuitive.
Anyway, keep it up, Juniper. We're going to talk Varroa offline and go from there. And good luck with year number two. You're going to learn a whole bunch more. And before you know it, knowing you guys and your family, you're going to have a lot of beehives around there. So just plan on that. I'll let Ty know. Okay, yeah, you let Ty know. Alright, thanks, Juniper. Thanks again for joining us on Bee Love Beekeeping presented by our great friends over at Man Lake. Hey, and
don't forget to order your bees. And a shout out to V2B Health for their support. Vita's Varroa Control Ranger products includes Epistan, Epigard, and now Varroxan. Extended release, Oxalic Acids Trips. Thank you so much guys. If you haven't yet, please subscribe and follow the show, tell your friends about it, and click on over to BeLoveBekeeping .com to sign up for our free newsletter. If you have a guest suggestion or topic that you'd like discussed on the show shoot me an email eric
at Be Love Beekeeping .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.